Ali and Alphy were there to bring firewood, make social commentary, and to be trusts. That's literally it. I can't think of a thing they did special. As cool as the system is, having to plan for trusts hurt the story.
The irony of it all is that Alisaie and Alphinaud were perhaps the best characters they could've had to make Wuk somewhat bearable. They could've had her and Alisaie had a heart to heart about looking up to others (Wuk to Koana and Zoraal Ja, Alisaie to Alphinaud and WoL), and how in spite of feeling like one comes short, it's no excuse to wallow in self-pity. Alphinaud on another hand could talk with Wuk about naivety, and how his naivety and self-rightousness costed him and his friends dearly when Crystal Braves came crushing down, but in spite of it all, he still achieved what he set out to do, but he coulnd't do it on dreams and ideals alone (this could also play into Wuks decision to have Koana rule alongside her). Two best Scions they could've had to help work out Wuk. And they wasted the opportunity.
The weird part is that you could absolutely have had local characters as duty support members, especially as dungeon trusts only require about six to cover all roles The bigger issue were trials, which never should have had duty support in the first place
the moment when we went to fight zoral ja literally had me in tears because of this. not because the story was good but because i was laughing so hard at how they forced the other scions to be there so you could have the trust party for the trial. the other scions literally just teleport in from nowhere it was really bad and unintentionally hilarious
@@bliczb8772 The weird part is that, though short, the current writers actually leveraged Thancred's and Uriganer's development to Koana when both were speaking of their flaws, struggles, and how they overcame them They don't directly argue or tell him what to do, but do point him in a certain way. It wasn't deep but I thought that moment was pretty good in utilizing bits of lore that came before to enhance a character's development, even if that character is a minor supporting character.
A lot of counter-criticism regarding dawntrail seems to revolve around 'this is our vacation' and 'we aren't the main character', but my main complaints about the narrative (other than the broken-gear-stick pacing) are that we didn't get ENOUGH fun vacation vibes or focus on building other characters. I wanted to see more Krile, more Koana, more Erenville, and definitely more Zoraal Ja so he actually felt like a person rather than a training dummy to slap about. It's really sad that almost everything we know about Zoraal as a person is surface level second-hand info from Wuk Lamat. And we were definitely robbed of dungeon bosses where we spar with Thancred, Urianger and Estinien. When I first saw that the other scions were in a position of competition with the WoL I was really excited but the payoff was never delivered.
I agree. Low key adventure doesn't mean badly written and badly paced. Just means 'low key'. Side quests are often low key and some of them are very well done. The MSQ honestly felt a bit phoned in and lazy.
There are no vacation vibes aside from the Look of the City and first zones, there isn't even a beach Episode, it's just 1000 hours of exposition and bad Dialog
I think a lot of us were expecting some bonding with the "vacation" theme. I would've loved to see a bunch more cutscenes like the end of 5.3, tea with Ali, a Sharlayan feast with our friends, wine with Shtola, Uri, and Thancred... yaknow, the cutscenes that humanize the Scions and make them feel like genuine, real people. These cutscenes are some of the most popular ones in the whole game, so it seemed like a no-brainer, and fit the theme to boot.... Yet we got exactly zero of those. Even the campfire cutscene had the Scions as 2D plot mouthpieces to prop up Wukie as the only ally with three dimensions.
A way i thought to fix Zoraal Ja is kinda making us his Zenos, him seeing us and going "ah, a champion of the east. if I am to eventually invade Eorzea, I can prove it by overcoming you." and we have some solo instances against him. He loses, says he will train then comes at us again, but instead of like when we fought Zenos, the gap closing more and more, the gap only widens, as Zoraal Ja's inability to overcome just one warrior from the west starts to really get to him, enough to push him to fight his fathers shade solo to prove he at least surpasses his father, lose then lash out against the judge in the final trial and get disqualified. It would give us an active role in the relationships of the claimants without making us a central focus, more using us as a way to learn and reflect, or in his case, learn and stew in the fact everything he was told was all just empty promises. He thinks because the world tells him he's perfect and destined for greatness, the world will obey. But he dosent have that hunger in him like Zenos, he doesn't strive for epic battle, he strives for something Zenos never would: Validation. and you could even let Wuk see the best in him, seeing his drive for validation as something to aspire to rather than the weakness Zoraal Ja sees it as. Dude was cool in concept at the end, just wish they gave him alot more time which as you said could have been given to him if the scions were absent.
It boggles my mind how we had two solo instances against Gulool Ja Ja that weren't really that necessary, but ZERO against the guy who's our central antagonist for over half the game and was horrendously under developed.
I get where you're coming from about being Wuk Lamat's mentor, but the execution was just not there. With Ardbert, he was forced to watch the repercussions of dooming his world and the people he loved, despite thinking he was saving it. If he could interact with Novrandt, he would have. That was proven with him trying to save people from the sineaters. That's what created some heartwrenching moments that everyone could relate to on some level. Meanwhile, there was no moment like that with Wuk Lamat. It felt like we were babysitting a shounen character that never really dealt with any kind of hardship. Almost all of her trials were basically solved for her by the WoL, and her "power spike" when fighting Bakool Ja Ja felt super unearned. Then she became the leader and everyone was happy. The end. Not to mention, the scions being used as supporting characters in a way that betrays everything we've come to know about them in the past 10 years made this story go from falling flat, to feeling insulting. There is no reason Yshtola and Graha wouldn't be begging to get back to the portal to study it the moment we discovered it. There is no reason Alphinaud should be helping seat a clearly naive person as the leader of a continent after the crystal braves. And most importantly, there is no reason our WoL wouldn't have jumped at Zoraalja the moment he "cheated", or at the very least, tried to attack him the moment after he impales his father. Dawntrail was a betrayal of all of the characters we've fallen in love with over the years. There is nothing wrong with taking a backseat, hell, I welcome it. I would've embraced an actual laid back ARR arc, but Dawntrail did not do it well.
That all being said, now that I've reached the end of your video, I commend your outlook on the future of the game and I do hope they get back to the writing quality we've come to know. I will admit, the way we were just kinda thrown the McGuffin out of nowhere without any kind of build up really put a damper on my excitement because it just seemed like a cheap way to hurry us along to different shards... but some of your theories make me really excited! I do hope they just learn to take their time with some of these stories. Let them breathe. Yes, they made Emet an S-tier character within a singular expansion, but he had the weight of years of lore and build-up to get him where he ended up.
Valigarmanda and the Mamook arc are definitely my biggest gripes with this story. Vali was hyped up as a juggernaut, a continental level threat, and ended killing 0 people, lit up a few bushes in the mountains, and died 30 minutes later in a remote corner. And afterwards, no one gave a shit about the incident. The fact that BKJJ was unphased and allowed to remain in the competition is ludicrous. Then in Mamook, we casually solved generational hatred and eugenic practises in an afternoon, with nothing but promises of seeds. The topics are not the problem but the way some of them were handled was deeply deeply unserious.
Errr, that's reductive. It's not seeds vs eugenics. The eugenics were the result of inferior station due to the lack of available resources, chiefly among them was food. They were driven to the practice of blessed siblings as a survival tactic against for which no other options presenting themselves. They couldn't grow food, they didn't have the trading chops of the Pelupelu. They had no other way out. Until we arrived. Sure the solution is a bit deus-ex-machina I'll grant you that, but by giving them these seeds we both solve that major driving force of their dark project, but also show that cooperation has real benefits. It's all that additional context that fleshes out the storyline. They way you tell it we just rocked up, handed over some seeds, and left them seeing Kumbaya in our wake. That's not at all what happened.
@@realityveil6151but that is exactly what happened. Nobody questioned it. We walked in and immediately solved generational disgust. Mamook was engaging in age old barbaric traditions of eugenics to breed a winner that would see them delivered out from the jungle below and into a better way of life. All it took to end the plight was proper vegetation that could grow in the insanely fertile soil so that they could do more than just eat bananas and local fauna. It was a Saturday morning cartoon. Meanwhile for example in heavensward it took us the entire expansion to get ishgard to recognize dragons, form a peace accord and lastly end the dragonsong war that persisted for a thousand years. This 80 year squabble that Gulool Ja Ja left behind because he couldn’t be asked to walk go to mamook and help solve the agriculture crisis because he mysteriously realized he would need to make it a trial for the next dawnservant created this problem.
Which if true would be ridiculous. Any old NPC's would work, and no twins/scions would mean more room to introduce new side characters to fill those spots as well. The fact that all three siblings put together could come up with *one* dude to join them, that dude being Jafar Ja who Zoraal Ja didn't even really need most of the time... it made Tural feel really tiny and artificial. Which is also issues I had with Stormblood where Ala Mhigo and Doma both felt like they consisted of like three or four actual people and the rest of the population being cardboard cutout NPCs. It's always going to be an issue because video game worlds need to be shrunk down and condensed. But it got bad in DT, because we go to a whole new continent and mostly just talk to the same people.
That was kind of my thought too, but I mean the Trust system exists and let us use Scions that weren't there afterwards. Don't see why they couldn't have left more of them back in Eorzea till the invasion happened at the very least.
I think they tried to have their cake and eat it too- they knew people would be mad if the scions weren't there, but didn't actually have anything for them to do. but dangling them in front of us and then taking them away was the worst of both worlds. WoW does that shit all the time with its fan favorite characters and I hate it there too.
@@HellaGust Think having NPCs from the relevant zones being potential dungeon NPCs could have engaged us a bit more with the zone too. Might have been neat if we'd hired a guide to take us up the giant's mountain, and they were a tank/healer/dps depending what we needed.
they were and they shouldve just gave the player minor npcs until we really really needed the scions or...pull a lad, and just have all of the scions on post game trust npc regardless of story involvement
Ultimately I really didn't care about anything that happened in this expansion storywise. I had more fun running around the zones and doing the dungeons. That content was beautiful. Didn't give a crap about any of the characters aside from Shale, the prettiest Elezen in the entire game imo. Oh and Otis was a blast. Loved Otis.
I like Lyse. And I ain't afraid to say it either. the problem with the story this time around is that although we're supposed to be a mentor we don't get any scenes where we do any actual mentoring.
Lyse was relatively minor in SB too. She was there, and her fate was dictated by the story, but it wasn't really Her story. Tbh, one of my critiques of SB is other than being there, Lyse barely did anything (then leads the parade like she's the hero of the day). Pipin legit did more than her. It was the story of those two regions far more than anything. DT was 100% the Wuk show. No one could get a word in without her grabbing the camera, including us.
Replaying SB I really got the feeling that it was an emergency situation and Lyse had no prior aspirations for leading. It wasn't like because of who family is she deserve the role. She knows nothing about her people because she was a refugee who left her homeland as a child and only learned her history through stories. Lyse makes sense to me though I did find her a bit frustrating.
@@seekittycat Those are good points. She had a logical reason for not knowing much about Ala Mhigo. And she got pushed into the role not by her family but by the ex-leader. (Though why she seemed like the best choice - particularly when the Ala Mhigans had previously rejected hereditary monarchy (granted, the ex-king was insane) didn't seem well explained in the story).
The difference between Ardbert and what we do is he was a ghost. It's a little bit different when we can physically stop things. So we are basically letting people die, and souls get consumed because it's a learning moment for the new rulers 😅 I understand why people don't mind it. But it's so against my head cannon for my wol. I found myself wishing my character wasn't there at all. Anyway, it's a very good video. Worth the wait.
@RockR277 YES. I really thought that scene would have made so much more sense if we stuck around to fight while Wuk goes ahead. Then, after an instance of fighting with bakool ja ja on our side. We go into the throne room to find everything has gone wrong, Lamat'l is crying, which causes the echo to show us what happened. The plot doesn't change at all. But now there's no dissonance and some much needed action between hours of text only content.
Hind-sights 20-20, I suppose. But there's so many little tweaks throughout the whole story that could've made the entire experience better. Really feels like they needed more time for this one.
this is absolutely the case in my opinion. alot of people make fun of tural and point at wuk as the problem but theyre actually symptoms of the fact the script is just awful and feels like it didnt get edited enough. and im saying this as a person who likes this expansion and wuk. the ideas are good, the characters are good, the setting is good, but the execution was bad and it felt like someone somewhere refused any form of writing feedback.
@@BobbyHopp Me and my FC have a theory, that each person on the writing team had to do a section of the msq and everyone had to complete certain checkpoints (wuk lamat saying she want peace, talking about the local culture, comedy moment). And in the end, everyone put their parts together and made the story.
@Koutakurai I pray to Hydaelyn that isn't the case, because that would mean the team is actively repeating the same mistakes that doomed FFXIV 1.0's development. You cannot create by committee and just bash everything together and hope for the best. You need a lead, a director, a head, etc to make sure all the elements work together.
@@graffitisamurai I'm also apprehensive, but if you look at dawntrail's writing, there are things there that could easily be resolved with a review, but along the way, something failed.
I cant help but wonder if there were sudden last minute writing changes too. Like for example with Graha Tia being so standout in the final zone and the fun twins doing next to nothing it really does feel like he was intended to be in the group from square one but someone at SE intervened and forced a script change. The final zone also having good character dialogue distribution instead of just Wuk also feels very distinct to the point where it feels like its part of a different DT script iteration that was left over.
My headcanon is that eventually, once all of our fragments are brought together, we go back in time even further than Elpis and become Azem, setting in place all the macguffins that we’ll need as a younger WoL and creating a stable time loop. Not being a *reincarnation* of Azem, but the original that would grow enough to survive being Sundered and start the whole thing over again to ensure Etheirys lives on
Yeah I have an image of the last scene our WoL will have will be traversing to Elpis to "start it all off" as Azen. I also think Azem created the convocation in general
My Issues with Dawntrail: - Too much Wuk Lamat, give me time to miss you (Let her and Alisaie bond over have smarter brothers (Koana/Alphi) and the stronger role model (WoL/Zoraal Ja) - Watered down Scion Rivalry during the competition, I really expected a more divided scions with more issues/hurdles then just 1 dungeon - So many fetch quests with not a lot of action - Zoraal Ja's Inferiority Complex/Daddy Issues not being explored more - Gulool Ja's whole existence left unexplained or developed - Underutilized Scions who feel like they are only present when the plot is needed (Estinien/Y'shtola) - Lack of Krile development (Which was left till right at the end) - Smile (XD)
I'm actually thinking that there's a lot more going on with Gulool Ja than meets the eye. I don't think he's actually Zoreel Ja's son at all, unless there was a lady Mamool Ja who was on the train and everyone had their memory of her sucked up, which seems to be the assumption the locals are taking. Betting we find out more about him in 7.1 or later.
I came into this Dawntrail knowing...knowing that we were going to fight against Thancred+Urianger. I was so excited thinking of every way that the fight could go. And it would be a mostly 'fair' fight. True, the game has shown that the WoL could defeat both of them even together, but the game also has multiple occurrences of both of them defeating far strong foes with skilled planning. And Thancred+Urianger knew they would be facing us in the last patch of Endwalker....We didn't know we would fight them until MSQ 91. They had plenty of time to plan how to defeat WoL, Krile, and the twins. But it never happened. It is my biggest disappoint of the expansion.
One thing I really liked that I REALLY hope they put in future patches: The level of your characters classes can change the dialog of others. For example, the food making competition. If your CUL is high, Krile will have a different dialog text. I want npcs, good and bad, to look at your work and see you as either a friend or major threat.
I liked that Krile moment. I hated earlier in the expansion at the HanuHanu when Erenville said we couldn't examine the water because we'd need an alchemist. My level 90 ALC at the time meant nothing
that would be way to much work for basicially flavour text, that doesn't change anything else. Next you want npcs address you differently according to the current class you are. The producers of FFXIV allready said, each expansion is getting more and more bloated because of the former content they put into former contenct. Like new classes or races that have been introduced before.
Some of it does; my husband was dueling the Dawnservant as BLM and he proclaimed "I see you've learned the ways of the Viper", and my husband went "Bruh!"
the biggest thing I feel like dawntrail fumbled was that we should have spent a zone with each of the claimants, some of them are under developed interms of their character or story
@rajabuta Arguably Koana should have been involved with Shaaloani and there should have been more in Mamook for Bakool JaJa. His turn feels so sudden and his reason comes out of nowhere. Never hinted at or mentioned until just as it's happening.
The biggest fumble is that the story contorts itself to have Wuk Lamat succeed, followed very closely by being a morally bankrupt tale of supporting mass genocide
I think a lot of backlash came from Yoshi P overhyping it. He said the Scions would be split in two as they fight on opposing sides, but we just got a bit of sass in one dungeon and remain buddy buddy. We're told it'll set up the next ten years of story but the two storylines basically wrap up in the expansion; there's no simmering strife or background machinations that you see in the other expansions with Garlemald, the Ascians, Uldah, etc. As for the hooks, they're hard to see coming but there doesn't seem to be anything like the Crytsal Tower, references to Doma, the threat of Black Rose, the effects of the Garlean Civil War, Nidhogg's Eyes, Warriors of Darkness, etc. to come back to in the first half of the expansion. But that's what a lot of people were expecting from the promos. Apart from the key, it doesn't feel like there are any threads or mysteries to follow from base expansion so people are frustrated. If the devs leaned more into the vacation aspect, that we were taking a break before the next big things and maybe dropping some important hooks along the way, I think people would have been more positive about the expansion as a whole instead of being wrapped up in the last couple levels and not caring much about the rest.
Given how much Final Fantasy likes their wars, I think we're setting up for an inter-Reflection war. Before war though, first we need to know the Reflections that will be in this war. Hence the visit to the Void, and to Alexandria (which someone said was the 9th Reflection) and Azem's Key to travel between Reflections at will.
I wasn't expecting anything, but I was still disappointed. The writing was just subpar, and it wasn't because it was a new arc with a smaller scale than Endwalker. Any story can be good without relying on years of build up and set up, a lot of Shadowbringer's story is self contained and was reaally good. Dawntrail's writing meanwhile felt like it was done by an amateur at some points, with too many extremely convenient plot points, bad pacing, bad dialogues, etc. There's still things I enjoyed in the story, and I had a good time overall, but the bad stuff leaves a bitter after taste I can't shake off. Hopefully the patches will be an improvement.
The first dungeon not ending in a 2v1 or 3v1 against thancred, urianger and Koana was a gigantic wasted opportunity. Apparently the inter Scion competition was blowing up some rocks to block our path and calling it a day.
@@joshuayung5158 thats the devs fault for putting that seed in our heads, but like many people stated this xpac wanted to change the formula but didnt want to fully commit because they didnt want to alienate people but it was still the result
In my opinion the expansion would have been better if we got Koana as a secondary protagonist rather than a supporting character. Have HIM deal with the Alexandrians and come to terms with the dark side of unchecked technology and advancement. It would have been a real moment of character growth for him. It also would have done a great deal to relieve people's fatigue with Wuk Lamat. You compared Wuk to Lyse, but Lyse was far more bearable due to only having the spotlight for half the expansion. Let Wuk Lamat be Lyse, but let Koana be Hien.
I agree. Koana is after all, the Vow of Reason. Stands to reason that he too gets his own arc as the other half of the king duo. Also I think Solution Nine suits his vibe better, makes a lot more sense to see him in there rather than Wuk Lamat.
Lyse was actually part of our party even when we went to the Far East, so we did have to 'bear' with her for the entire expansion. Compared to her, Hien wasn't even really even around that much as we went through the Ruby Sea and Yanxia without him, and only got in contact with him at the Azim Steppes.
@@XieRH1988 Even then, Lyse wasn't all that active once you hit Yanxia and Azem Steppe. We spent more time with Yugiri once we reached Yanxia and got our asses kicked by Zenos with her. Hien was more prominent in Azem Steppe and the return to Yanxia. Arguably spent more time with Alphinaud, Alisae and Yugiri in the Ruby Sea since the subplot was centered around the latter. I think that's the main problem with Wuk Lamat. Lyse's presence by comparison was more subdued and allowed other characters to develop. If we replaced Lyse with Wuk in the Ruby Sea, I do feel as though we'd learn more about how Wuk felt about Sui-no-Sato rather than Yugiri's history with her hometown.
@@XieRH1988 I'm aware Lyse was with us, I said she only had the spotlight for half of the expansion. Even during the Ruby Sea portion of the Doman Liberation arc, she took a backseat to characters like Gosetsu. Point being, distribute the load between the characters and the audience won't find them as grating.
The narrative idea of "standing back and advising" would work just fine for a videogame RPG where you could have actual choices that impact the story. The problem is this being an mmo specifically means nothing the player does can have any actual impact, the boiler plate moments we get to even pick an ultimately meaningless dialogue response once in a bluemoon are even kinda rare in the genre. So the narrative concept behind the expansion just doesn't suit this specific genre. I really liked the general idea of having Dawntrail be a lowering of stakes after the last expansion, and I think it would have worked better if it had instead been an almost anthology style series of smaller quests for each of the scions that was their stories and it could have ended with us getting drawn into Lamats narrative towards the end instead of being there throughout.
The issue with the whole 'advisor/mentor' bit that's been bandied about is that the WoL didn't really do much of that at all. We didn't even give Wuk Lamat any tips on how to fight, she just naturally grows so strong over the course of the expansion... and even ends up (involuntarily) inspiring the WoL to break their limits at the final boss! Very little actual mentoring was done... WoL was just hired muscle and someone to be talked at.
@@cobalt968 I always remember reading and totally sharing the idea of instead of you, us, the WoL , put in Hoary Boulder and you have the same story with little to no change at all. But yeah, to the mentor idea, it can work in a game when you can pick an option, lets call Fallout, or more fresh Baldurs Gate, then i wouldnt have a single issue being a "Mentor". Yes, obviously every outcome will bring the same result, but those little details can make everything more interesting. Having Guk and two options of dialogues being you're nice, and you're SUPER nice to say an example isn't exactly my idea of having options.
It would have worked if the entirety of the scions were actually doing the advising including the WoL. But there weren't any moments like that. Even the point where Wuk Lamat decide to stop pretending to not be scared, no one brings her to that conclusion and instead she decides it on her own. Which only then the scions say "🙂👍 Good Job" She legitimately solves all her own problems. And that's the issue. And any problems like her naivety, which Alphinaud gets punished for in ARR, gets completely rewarded.
@@Kanamon22 I did think of this. Replace the scions with Hoary and the gang and the story doesn't change much, could've also freed us up to kinda... float between the claimants I guess? Like experience their struggles, we run into Bakool Ja Ja struggling with the weight of expecations, Zoraal Ja in another comment has us fight him and him failing too many times causes his obsession to go into overdrive, Wuk Lamat's Naivety and Koana's blockheaded "Foreign technology" as we help them over come, (and also drag Zoraal Ja deeper into his failings as we are not the ones who can help him). We could have the duality of Bakool and Zoraal being us helping Bakool ja alongside Lamat and Koana, while failing Zoraal Ja and being too late to help him/causing his decline. Could've also had the story begin focusing on Scions that were side characters before and have them be fleshed out like Krile was supposed to have. Krile alongside us as a duo floating between groups wouldn't get smothered by Wuk Lamat as much and give her, and the others more breathing room. Her echo would also let us get into some of the more nitty gritty issues a bit more.
@@StormierNik I agree with this. I'm okay with being the seasoned bodyguard who could kill someone with their left pinky--that in itself is a kind of power fantasy--but I (the WoL) don't know anything about leading a nation. But you know who does? Why didn't we bring G'raha instead of the twins, especially when he's been begging us to take him on an adventure for ages now?
I was curious who Zoraal Ja's mother is, especially since everyone thought two-headed mamool ja couldn't have kids, and it was this crazy thing that he was born at all. And then they did it again with Zoraal Ja's son, completely omitting any mention of a mother! very strange
I follow the reasoning but I feel like its a bit of a cop out to say "its just ARR again" when the entire community for years has been like "sure ARR isnt great bc they were so rushed and had no money" it just feels weird to have a dip in cohesive storytelling rn specially when all the surrounding stuff like the raids and the new zones and new music are still top of the line
see, the thing is, I went into DT expecting something like ARR. Which isn't an insult- I actually really like ARR. I've played through it several times. it has a great vibe of being a new adventurer learning the lay of the land and making their mark on the world. However, I don't think I'd ever play through DT again. Hell, I've stopped watching any of the streamers I used to because I don't even want to watch someone else play this story either.
I find the reasoning flawed as well. ARR wasn't weaker simply because it marked the beginning of the story. Beginnings don't inherently suffer from weaker writing. While it’s true that early narratives lack the luxury of building on prior plot points for immediate payoff, they are also free from the constraints of pre-existing storylines. In fact, conventional writing wisdom often suggests the opposite: it is generally easier to craft a compelling setup than it is to deliver a satisfying conclusion. To claim that Dawntrail’s writing is weaker as a result of it being the start of a new arc feels like a poor excuse to hand-wave criticism
While we as the player and WoL already had our "Ultima Thule" moment, I'd argue that Living Memory is actually the Anti-Ultima Thule for us. Instead of breathing life into an empty canvas, finding civilizations in decline and despair, here we have a civilization where its people believe they've reached paradise, with some having niggling suspicions about its unsustainability, but everyone nonetheless participating - even Krile's parents, for all their disgust at what is happening, still 'participate' in life in Living Memory, rather than openly rebelling similar to what Cahciua did. ....and we're snuffing it all out. We're erasing the bright, colorful pictures on the canvas. We're calling it quits on a world that stopped moving on and accepting the realities of life, all while trying to carry their legacy with us in a far more active, involved way than we ever did for, say, the Ea. In a way, we're still following Emet-Selch's request: Remembering that they once lived. Thematically, I think it goes hand in hand with Ultima Thule's embracing of hardships while still determining to carry on through them - here, we have a people who rid themselves of hardships, the risk of untimely death, and even the memory of their loved ones after their passing (however imperfect, going by that couple in Living Memory, where the woman never had another partner despite not remembering her lover). We see how wrong it is, and say goodbye, while Sphene is utterly incapable of letting go and living on with the pain of loss, while it eats her up inside, while knowing just how impossible her refusal to accept reality is. And I'll go even one step further: Sphene is pulling a reversal of Zodiark. Zodiark was summoned to be the salvation of the ancients, at the cost of half their number's lives. Meanwhile, Endless-Sphene, too, is the salvation of her people, the people who worshipped her, who wanted her back, but it's not for her that lives are sacrificed, but for her people. Instead of the sacrifice coming from the people, she sacrifices for them - by burdening herself with the countless deaths of innocents from outside. Again, we put an end to this, similar to how Venat, the previous Azem, did back in the day. We recognize its unsustainability and the hurt it inflicts on everyone involved, and make the choice to take actions that the people involved are incapable of or unwilling to take themselves - and even the Endless who recognize and want this cycle to end simply physically cannot. Sphene, too, is not capable of it, by virtue of her programming through memory. We're told at some point towards the end that she's basically an idealized version of herself - very much like the original, with the original's memories, but we can be certain that certain aspects were amplified, such as her devotion to the people of Alexandria. She's a victim of her very nature. But unlike Ultima Thule and Endwalker in general, we don't find the people in despair. We don't find *them* clinging desperately to their fake lives in Living Memory. If anything, they're all too happy to pass on. Few of them have lingering regrets strong enough to keep them materialized for quests, even. They pass on with smiles, happy to have been given the chance to clean the slate. None of them who realize what we're up to asks us not to go through with it. They walk into the sunset with their heads held high. Where Endwalker showed us hope amidst despair, Dawntrail ended on a note that taught acceptance of the inevitable, to make your peace with what has to be, and not resent life's ending in the first place. The people behind all of this, Preservation, are also yet to really feature. We got bits and pieces here and there, plus a dungeon, but we never did find the information Krile was hoping for in Living Memory's 3rd zone. I have the feeling that we'll see that plotline becoming relevant in the future.
I mean that's why it's supposed to be tragic. That's why it was supposed to be hard to do because it is a colonizing organization that is devouring worlds and destroying life with reckless abandoned in order to preserve a couple hundred people. That's not altruistic. And all of the dead people in the machine don't know that and I don't think that they would choose to be kept alive by killing thousands of other people. That's the point. But it is really hard to tear down a bunch of people living in harmony and perfect peace while there is war and destruction and death outside of their pretty little paradise. It's actually like a first world and a third world kind of metaphor that I think you're missing. But either way I think the arguments are that it happens too fast and there's a lot of loose plot threads that felt like they should have resolved by now but are now kind of moot because of how they moved on. It's also just a huge bummer to have to go around and say goodbye to people after we just said goodbye to people like a lot at the end of endwalker. As far as a game having impact and really saying something I think it failed to really do that although you can sift through all the metaphors they gave us. They were marketing it as a vacation as exciting and new with you know aspects of danger but I thought we were going to ratchet it down not try to keep it at the same world ending stakes.
11:42 Hades and Hythlo were definitely talking about Azem going to a different volcano. It's about that site short story where he uses someone else's concept to make Ifrit out of a volcano's aether, not him going to a fire-aspected shard that Krile's parents would've come from, since the world wasn't even sundered yet, Hydaelyn and Zodiark hadn't been created or fought yet, and lalafell didn't exist yet because the Ancients hadn't been broken up into different races yet.
Krile's parents people came from the Source originally (See: Aloalo Island), the Source is (most of the time) hit by a near apocalyptic event during a rejoining, there's a reason civilization has been reset multiple times over the worlds history. Them finding a relic that appears to have a link to Azem, while living near a volcano is quite a coincidence so I'm with Jesse here.
@@ExileTwilight I don't get how lalafell could possibly exist before the Final Days, Zodiark, Hydaelyn, etc. Azem's volcano situation was before humans were split into races like lalafell.
@@FishSkeleton- DIdn't say they were. The implication is that the Milala found Azem's relic after the Sundering. Remember that the sundering split the world in identical reflections, it didn't completely reshape it from scratch, thus said volcano would still exist, to be settled later. Much of the world on the Source has since been changed by the 7 calamities, but a remote island likely survived the worst of it.
The WoL plays the role of Brock Samson in Dawntrail. We’re a body guard with a ton of backstory who’s there to make sure the kids are safe on their adventure.
@@filipvadas7602*chilling on the beach with shirtless cat boys and one of those island drinks*. "WOL WE NEED YOU!" *cue WoL changing into gear superman style* XD
If they were going to introduce a character like Wuk in level 90-100 content, I would of liked it if she showed some more competency and have some prior feats to back up her strength. Endwalker set her up like an outgoing hunter, while Dawntrail depicts her as only ever leaving the palace to get tacos, or get her axe fixed, with no prior knowledge of the landscape or cultures. She feels like someone that boosted to current MSQ.
Yes exactly, like she’s been in stasis since she was born and now that we’re here it’s time to learn about her country. I need the writers to understand that watching competent people do things and still fail is exciting. Watching competent people learn things, or be successful, can still be exciting. Wuk Lamat is brand new to everything and it makes her exhausting.
@@jessecox Just finished watching and it was great of course, love the enthusiasm. Could not agree more with the take that the majority of the scions did not need to be there. I do think the twins were just there as a sort of a familiar face so it was not just the WoL, wuk lamat, erenville and krile. Excited to see where the story leads!
Something I feel like gets glossed over in the Lyse WL comparison is the length of each expansion. Dawntrail has over twice as many cutscenes as Stormblood, around 21 hours worth, even more than Shadowbringers. That's a loooooooong time to be a side character in a video game. I'm of the mind that she should not have been given a reason to follow us to Solution 9. She's the dawnservant now, her goal is accomplished, she's grown on her journey, etc etc. She should've become the side character while we take over as the main character and deal with the greater threat as it is _our_ area of expertise, not hers.
I've heard this before, that WK shouldn't have gone with us to Alexandria, but removing her undercuts both the ending of her story and the thematic resolution of Sphene. WK has to be there to avenge her father and put down Zoraal Ja. She's there to see how her philosophy of protecting her people gets twisted into an extreme form by Preservation and the AI Sphene.
Agreed on the length. I'm wondering if it seems paced funny because the devs WANTED us to do every side mission that popped up as it did. It would have lengthened the playable parts by a bit. I mean, most of us still have some exclamation points around Tural, I'm sure.
@@diamondmagus I'm aware she had a reason, I'm saying she shouldn't have been given one. Also what does she learn from Sphene? That besieging other nations for the sake of her own is evil? That loving her nation so much will turn her to the dark side of the force? WL may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but you cannot actually think that she would ever entertain the idea of conquest. She is the most peace loving character in her entire nation. I am tired of people talking about Wuk Lamat's character and growth and then just blatantly ignoring what her established character traits are just so they can go "But Sphene and WL are not so different!". Both are rulers and both love their nations, that's where the similarities end. You might as well be saying it was important for Merlwyb, Aymeric, Kan-E-Senna, and Nanamo to tag along because they needed to see what would happen if _they_ loved their nations too much as if it's a lesson that any of them need to be taught. Also if you're worried about Sphene's side of the equation, how about this instead: We would spend the first half of the expansion helping a character usher in a new dawn for their nation. Then we would spend the latter half with a character whose "new dawn" we ultimately have to stop.
@@prinnyblackblade They definitely wanted people to take more breaks than they did. I didn't struggle from pacing problems personally until I hit Shaaloani, and in hindsight it's because I kept on grinding instead of listening to the NPCs when they said, "You've had a long day. Maybe you should take a break." (I noticed them, but I didn't mind them, if that makes sense.) If you take a break when the NPCs straight up say "YO TAKE A BREAK" and go log off and digest what you just saw, the pacing problems become more bearable.
Lyse also isn't always present to point I'd say SB was more about WoL/Alisae than it was a Lyse expansion Alisae got so much growth & Zenos was super focused on us that Lyse was kinder in background for lot of SB story.
I think part of the problem with justifying "hey we're just here to support her" and using Ardbert as an example, is that there is nothing actually STOPPING the WoL from helping. Ardbert at least had the excuse of being insubstantial. In fact without that limitation, him not helping when people are literally dying around him, is often used as a sign of someone being a villain, or at least a coward. The WoL has no such excuse. They're just standing there, thumb up ass, nodding their wobble head nod, and not dealing with the problems, when "supporting" someone in such a situation WOULD be dealing with the situation.
@@seekittycatto rush in and think we’re helping by doing whatever we think is right without taking time to get to know these people and their culture is foolish and actually doesn’t help anyone eg the crystal braves half of stormblood and all of garlemald.
This expansion, the WoL rarely does anything if not explicitly asked to. They are guests of Wuk Lamat and trying not to interfere with power struggles of the nation. You may not like the approach, it certainly seems silly. But that's the reason the WoL is idle so much. Because as Jesse said, the WoL and Scions could end a lot of this immediately.
@@LittleListy21pretty much exactly this. Solving Wuk Lamats problems for her doesn’t teach her anything and yeah we end the threat but we are also just sort of steamrolling in that case and imposing our viewpoint on a culture we know nothing about. There’s a word for that it’s called imperialism and it’s exactly why the WoL shouldn’t be solving Turals problems for them. This also just goes back the everything they told us in previous expansions where eorzea came to rely on us to solve all of their problems and thus we became a crutch for them. It’s why the scions disbanded in the first place. It’s why hydaelyn sacrificed herself. Victory claimed through the strength of someone else is not a true victory. Teach a man to fish and all that.
Personally i would love if we use the Sions in a way of "Hey Alphi? You ok? Ok good, i want to know if you're available cause i need to venture into a unexplored zone and i wonder if you can come to heal me... yeah tell Ali and Urianger, i'll bring my shield just in case", just for dungeons, unless theres some good use for them in teh story.
That's what is seems like! Which is ridiculous because they could have just made Erenville a combatant, and we had Krile and Wukky (and Estinian!) right there -- that should have been plenty. Krile was previously a healer before she became a DPS -- it makes more sense than Alisaie healing!
@@alisongill4425 But Erenville is firmly a pacifist. It'd be a detriment to his character is he was like "Look, i don't like hurting animals. I like documenting and preserving things." "Erenville, we need you for this dungeon" "Yo why didn't you say so? Lemme get my glock and flamethrower to really TORCH these animals to a crisp"
@@TheJamieellis We could have had NPCs from Tural help us Like Vipers DPS, or a PCT somewhere, there was always a solution that didn't involve the twins
Personally, I felt Lyse's growth in a way I didn't feel Wuk Lamat's. I think I want my characters to need a therapist, but Wuk Lamat just needs a pep talk and some dramamine.
I'm of the notion that the focus of the expansion should've been the rise of Wuk Lamat to the throne, learning of Turali and the culture. Solution Nine should be put that into the next expansion so we can fully get into more zones and explore more of place, and the build up with Zoraal Ja ruling over SN and Sphene could've hit more especially when Tullioyal gets attacked and Gulool Ja Ja's death can have more impact.
Sadly I don’t think this game’s pacing issues with story can ever be resolved. The game is set up such that there’s always 2 new city hubs, 5 areas and 1 final zone. And somehow the MSQ has to touch all of those areas by any means necessary even if it means shoehorning in plot points to force you to visit each and every place. The writing team will never have the power to say that this next expansion’s plot only needs 4 areas, not 5. The quota is always 5 and the writers got to find a way to make it work. Shaaloani is the biggest example of this, as it wasn’t even really relevant to the MSQ’s big picture but they made you go there and do stuff.
I have no problem not being the main character. I have a problem feeling like I'm not a character at all, which is how Dawntrail made me feel, which is a huge punch in the gut since I started playing this game after quitting WoW for making me feel the same way. I wish I could see this expansion through the eyes of the people who liked it. I genuinely loved everything that came before to a life-altering degree. And I hate Dawntrail almost as much as I love everything else.
Yeah following around for the cultural stuff I was fine with, but then once you just sit back and let Zoral ja get up using obvious outside tech and just sit back doing nothing just feels wrong.
@@zero1343 Unfortunately Gulool Ja Ja had told us to not interfere, and at that time I personally thought Gulool Ja Ja would just strike him down again, so confident I was in his abilities. :/ We felt Wuk Lamat's frustration at not being able to stop her father's death perfectly. However, I wouldn't have let Zoraal Ja walk away after using that tech. THAT's what frustrated me. Thinking about it again though, it makes complete sense, because that fight was a one-on-one duel to the death, and technically, he won. Even if we don't like to accept it.
@@zero1343 All it would have taken for me would have been Zoreel Ja zapping us with a lightning flavored stasis field to make none of us be able to interfere once he went Oversoul mode for the entire scene to make sense. Paralysis is a lightning based debuff.
Speaking of WoW PTSD they even forced us to commit mass murder/genocide now in 14 - a line they crossed in WoW and one I thought I'd never see in 14. If I'm not going to be the MC - and personally I very much do mind not being the focus - then at least don't make me a mass murderer.
@@katarh Hell, why did we even need to be in the room? That bridge is huge we could have still been running across it with Erinville while that fight happened and then we wouldn't even be there to stand around and do nothing. Just show the fight as a "meanwhile..." cutscene. Such an easy fix the writers didn't do
How I feel about the expansion as a whole is like: They made a really good setting, and a solid first draft of the story. But then they seemed to have difficulty fleshing out that story, further editing the draft and so on. A few examples I will point to being Bakool Ja Ja, his story is heavily based on him doing awful things, because that's what's expected of him, and at no point, until the very end of his arc, is that shown. And take Estinian, his inclusion into the story was 1. doing the trailer fight, and then saying hello in the 4th zone. He may as well not have had a single line of dialog. I felt Krile lacked purpose in this story where she was suppose to be centered. I felt the entire Mamook part was dealt with to quick, (Bakools dad doesn't get any line after getting called out, but can still attend the crowning, despite his crimes), and much more. I also do believe that the writers had difficulty telling this story due to how FF14 has chosen to follow such a ridged style of delivery. Where we can only advance to different zones at a set pace, meaning that places where story wasn't all that necessary, like second half of 2nd zone was too long, while the aforementioned Mamook part, being only the second half of zone 3, was too short for what it was trying to do.
I think out of all of these I mind Estinien the least. Him just travelling around, hanging out and being a cool dude feels great for him. General pacing issues kind of permeate the whole thing though yeah. Bakool Ja Ja doesn't get the development he needs, Mamook is sort of glossed over, not to mention Zoraal Ja's immense lack of focus in part 1 of the story.
Agree with a lot of your points. The bringing the Scions when they are needed would match so well with Azem calling on their friends to resolve things. *Puts on tinfoil hat* Azem definitely set stuff up for us to find and we have to become whole because we are Azem's past. Our future is to go back in time and become Venat's replacement this completing the loop and the game.
It's quite cathartic seeing such a lorehead and positive guy like yourself share some of my frustrations with the expansion (pacing, implied stuff versus shown, unsatisfying writing choices regarding consequences) especially as the fandom has made me feel like I'm wrong for feeling let down by this expansion! Thank you for posting this and for sharing some honest and heartfelt critique - critiquing what we love is super important. I'm hopeful for the patches, really hoping they cook with those 🙏
Really? I feel like I'm inviting people to call me a SE plant or a dupe (both of which have happened!) for thinking it was good - not great, but good - and that there are a lot of positives here that should improve and be executed more smoothly in future expansions. Perhaps the problem is that people are completely alienated by measured takes.
@@serisothikosI'm less on the positive side of my experience with the expansion but I think it mainly comes down to FFXIV fans being afraid to critique something they love. Critiquing something doesn't mean it's bad, or The Worst Expansion Ever!!! but it means you can look at where it went wrong, and what could have been done to improve it. I think it did a lot of things well, but it was overshadowed by clumsy writing that felt like there was a lack of care. Does this mean I hate FFXIV? No! I just think it could have been better. And these kinds of measured takes are absolutely the ones that get drowned out by those who think the game is perfect AND those who think it's the worst.
I'm in agreement with lots of your critiques; my biggest one, as Jesse points out in the video, is how scot-free Bakool Ja Ja gets off for unleashing what's essentially a natural disaster. Yeah, it gets resolved in the best way possible, with us killing Valigarmanda so they don't have to worry about resealing it, and then Bakool gets his very fast backstory, but still. I'm really hoping they touch on it in upcoming patches. Having him serve out his sentence in the Landsguard.
Meanwhile I've been hearing nothing but complaints about Dawntrail. It's been refreshing to see Jesse actually enjoy parts of it, because there's some players I know who're frothing with hatred for DT. I completely agree with his stance, couldn't have said it better myself.
What spaces are you in where the people mostly enjoyed the expac because I'll trade you places. The complainers and media illiterates spouting shallow and often regurgitated takes has been obnoxious
I don't mind resetting the stakes. But what I love about Final Fantasy is traveling with a party of characters. And dawntrail was almost completely Wuk. It was missing the dynamic of a group of characters (and your character)
Yeah it showed that a lot of FF's story isn't just one character, it's the whole party. FF10 isn't just Tidus, but his relationship with Yuna, Auron, and the whole party, not to mention his relationship with Jecht/Sin If Tidus hogged all the screen time, didn't let Yuna or the others have time to shine, and got everything his own way without struggling, he'd be a lot less popular. And some people already don't like Tidus.
Besides the action combat, my biggest problem with FFXVI was that it was a story about one dude, and everyone else was essentially a temporary member (besides his dog I guess). I thought it was antithetical to the whole point of the FF series. Maybe the producers of these two games should get together and figure that out between them. Hmm.
See, this is a fair criticism. I wish we'd had more banter with Thancred and Urianger whenever we bumped into them, even a bit of friendly sparring as a solo duty. (Obviously we as the WoL weren't going to go full-on fighting against them, because we would wipe the floor with them and both we and they know that.) That bit in the first dungeon where they're like, "oops, we accidentally blocked the shortcut, looks like you'll have to go the long way round"? I wanted more of that. Not full on ugly fighting and drama, but, competitive snark. I wanted to get in their way a bit, too. I wanted some snarky dialogue choices of my own to fire back at the two of them. I'd even have loved a callback to the "Uh... Kupo?" joke from Shadowbringers, perhaps in response to Koana or Thancred saying "Well, what do you have to say to THAT?"
My main issue with DT is that the dialogue quality got a considerable downgrade compared to ShB & EW. You can feel it was missing that Ishikawa touch. And I agree with your critiques. Illogical excuses to make our WoL not act in situations which are sensible for him to act in. Also, DT's story concept was really good. If the execution was more tight, with better dialogue and pacing, it could've hit the emotions way more. Especially the last zone. Living Memory could've reached that ShB or EW level. It's still good and emotional, but it was missing that special something.
Oh this is ridiculous. Ishikawa didn't fking one woman write your favorite moments. I can guarantee you half of your favorite moments in previous expansions were written by one of the guys you are currently trying to trash talk while praising Ishikawa, and I can guarantee you some of your most hated lines were probably written by Ishikawa at some point too. Hell she concepted and wrote Smile, the song everyone is dogging on. And then Koji wrote the English lyrics based on what she wrote. Games of this size have *writing teams*. The lead writer isn't a all powerful dictator they just steer the general direction. Ishikawa in her current position has actually more control than she had as lead writer and everything in DT she would've signed off on. Everything you love about previous stories is equally because of the entire writing team's influence, and everything you hate about DT is equally on Ishikawa's shoulders along with the rest of the team.
@@TheDarkFable Clearly the elements that were present before and no longer (not just ishikawa) made the difference, so the point still stands They have 10 years of experience writing this game and it feels like it was all thrown out the window. There's a distinct shift in the gondolla scene, it feels like it was written by someone completely different from the rest of the expansion
@@vaan_ You get it bro, it's so obvious the Gondola scene is written by Ishikawa and then the entire writing shifts agains to pre-gondola after it LMAO
Thanks for calling out the bad culture thing, because i felt super pissed and uncomfortable when Solution 9 just continued drinking peoples souls like a pepsi from a vending machine post DT, while Wuk Lamat was like "eh, it's their culture, the morals be damned" [Wtf btw]
They left this part to be wrapped up in the post-expansion I believe. Arcadion is already addressing it - WoL gets a chance to stop fighters using souls if he wins. You bet I fought hard in Arcadion. However, think about it. Every single person willingly put on a regulator knowing their souls will be collected and used for another when they die if they do. This would be no different from volunteering post mortem organ donation here on Earth. Many people still do it. A life for a life. If it was your mother saved by a stranger's willingly donated soul, you wouldn't be as against it. Might even thank them, inside your heart. The thought that it's an eternal soul that should have been reborn makes me uncomfortable yes, much like having another person's organs inside me had I taken a transplant from a dead person, but.... it's practical, it works. (Of course, Arcadion was using souls for entertainment, which is a totally different problem altogether)
@@applepie9806 I dont think it's quite the same since they forget anyone dying, and likely dont know where the souls come from. Not to mention, we have more context than they do when it comes to how souls work. By turning souls into Aether you prevent that soul from being reborn. Would people still donate organs if it prevented them from living again in the future? I know i wouldnt.
At the end of the day the biggest sin this expansion committed is nothing happened. The things that did happen were self contained developments that will never affect the overarching narrative. This was the very definition of an episodic story that maintains the status quo, as it were.
You've clearly articulated the critiques I've had with the expansion, but also, you've clearly expressed all the EXCITEMENT I've felt, too! There's a lot of good stuff ahead, and honestly even when FFXIV's story is at the "well that's pretty alright but could be better" level, it's still a GREAT time overall. Also all the battle content absolutely slaps, I'm having more fun actually diving in and hitting my buttons than I have in ages, woooooooo
Doing those dungeons first time through on launch and having to use tank LB in *dungeon bosses* felt amazingly refreshing, honestly. Even 2 months after launch thereabout, getting a group of newbies for the lvl 99 trial can still end in getting wiped. I always like it when content requires you to engage with it. Battles being story-battles is not excuse to not throw fun stuff at the player to make them think "oh, what's this now? How does that work".
My biggest beef with the MSQ was the 2nd half. It was a perfect time to focus on Erenville and Krile, fleshing out the Northern continent and more about Alexandria from people who had a much more personal connection to it. But it had to be Wuk around evey other corner even tho the Rite was over and a interdimensional threat from a shard became the villain.
I was also hoping for more Erenville and Krile focus as we went through the second half. These are characters we have history with and it felt like we mostly glossed over what could have been their emotional moments to keep rushing forward.
Honestly I think burning through Wuk’s entire arc in a single go means she is likely not showing up much past 7.3. The writers likely knew it and wanted her whole arc out there before she becomes a nation leader we see rarely if ever and mostly in side quests.
Great video, Jesse. I had been looking forward to what you going to say. Between FFXVI and now Dawntrail, CS3's really been in the line of fire lately for pacing issues. They've always had that to some degree, but had been afforded more grace by fans due to factors like being beholden to FFXIV's MMO trappings along with the ongoing acknowledgement and pruning of extraneous early quests. I know that the official stance for Dawntrail is that it was meant to be a testbed for future story direction, but there needs to be a tighter editorial hand somewhere. It's not just the second expansion in a row stapling two expansion-worthy premises together, but also how CS3 writers handle the rise and fall of story tension. I'm not sure what the solution is, but when Grinding Gear of all channels had a mini crisis-of-faith with the cooking story pacing post-Valigarmanda (although the second half of that zone naturally roped them back in), I think that speaks to some systemic issue the current approach is running into.
i had a whole thing written up but my biggest gripe is that dawntrail felt like it told more than it showed. there's other problems, of course, but i think that's the biggest one. even when we are shown something (after we've been told about it), it doesn't go deep enough.
I appreciate this point of view of the expansion. I REALLY struggled to get through the MSQ and was absolutely scared for the future patches. Now seeing it from this perspective I can have a somewhat appreciation for it and actually look forward to see how it goes from here.
The WoL being a mentor could of easily worked, but we really needed more moments actually mentoring. Ontop of it, it would of helped of Wuk was a more likeable character. Wuks intro in Endwalker I actually liked her personality and how she seemed like she would be, but getting into EW they really made her grating and annoying. She loves her people but she doesn't know anything about them? It just makes no sense at all. If they wanted that angle they would of needed Wuk that her words were empty and she would actually need to learn about her people before she could claim she really cares for them and understands their troubles with her changing to reflect that, or given they wanted her personality the way it is, have her already knowing about her people with her shown to be far less ignorant and effectively teaching us showing she really does care about them which would make her come off far more genuine at least about her cause. That doesn't fix the side with Sphene at all, and it doesn't fix her flaws and I still think she would be an overall disliked though perhaps far more tolerated character, but still how she was approached at first really did a good job of destroying any and all care I had for her as a character and I'm not someone who cares even if the WoL takes a backseat, hell I'm the person who thought it would be better if the Scions were mostly absent the entire story besides those more directly involved like Krile or who were supporting the other heir.
Dawntrail feels like it was designed to give you the stream viewer experience where you're stuck watching someone else play through the story while you offer emotional support. I'm not kidding.
I came out the other end of DT I think in about the same space as Jessie. I didn’t hate the story and saw what they were going with (minus all the experience and nuance that Jessie pointed out in the video), and came out going “it was fun, not the best but this IS a new story.” I think the one thing Jessie nailed was pacing; when you think about that it makes a lot of sense all the seeming hiccups the plot has. Great work Jessie :)
Now I can't speak for others on this, but Dawntrail is the most disappointed I've ever been in FFXIV's story. It feels to me like the devs gave up before they even got started. They had this idea in their heads that nothing they could do would measure up to past experiences, and so they didn't even try. In reality, Expansions like Heavensward and Shadowbringers were 80% original story focused on a new land we had to explore, with only the beginning and ends being their connections to a grand narrative. So they've managed to do it before, and all they had to do was fill in that last 20% with new ideas. Then there's the idea that they wanted Wuk Lamat to be the main character, which I don't know of anyone that thought it was a bad idea. It could have been great to guide and help someone stumbling reach their potential. We don't get that however. Wuk Lamat just goes from terrible to unreasonably good without out aid. All while we stand off to the side occasionally nodding. It wasn't that we weren't the main character, its that we weren't a character at all. It felt like every single situation that happened could have been solved without us. Then in their attempt to make Wuk Lamat the best there ever was, other characters like Krile, Erenville, and even Sphene, all suffered massively. Because for all the focus they put on Wuk Lamat, she basically doesn't grow as a character, and judging from the interviews, they knew she didn't. So everyone around her suffers because they try of quantity over quality. Everything is tied to the MSQ maypole, so it also brings down many other aspects of the game. I found myself either entirely uninterested, or quickly losing interest in any dungeon of trial we went into because the story would continue with or without me. One of the most egregious for me being the solo instances, where your participation isn't even necessary, only your survival. The only cool thing you get to do in the entire 7.0 story is fight the Dawnservant the first time. It becomes even more upsetting to me, because having recently finished up every piece of side content in Dawntrail, every single other piece of writing is up to the standard I have come to expect from this game. With great world building, characters, and fun things to do. Why is it I came out of the Role quests and raid story caring about the people involved more than anyone involved in the MSQ? How is it an afternoon with the Arcadion made me care more about the people of Alexandria than anything in the last two zones did combined?
I appreciate this take on Dawntrail. I found a lot of things to love in Dawntrail, and they also helped me look past some of the things that you've mentioned that may have not "hit the mark" exactly. It was also really cool to hear some of your theories or things that you pieced together from your knowledge of the lore- I knew something was familiar about that portal but didn't make the connection to Nier until watching this, and that, as it did for you, immediately filled me with even more excitement to learn about all that is to come. Looking forward to seeing how things play out and continuing this suspenseful journey!
I feel like I have seen nothing to convince me how Zoraal Ja get so psycho even after a "30 years later" as all I saw was one person begging him for more land, and that he was defeated by smocky dad. Assuming dad was good dad base on Wuk, how did his own son grow up to be like that? What made him feel like he has to proof he is a miracle? Where did he get the idea to make people appreciate peace through war? Even Asahi got more back stroy then him and he was the thread for almost half the story.
The part of him proving the miracle was explained in Tural's major city AFTER you beat him in his lvl 99 fight. Wuk Lamat and Koana talk about it when you are walking around town together. It's not in a cutscene, let alone voiced, so it's pretty easy to miss. Apparently, because Zoraal Ja was born to a man as legendary as his father, on top of being the result of the impossible circumstances of being the progeny of blessed siblings, as well as being the eldest of three siblings, the people of Tural expected Zoraal Ja to be every bit the match for his father, especially in terms of accomplishments, and thus saddled him with the weight of expectations. Expectations Zoraal Ja could never hope to meet. His inability to meet the expectations of the people thus pushed him to extremes time and time again, resulting in us having to kill him.
@@Dragonpit Well there is the problem. It's not very helping to have them "explain" why THEY THINK their brother when crazy (after his was defeated non the less) without showing us players even once how did any of the pressure affected him. It's just not very convincing storytelling to me. I don't feel like knowing Zoraal Ja any more than the point when we beat the 93lv trial. Or the fact that where is his mom and where is his son's mom is still in the air.
It's there if you understand what he's going through and read into the scenes he's in. Eldest Child, Head of the City Guard, LITERAL ONLY CHILD TO HAVE BEEN BORN TO A TWO-HEADED MAMOOL-JA WHO IS ALSO THE KING, it's kinda obvious he's been hyped up over and over to being this prodigy, this borderline chosen one etc that he's not dealing with the pressure well. He can't talk about it, because then he feels he's seen as weak and then the reputation/image of the child prodigy, born with the best of both halves of two mamool-ja tribes in one body with one head, shatters. That's why he's aloof, he doesn't want anyone to get close to see him not dealing well with this. And that insecurity turns to bitterness after losing to his Fathers in their prime, which then festers over 30 years.
@@TheJamieellis Exactly - and to build on this, Zoraal Ja just isn't very intelligent. He knows it, too. Whatever philosophies he recites are bored into his head by his sycophant advisor who thought he'll be the Aristotle to his Alexander, but he got got without even reaching an inkling of his goals. So without any real guide, Zoraal Ja is just aimless warrior, resolve without reason - as directly shown in his boss fight where he assumes a two-headed form with one head missing. This isn't a Zenos case where on top of being a combat monster, Zenos was also somehow a highly intelligent researcher. Zoraal Ja is just brawn - and since he doesn't speak much, he can keep the illusion that he's worthy all the praise and titles heaped on to him, when in reality he'd be much more suited as a general of armies in service of a wise ruler. That is his tragedy - because of all these expectations and titles, he cannot settle for that. He must be the best, despite not being qualified. So he does what such a person can do - wages war and hopes it'll work out.
My issue with the story of Dawn Trail is that they decided to go straight to another world ending threat for the climax. They say they wanted to have DT be the start of a new arc, well they could have split the story over 2 or 3 different expansions. First expansion we are just coming to the New World as an adventurer for hire with Wuk Lamat. The Scions and Twins arent there at all, and the entire expansion is about the succession trials, and us exploring in our off time to find clues to the Golden City for Krile. At the end of the expansion Zoraal Ja is rejected as successor by his Father due to not learning anything or something; so he takes his most loyal followers into Xak Tural where they form a revolutionary group in the hills - striking convoys and taking overoutposts that are loyal Tulliyollal. The second expansion is about us essentially doing a reverse Ala Mihgo / Dohma campaign where we explore and try to weed out the Zoraal's group; freeing communities from his rule as we go. Towards the end in desperation he would run deep into the Yok Hoy ruins in a cave that he was using as a base and come across the gateway to the golden city. We end up being too late to stop him going through it - running into the ruins just as the portal closes. Third expansion would be a more expanded version of what we have already for Alexandria and the invasion. Like Stormblood with the liberation arcs the story beats for it are there, but really need the time of a full expansion to be told properly. Not shoved into the last third / half.
Thank you Lil JC, for your refreshing perspective in this review and your long form live streams. As one who enjoyed the story as a way to escape real life loss, it was nice to hear all the theory crafting and lore you had to share.
As one of my Fc mates put it the whole thing felt like FORCED time off and not a real vacation. Definitely agree with your points i just hope we get better writing when they tackle the Azemvengers bit if that doesnt land well then im not sure if alot of people will even come back after this break in DT. DT should have been only ARR not every ex mashed into one no wonder it felt so rushed.
Just wanted to drop a line and let you know you kinda realigned my headspace about the expansion. I was stuck in "I hate Wuk Lmao" mode and you've given me some much-needed perspective. Thanks ♥
My issue with the whole Wuk Lamat focus is that there is way too much of it and way too much of her. Pacing is all over the place - paradoxically, it feels both too slow and far too quick. Spoilers below, so read at your own risk. Wuk Lamat starts as that badass, strong champion who demolishes enemies effortlessly on the Isle of Haam, only to immediately revert to scared, wide-eyed fledgling that has constant bouts of sea sickness and cannot even dent Bakool Ja Ja despite giving it her all, only to utterly demolish him via (presumably) a surge of Dynamis and a severe breaking of her own limits some four levels later, not even halfway into the story. Which happens immediately after she is kidnapped by the fella and was helpless throughout the whole ordeal. And worse yet, she then retains that power up, immediately gaining another one in the next solo duty a couple quests later. And then, once more, literally breaks reality and shears off solid ten percent of the final boss's health right at the end of it all. Where did all that power come from? We don't know. It definitely wasn't the journey she went through, because she was weak all throughout it all until she suddenly wasn't. And Dynamis is temporary, it's a sudden power surge that fades as soon as it comes about. The power creep for Wuk Lamat feels too rapid and incredibly unearned. And at the same time, the story crawls forward in a glacial pace throughout the first half of the main scenario. At first, it's refreshing - we get to learn about the Pelupelu and... sort-of about the Hanuhanu, despite the differences between them and Vanu Vanu being really miniscule, so we don't really learn a lot there. And then we do the same thing with the Moblins... and then the Yok Huy... and then the X'braal... and then the Mamool Ja... and then the denizens of Yyasulani... and then the people of Alexandria... and then the Endless, culminating in a flashback Final Boss Origin Story Dungeon volume three (Shadowbringers and Endwalker did the same thing) - which is way too much and slows down the entire story to a crawl. Nothing happens, we just go through the same story beat nine times within the same expansion. Ten if you include Dinosaur Texas, though at least nobody is holding our hand and steer the exploration this time, which itself is very refreshing. And then, at the end of each storyline, Something Happens and we immediately resolve that Something. Be it Wuk Lamat's kidnapping in the Kozamaukan cliffs, Valigarmanda being released, the Mamool Ja eugenics program or what else have you - after the glacial pace of the Let's Get To Know These Folks!, things happen suddenly and are instantly handled. From a leisurely stroll, we're chucked into a rocket-powered shopping cart, sent hurtling at breakneck speeds, only to come to a screeching halt within minutes. It's the storytelling equivalent of whiplash. Wuk Lamat being the focus also means there was little attention given to everybody else. The story was meant to be about Krile's family and origins - of which we see two flashbacks and one excruciatingly awkward scene. It was meant to be Erenville's journey as well - for which he just kind of tags along as a Swiss army knife of doohickeys and a resident problem solver in one, only to have his mother's plot condensed within the final three levels of the expansion, for which he is majorly absent. We're following in the footsteps of Kettenramm (a.k.a Handsome Squidward - I can't be the only one who made that comparison) only for him to barely be there and then disappear almost as soon as he suddenly appears, only to then Be There during the invasion. Koana felt like a secondary protagonist, only to then be reduced to a supporting character that cheers Wuk Lamat on from the sidelines. Zoraal Ja felt like he would be that one character we would need to butt heads with eventually... only to barely exist in the story at all. We were told he MUST BE STOPPED before Dawntrail even came along, only for him to exist in a time limbo for nearly all of the story, with barely any shred of insight into what drove him and why, and absolutely no attempt made at making him change his ways. He was just The Enemy to be defeated. On the flipside... Sphene is the character with the second most voiced dialogue lines in the game, despite being absent for 75% of the story. Wuk Lamat has more voiced lines than the next three spots on that list combined, Sphene included. Krile and Zoraal Ja are eighth and ninth respectively. The disproportion of focus is jarring here and contributes greatly to Wuk Lamat's infamy as the character who just won't shut up - and, in my opinion, reflects a grievous issue with the character: there is way too much of her. I get that she is the protagonist, and Sphene the antagonist and Lamat's warped reflection (perhaps literally - who knows?) - but there is so much of each of them condensed into such a short tale that I became tired of their antics by the end of it all. Especially since they barely change throughout the journey and continue yammering on about the same things - Wuk Lamat about how important it is to get to know everyone (despite affording no such chance to Zoraal Ja) and Sphene - how benevolent she is and how sad she is that we have to die for her benevolence. It feels like hammering home something we as players understood immediately. The nail is well embedded in the wood now, there's even a depression where the hammer keeps striking. And it gets deeper the more we hear the same things being said. Which is a shame, because I quite enjoy the vacation from being the world's warden. My annoyance with the story comes from a place of love. I want to love Dawntrail and what comes after. I hope Square and Yoshi learn from the feedback of this expansion (Yoshi P. already appears to be learning, as per his interviews - which is great!) and deliver to us an amazing continuation of the FFXIV saga. Fingers crossed.
and then, in the final battle, wuk lamat does more dps with on attack than the entire party, making her 10x stronger than endsinger and even more stronger than the WOL
imagine a story friendly fight between the scion teams, while the new cast just watches mouth open. and then bakuul thinks "no way I am gona defeat THAT", and then releases the prisoned monster. like with some logic behind what he does, not just a mustache twirling villain with evil laughing and then a 180 turn
I guess for me, I just didn't feel like I inspired much. Wuk figured almost everything out on her own with us giving approving nods or one liners here or there. Unfortunately, being a mostly silent protagonist kinda soured this because we couldn't give an inspiring speech like Ardbert. We didn't step in to offer up our axe like he did when we were at our lowest- she actually came in to help us. We mostly just sat back and let things take its course, lending a small hand when needed, but not actually doing anything that would help her grow.
I love your optimism, Jesse... focusing on the things you liked. But I can't give a pass to the terrible, amateurish writing... especially in a game where story is "THE THING." Calling them on it is the only way we get the amazing moments you mentioned to happen again. I also have to disagree with you on the arc building. ARR did far more to build the ongoing story than did DT. For example, ARR introduced the beast tribes, the primals, the Garleans, and the Ascians... all major threads... threats to worry and wonder about. Threads that were left open to build upon. What open threats did DT give us? For the life of me, I can't name a single one. Zoraal Ja was resolved, Bakool Ja Ja was resolved, Sphene and Alexandria were resolved, Valigarmanda was resolved.... every threat they introduced was nipped off and tied up in a little bow. The only open thread given was Azem's dimension hopper... which means you could literally tell someone "Hey, you get a dimensional mcguffin with Azem's symbol that was once held by the people of the South Sea Isles..." and they could literally skip the rest of the expac. None of the rest of it matters going forward with the story because everything else is introduced, escalated, and resolved...all within the confines of this one expac. I cannot get over how ham-fisted the story decisions were either... like how the abduction happened after Earthenshire, or the death of Gulool Ja Ja, which should've occurred with only Wukie present and then shown to us in the Echo...the writer had Krile have an Echo multiple times, but then apparently forgot the WoL also has it and that it's actually a supremely useful narrative tool... kinda like leaving one of your best horses out of the race because you forgot it was in the stable. The impact would've been far greater had Wukie been alone with Zoral Ja and her father when the fight happened.... In the end, the story felt like a teenager's first attempt at writing a fanfic... jamming and shoving plot points in forcefully instead of incorporating them organically... like using a wrecking ball to force a square rod through a pinhole. Like yeah, you got the plot point in there... it ruined everything else in the process, but you did get it shoved in there. That enormous decline in writing quality is basically unacceptable in such a narrative-heavy game... and after the masterful arts of Ishikawa, the whiplash is extreme.
Well we also have sphene’s regulator to worry about in addition to the azem key. Also sphene told us something right at the end. So there are 3 threads dt set up. Not great but its something. As for the writing, it wasn’t any worse than stormblood imo. My biggest issue was the pacing. Did we really need 3 whole zones and half the expansion for wuk to become dawn servant? I feel like they could have wrapped that up in 1 zone. 2 max. And Texas didn’t even need to exist. Literally nothing happened there. We fixed a train track, stopped a gang and made the train into a bomb. That’s literally it. The last 2 zones were endwalker tier imo. So good. If they instead paced the story as 25-30% dawn servant trials, 70-75% war with Alexandria and more emphasis in Kiryle and Erenville’s stories, it would have been a great msq
I'm not upset at being a henchmen for Wuk Lumat. In my opinion, the henchmen are almost cooler and more exciting than their employer. I'm upset that as a henchman, we don't do anything special, it didn't feel like we were being taken seriously by the antagonists or protagonists. At best we are known for being pretty powerful but it never seems like anyone is making moves around us working for Wuk Lumat. We just stand around and watch like a basic goon instead of one of the lead henchmen.
I think it wouldn't have been so bad for me if Wuk Lamat wasn't so naive....maybe ignorant is the better word. Preach made a point about her living in this nation and basically knowing nothing of its people that I completely agree with.
I agree with you on most points Jesse. I understand what they were going for, and like you I am really excited about what's to come. But I feel like, for all the flaws you note, the biggest issue was their usage of the characters. It's not just an issue -- it's a blaring alarm that I am shocked the devs didn't hear during the development. From the sinful underuse of the scions, to the sheer overuse of Wuk Lamat - a serviceable character who due to the constant overexposure I ended up despising by the midpoint. Whenever she was off screen, I was like "oh she's not so bad, I kind of like her!" and then she turns up again and I'm like "oh for fucks sake, whyyyyy!", to the point of yelling "No!" when she turned up in the final trial. It's such a shame, because it didn't have to be this way. Most people I play with liked her until the overexposure set in.
Honestly, I WISH it was ARR again. I can replay ARR on an alt and enjoy myself. My second time through Dawntrail I was skipping cutscenes like it was my job. Even cardboard cutout ARR-era WoL felt more *connected* to everything than the cardboard cutout Dawntrail WoL, which is my real problem with DT. I love overthinking about my characters and stuff, and Dawntrail gave me virtually nothing to latch onto the way every other expansion (plus ARR) did until the very end. I'm still optimistic that the patches will be good (partly because the raid series immediately showed that SOMEONE writing for Dawntrail remembers how to write a fun story where it feels like the WoL actually does need to be there), but man.
What a wonderful review, I truly enjoyed watching your playthrough on this story and the moments of your lore grasping and internalizing were by far exactly the nerdstuffs I LOVE. I often have those thoughts but have trouble with specifics of names of places or people. So to hear you speak it, is just so amazing and I'm right there with you!
What really helped me enjoy DT was the backstory I gave for my character leading up to the release of the expansion. We traveled to other reflections and to the edge of the universe to fight despair personified. Following the Endsinger fight and even through EW Post Game MSQ, you as the Warrior of Light have never really been given a chance to rest. You've been thrust into a position of protecting EVERYONE at EVERY TURN. The pressure of the world weighs really heavy, so I was totally fine with us playing supporting role to Wuk Lamat. It truly is like a generational story, and I think it is a great direction to take moving into the future
I agree, and it's not just your headcanon, either! As far back as Heavensward we've known (through the DRK questline) that the WoL is canonically absolutely over being everyone's go-to for everything all the time. So yes, getting to kick back and be the "advisor" to someone else IS holiday vibes to the WoL. (That said, we were promised tacos in Xbalav Ty'e and never got one, so all I can say is the post-role quests in 7.1 BETTER follow through on that for us...)
@@emceen8566 you know, I took PLD thru msq from HW thru EW, then in EW post game thru DT I played DRK. Its very possible that those job quests planted the seed for that from the start haha
Not only does the portal resemble the Nier portal, but it also happens to lead to a realistic cityscape, and the boss also has this dialogue: "All memory lives within me." "So many dreams slumber here..." "Each memory's form is unique." Could have a hell of a cool lore tie-in!
Honestly, I wouldn't be upset if FFXIV started to weave in more of the "Taroverse" like with the YoRHa raids. I wouldn't be upset if more raids drew us into "worlds gone mad" like what happened with Midgard and "Ending E" Earth. We've already travelled between worlds, and IIRC someone from Eorzea even made their way to Eos (I still remember that questline from FFXV), so the multiverse is pretty open at this point. Hell, while I reckon it'd infuriate certain people, I wouldn't be surprised if Sora ends up on Hydaelyn at some point, assuming that Squenix organizes some form of crossover-content with Kingdom Hearts IV. Though that'd probably be many years off, since KH4 is probably still cooking. For all we know, it could be Donald and Goofy that we run into, since they're meant to be searching for Sora after the events of KH3. (it's implied by the contents of that one KH4 trailer)
@@GmodPlusWoW It's not impossible. Yoshida admitted he wants to do a crossover with KH, but the thing stopping it is the amount of negotiations that would have to happen to get the rights, given that he'd have to not only talk with the ones heading KH in SE, but also Disney as well. If they decide they want to promote KH4 in FFXIV, then it could be done the other way around.
@@FelixFalora I wouldn't be opposed to it being the "other way around", considering that one of KH3's many problems (emphasis on many) was that it went too heavy on the Disney at the cost of the FF angle. And with Sora now on a whole other plane of existence (described as "unreal/fictional" by Ansem the Wise, and "not part of light or darkness" by one of the Xehanorts), there is a chance he could end up on a Reflection that we haven't visited yet. Though that's not to say that KH4 should minimize the Disney aspect, ofc. But I reckon they should lean more into the Disney Afternoon, partly because I want to see Sora end up in TaleSpin (aka Jungle Book meets Crimson Skies, which is pretty cool), and partly because if Sora ended up in the world of Goof Troop, it'd lean further into the unreality of the "other side" since it'd lead to Sora meeting another Goofy. Given that Goofy and Donald are trying to find Sora, that could potentially lead to mainline Goofy running into Goof Troop Goofy at some point, leading to a wholesome Goof-off that causes Donald to have a stroke from overexposure. Also, I just now recognize certain parallels between FFXIV and Kingdom Hearts; both settings deal with light and darkness, and both involve one world that effectively split into many. Just a little something extra to gnaw on.
@@GmodPlusWoW Please no. The nier raids were awful for FFXIV. No tie ins to the world, no reason they're there, no aftermath. Just "Hey guys, do you get THIS Nier reference? Look, it's 9S! You love 9S! Oh listen, it's THAT song, isn't that neat?" and as a FFXIV player you're just like "...Ok"
The lvl 93 trial was definitely my biggest disappointment with the msq. So much hype for a throwaway mob boss. The extreme mode was fun enough gameplay wise at least.
Though on the expansion as a whole, think it’s still okay. I do like some of the things and, again, you pointing out the connections really helped out a lot in making it even better, so thanks! :P I’m actually excited to see what happened in post, cause then we’ll get more development and here’s hoping it’ll make things better!
On the whole, I think Dawntrail had great ideas, but failed to deliver on any of them. Wuk Lamat included. And when the main character of the expansion fails to deliver... The whole expansion is incomplete. I also just feel like the story has gone back a level of maturity. It's very much a Pokémon-tier storyline where you're all there to stand and gasp, but we all end up becoming friends with all the races and we all end up living happily ever after in perfect Harmony. That's a huge step back from, say, Garlemald where we go in with the intent of peace, and people literally choose to die out in the cold rather than making peace. You liken the mentorship to Ardbert, but honestly I never felt like Ardbert was a mentor. He was an observer, against his will. And he constantly voiced his frustration with his inability to do anything. Which is kind of crazy because your analogy makes perfect sense, and now as a player, I was constantly voicing my frustration about my inability to do anything. Because Ardbert had a reason, and Dawntrail fails to explain even once why we don't jump in. As for Zoraal Ja... Yeah, your story takes are what should have been in there. It's clear the writers had huge plans for it, but they completely failed to convey that character and I think they must have cut like 90% of his screentime without realizing it.
Great video! On the parallels between Wuk Lamat and Sphere (and lessons for Wuk Lamat), I think one key lesson is about being your own ruler and not just deriving their happiness from the happiness of their citizens. Both say something to the effect of "your happiness is my happiness" (Wuk Lamat in the scene where Smile first plays as she jumps off the balcony and Sphene in the Alexandria dungeon, I think). I saw Sphene as a lesson as to what happens if you take that to the extreme and she is ultimately a warning to Wuk about that.
I'll be honest. Dawntrail's msq almost walled me unlike ARR. The potential of the story/lore means nothing if it's told poorly cause every story can have amazing potential. And considering that the story is meant to be experienced over a video game, it simply won't work well for the player to have such little importance in the plot. Made worse when the plot only works because we sat on our asses doing nothing when by all accounts, we should. I thought Wuk Lamat was silly, but a bit annoying at her introduction, and the sheer screen time alone made me despise her. And she's ultimately at the center of the problem because of the severe pacing issues, choices, and execution the two stories the game tries to tell. But the biggest issue for me is that this expansion is filler. Of the interesting plot threads we got, they were resolved or answered almost immediately and have little impact on the overall story. With only the last 10% really being important. And all that did was effectively give us a boat in the ocean with no destination in mind with the Azem cup and crown.
I hear a lot of people talking about DT setting up the next big story, but... it didn't? In ARR we were introduced to: 3 nations, beast tribes, all Scions, primals, tempering, Zodiark and Hydaelyn, Ascians and Garlean Empire. That's a lot, and those were all completely new story threads at the time mind you. All of them ended up relevant for a long time, were continuously developed and eventually resolved by now. What new story threads were introduced in DT: - new continent; if it becomes relevant again later - a couple new characters; by that I mean basically only WL, if they don't poochie her. All the others are either dead or very unlikely to appear again outside of cameos. Maybe someone else in patches? - the key with Azem's symbol, which is not even new and just continues the Shards storyline from ShB - Alexandria; resolved in 7.0 - S9; will likely be resolved in patches - some new lore about lalas I guess that's it I think? DT is mostly old stuff, and the few freshly introduced ideas and characters don't seem to have much future outside of 7.X. I don't see how 7.0 can be a foundation for anything tbh. Maybe patches, but not 7.0.
You've always been a great level-headed guy, and I enjoyed listening to this take on Dawntrail's story. I'm really looking forward to the patch content!
this video sums up my feelings about this expansion *so well*. I am very excited for what and how the story is going to move forward, especially if its following in a certain someone's footsteps.
15:50 in a perfect world the void storyline from EW would have been postponed and we got proper lead-up for Dawntrail. Everything feels rushed because we didn't get 2 patches from the last expansion as set up.
What Vacation? Outside of a bit of Not-Texas, I felt more like the Wandering Minstrel than someone there to chill out. There's not even a beach to lounge on! (The main city doesn't count) Ardbert COULD NOT help. We, the Warrior of Light, CHOSE NOT to help. The only way this comparison works is if we are being meta about the game itself and the illusion of choice. So I don't think this really matches up. "Not my Problem" is almost finding oneself in Neutral territory - which, frankly, was where I the player was at fairly quickly. I just reached the WL vs. BJJ fight on an alt - and holy cow Miss Kitten repeatedly telling us how much they have learned is so so bad. Who thought that was a good idea? Imagine Emmanellain constantly reminding us to "Protect the carts! I will bravely guard this one from the rear! Don't let the cold slow you down!" in the cart fight. The corner-cutting is not hidden very well this time - a meddling boss? Just tired? Bored? Distracted? The fear in the back of the mind of the players is that CS3 has lost their fastball.
There are no vacation vibes aside from the Look of the City and first zones, there isn't even a beach Episode, it's just 1000 hours of exposition and bad Dialog
Oh my gosh you expressed it PERFECTLY I’m also willing to forgive it a lot for the quality of life and content (femmehroth and housing) updates we got, honestly!
First off, Congrats on the MMO award Jesse, and I am happy to finally see your Dawntrail video. I find it quite appropriate you made the Dragonball comparison, I agree but I also want to draw parallels to Naruto, where by the end of the story, It doesn't feel right to have a sequel where the main character has to fight these weird new villains when they saved the world already. At the same time, While I mainly felt the same way as you regarding the WoL and I also wanted to show off in the story, I don't believe we are that incredibly powerful just yet, We did amazing things for sure but that was with A LOT of help from gods and others, I'd say we are oddly as strong as the characters are in the game right now, Which is like unsynched, maybe we can solo Shadowbringers extremes lol. I enjoyed Dawntrail overall, I didn't quite understand how so many people overly despised it, given that it is clearly a restart and building towards another 10 years of storytelling, I treated it like ARR despite it having elements of Stormblood and other expansions. I also agree that the biggest issue with the MSQ was pacing, there was just too much time focused on Wuk Lamat (they kinda did her dirty) although I expect her to be a recurring character. There were so many others who also needed time to develop like you said, Krile, Erenville, Sphene, Zoraal'Ja etc. I said in my own personal review, I wish that they had dedicated the first half of the story to Wuk Lamat, Koana and Tuliyollal and then the second half for Erenville and the Alexandrian storyline. Jesse hit it right on the head with Zoraal'Ja, His character was so poorly established, I wish they had shown him talking more and his past and his resentment towards outsiders and his family, Why he wanted War so badly etc. As a Sphene, FF9 and Cahciua fanboy I really wanted more from them as well, I loved seeing Living Memory and Solution Nine, and while I think Sphene isn't quite done in the story, with her regulator thing, everything else with them had kinda been wrapped up already. I also agree that the Scions felt out of place, they could've been utilized better or like you said, Completely removed but unfortunately a lot of story decisions have now been influenced because of the need to include them for Trust/Duty Support. The only Scions that truly belonged were Krile, Raha and Estinien IMO, it felt weird to reunite the Scions so soon after Endwalker and most of them come out of nowhere into scenes. But yes, The best parts of Dawntrail and the hints about what comes next with Azem, learning some more lore, The music and gameplay for sure.
Man, Jesse, another banger video. This is so spot on for how I felt as well. I really hope some of your theories turn out to be true, because they sound awesome!
As always, I love these videos, which are the product of thought and reflection, not just "Oooh, this made me mad so I'm going to scream about it for views." You're the best. Never change! In the early part of the expansion, I liked the moments where you, the Warrior of Light, got to pick a line to say to Wuk Lamat to help push her forward, whether it was giving a suggestion or asking a question and letting her realize the answer on her own. That set the whole mentoring mood for me--I'm just the muscle here, but when you need it, I'll help guide you in the sacred art of traveling to different places and talking to people. But as the expansion progressed, those moments got less and less and you were just the person standing there. I feel like if they'd let our voice continue, even if we didn't get to smash problems, it would've been less...agonizing at times. (I swore that if they didn't unleash me and let me start fighting bad guys at a couple points in the game, it would be the start of my villain arc.)
11:55 I feel like Zoraal Ja's belligerent ambition already showed through the whole contest with hints of indifference/sociopathy. But the snakedragon was literally the devs going we need a lvl 93 trial here.
He also tells you straight up in Wachunpelo that he wants to plunge the world into endless war. I think a lot of people must have missed that, cause Jesse is not the first person to say that ZJ's heel turn was a surprise.
Been waiting for this. Glad you had a good time and possible future adventures were enough for you to stay positive. I went in with a similar mentality , lower stakes, less involvement, new characters to take the stage and a lot of world building. Unfortunately the overall execution just wasn't for me, I struggled finishing the MSQ with the pacing and the writing. I constantly felt frustrated with our WoL because he is not a dead ghost that no one else can see like Adbert, the new characters were fine but Wuk got overused and having Scion caricatures around was just adding insult to injury. I really hope the post launch patches are good.
love the video, Jesse!!! definitely a lot to think over with all of the things to come with this new story arc. with this expansion, i'm glad we didn't just get a copy-paste of Shadowbringers, cos then people would probably just say "this is so lazy, they're just doing the same thing they did before.", you know how the internet can be. i feel like this expansion was good at not forcing a Shadowbringers/Endwalker heaviness on us, but also not being as rough to get through as ARR. this at least had comedic moments to entertain us enough. also, i feel like because this is the 10th anniversary expansion, it was kinda like a recap story of the past 10 years to celebrate, and Wuk was just our stand-in, hence us being Ardbert. that being said, as to why we held back during the expansion... we 👏were 👏 on 👏vacation, and i think after beating Endsinger and Zenos back to back, we deserve our *little R&R. (*Lala pun). but, honestly? it wasn't our fight because it wasn't our throne to take. it's Wuk's throne. it was Wuk's test to see if she was worthy, not our test. so i feel like if we interfered, we'd make her path of worthiness null and void, because she didn't do anything to prove she's worthy to take the throne, because we would've done all the work for her, so we had to sit back to avoid that. 10/10 on the video, my dude. can't wait for many more of these in the future! #letlalasride
Fr. Because I actually started playing when Dawntrail was released, I rushed through ShB and EW, and I was so emotionally exhausted at the end that Wuk Lamat was like a breath of fresh air.
Kinda refreshing to hear a generally positive perspective. Even though I disagree, I still appreciate your POV very much. I think there's a lot of good in some of the details but generally the arc was bad. If you measure the msq only, I prefer even ARR over DT. But you have brought me back to being hopeful for future content. For that I commend you.
Been waiting for this! Can only imagine how much you had to cut out of the script to keep it on topic to the meat of what did and didn’t land in the expansion.
Ali and Alphy were there to bring firewood, make social commentary, and to be trusts. That's literally it. I can't think of a thing they did special. As cool as the system is, having to plan for trusts hurt the story.
XIV needs to free the story from the game design. They are too closely intertwined and they are now hurting each other.
The irony of it all is that Alisaie and Alphinaud were perhaps the best characters they could've had to make Wuk somewhat bearable. They could've had her and Alisaie had a heart to heart about looking up to others (Wuk to Koana and Zoraal Ja, Alisaie to Alphinaud and WoL), and how in spite of feeling like one comes short, it's no excuse to wallow in self-pity. Alphinaud on another hand could talk with Wuk about naivety, and how his naivety and self-rightousness costed him and his friends dearly when Crystal Braves came crushing down, but in spite of it all, he still achieved what he set out to do, but he coulnd't do it on dreams and ideals alone (this could also play into Wuks decision to have Koana rule alongside her).
Two best Scions they could've had to help work out Wuk. And they wasted the opportunity.
The weird part is that you could absolutely have had local characters as duty support members, especially as dungeon trusts only require about six to cover all roles
The bigger issue were trials, which never should have had duty support in the first place
the moment when we went to fight zoral ja literally had me in tears because of this. not because the story was good but because i was laughing so hard at how they forced the other scions to be there so you could have the trust party for the trial. the other scions literally just teleport in from nowhere it was really bad and unintentionally hilarious
@@bliczb8772 The weird part is that, though short, the current writers actually leveraged Thancred's and Uriganer's development to Koana when both were speaking of their flaws, struggles, and how they overcame them They don't directly argue or tell him what to do, but do point him in a certain way. It wasn't deep but I thought that moment was pretty good in utilizing bits of lore that came before to enhance a character's development, even if that character is a minor supporting character.
"There's actually something worse!"
*pans to Tataru*
If she figures out how to fight we are fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
@@FrankB1110 Look only to how awesome her Carbuncle was!
@@DanielWalker-jo2kr Unironically her Carbuncle might be the strongest ever.
Tataru is the embodiment of evil , the future final boss of the series.
Why isn't Tataru in Tural with us?
Maybe they're planning something...
A lot of counter-criticism regarding dawntrail seems to revolve around 'this is our vacation' and 'we aren't the main character', but my main complaints about the narrative (other than the broken-gear-stick pacing) are that we didn't get ENOUGH fun vacation vibes or focus on building other characters. I wanted to see more Krile, more Koana, more Erenville, and definitely more Zoraal Ja so he actually felt like a person rather than a training dummy to slap about. It's really sad that almost everything we know about Zoraal as a person is surface level second-hand info from Wuk Lamat.
And we were definitely robbed of dungeon bosses where we spar with Thancred, Urianger and Estinien. When I first saw that the other scions were in a position of competition with the WoL I was really excited but the payoff was never delivered.
I agree. Low key adventure doesn't mean badly written and badly paced. Just means 'low key'. Side quests are often low key and some of them are very well done. The MSQ honestly felt a bit phoned in and lazy.
@@Silvershadowfire Saying something is lazy is the lowest form of "critique" there is, with an equally lazy comment to match. Done. Moving on.
There are no vacation vibes aside from the Look of the City and first zones, there isn't even a beach Episode, it's just 1000 hours of exposition and bad Dialog
I think a lot of us were expecting some bonding with the "vacation" theme. I would've loved to see a bunch more cutscenes like the end of 5.3, tea with Ali, a Sharlayan feast with our friends, wine with Shtola, Uri, and Thancred... yaknow, the cutscenes that humanize the Scions and make them feel like genuine, real people. These cutscenes are some of the most popular ones in the whole game, so it seemed like a no-brainer, and fit the theme to boot....
Yet we got exactly zero of those. Even the campfire cutscene had the Scions as 2D plot mouthpieces to prop up Wukie as the only ally with three dimensions.
A way i thought to fix Zoraal Ja is kinda making us his Zenos, him seeing us and going "ah, a champion of the east. if I am to eventually invade Eorzea, I can prove it by overcoming you." and we have some solo instances against him. He loses, says he will train then comes at us again, but instead of like when we fought Zenos, the gap closing more and more, the gap only widens, as Zoraal Ja's inability to overcome just one warrior from the west starts to really get to him, enough to push him to fight his fathers shade solo to prove he at least surpasses his father, lose then lash out against the judge in the final trial and get disqualified.
It would give us an active role in the relationships of the claimants without making us a central focus, more using us as a way to learn and reflect, or in his case, learn and stew in the fact everything he was told was all just empty promises.
He thinks because the world tells him he's perfect and destined for greatness, the world will obey. But he dosent have that hunger in him like Zenos, he doesn't strive for epic battle, he strives for something Zenos never would: Validation. and you could even let Wuk see the best in him, seeing his drive for validation as something to aspire to rather than the weakness Zoraal Ja sees it as. Dude was cool in concept at the end, just wish they gave him alot more time which as you said could have been given to him if the scions were absent.
It boggles my mind how we had two solo instances against Gulool Ja Ja that weren't really that necessary, but ZERO against the guy who's our central antagonist for over half the game and was horrendously under developed.
@@blueray222 The time skip was a giant wtf for us and our ingame character xD
Man that would have been so much better. Zoraal Ja is a genuine nothing burger of a character.
That sounds like a great idea. And anything that fleshes out his character a little would be welcome.
its kinda funny how a random guy in the internet can make a better writing in a yt comment than the actual multimilionare company
I get where you're coming from about being Wuk Lamat's mentor, but the execution was just not there. With Ardbert, he was forced to watch the repercussions of dooming his world and the people he loved, despite thinking he was saving it. If he could interact with Novrandt, he would have. That was proven with him trying to save people from the sineaters. That's what created some heartwrenching moments that everyone could relate to on some level.
Meanwhile, there was no moment like that with Wuk Lamat. It felt like we were babysitting a shounen character that never really dealt with any kind of hardship. Almost all of her trials were basically solved for her by the WoL, and her "power spike" when fighting Bakool Ja Ja felt super unearned. Then she became the leader and everyone was happy. The end.
Not to mention, the scions being used as supporting characters in a way that betrays everything we've come to know about them in the past 10 years made this story go from falling flat, to feeling insulting. There is no reason Yshtola and Graha wouldn't be begging to get back to the portal to study it the moment we discovered it. There is no reason Alphinaud should be helping seat a clearly naive person as the leader of a continent after the crystal braves. And most importantly, there is no reason our WoL wouldn't have jumped at Zoraalja the moment he "cheated", or at the very least, tried to attack him the moment after he impales his father. Dawntrail was a betrayal of all of the characters we've fallen in love with over the years.
There is nothing wrong with taking a backseat, hell, I welcome it. I would've embraced an actual laid back ARR arc, but Dawntrail did not do it well.
That all being said, now that I've reached the end of your video, I commend your outlook on the future of the game and I do hope they get back to the writing quality we've come to know. I will admit, the way we were just kinda thrown the McGuffin out of nowhere without any kind of build up really put a damper on my excitement because it just seemed like a cheap way to hurry us along to different shards... but some of your theories make me really excited!
I do hope they just learn to take their time with some of these stories. Let them breathe. Yes, they made Emet an S-tier character within a singular expansion, but he had the weight of years of lore and build-up to get him where he ended up.
Valigarmanda and the Mamook arc are definitely my biggest gripes with this story. Vali was hyped up as a juggernaut, a continental level threat, and ended killing 0 people, lit up a few bushes in the mountains, and died 30 minutes later in a remote corner. And afterwards, no one gave a shit about the incident. The fact that BKJJ was unphased and allowed to remain in the competition is ludicrous.
Then in Mamook, we casually solved generational hatred and eugenic practises in an afternoon, with nothing but promises of seeds. The topics are not the problem but the way some of them were handled was deeply deeply unserious.
Errr, that's reductive. It's not seeds vs eugenics. The eugenics were the result of inferior station due to the lack of available resources, chiefly among them was food. They were driven to the practice of blessed siblings as a survival tactic against for which no other options presenting themselves. They couldn't grow food, they didn't have the trading chops of the Pelupelu. They had no other way out.
Until we arrived. Sure the solution is a bit deus-ex-machina I'll grant you that, but by giving them these seeds we both solve that major driving force of their dark project, but also show that cooperation has real benefits.
It's all that additional context that fleshes out the storyline. They way you tell it we just rocked up, handed over some seeds, and left them seeing Kumbaya in our wake. That's not at all what happened.
@@realityveil6151but that is exactly what happened. Nobody questioned it. We walked in and immediately solved generational disgust. Mamook was engaging in age old barbaric traditions of eugenics to breed a winner that would see them delivered out from the jungle below and into a better way of life. All it took to end the plight was proper vegetation that could grow in the insanely fertile soil so that they could do more than just eat bananas and local fauna. It was a Saturday morning cartoon. Meanwhile for example in heavensward it took us the entire expansion to get ishgard to recognize dragons, form a peace accord and lastly end the dragonsong war that persisted for a thousand years. This 80 year squabble that Gulool Ja Ja left behind because he couldn’t be asked to walk go to mamook and help solve the agriculture crisis because he mysteriously realized he would need to make it a trial for the next dawnservant created this problem.
Same happened with shutting down the Endless. Just kinda went along with it
I feel the Twins/Scions where there just to use them in Dungeon Duties haha.
Which if true would be ridiculous. Any old NPC's would work, and no twins/scions would mean more room to introduce new side characters to fill those spots as well. The fact that all three siblings put together could come up with *one* dude to join them, that dude being Jafar Ja who Zoraal Ja didn't even really need most of the time... it made Tural feel really tiny and artificial. Which is also issues I had with Stormblood where Ala Mhigo and Doma both felt like they consisted of like three or four actual people and the rest of the population being cardboard cutout NPCs.
It's always going to be an issue because video game worlds need to be shrunk down and condensed. But it got bad in DT, because we go to a whole new continent and mostly just talk to the same people.
That was kind of my thought too, but I mean the Trust system exists and let us use Scions that weren't there afterwards. Don't see why they couldn't have left more of them back in Eorzea till the invasion happened at the very least.
I think they tried to have their cake and eat it too- they knew people would be mad if the scions weren't there, but didn't actually have anything for them to do. but dangling them in front of us and then taking them away was the worst of both worlds. WoW does that shit all the time with its fan favorite characters and I hate it there too.
@@HellaGust Think having NPCs from the relevant zones being potential dungeon NPCs could have engaged us a bit more with the zone too. Might have been neat if we'd hired a guide to take us up the giant's mountain, and they were a tank/healer/dps depending what we needed.
they were and they shouldve just gave the player minor npcs until we really really needed the scions or...pull a lad, and just have all of the scions on post game trust npc regardless of story involvement
Ultimately I really didn't care about anything that happened in this expansion storywise. I had more fun running around the zones and doing the dungeons. That content was beautiful. Didn't give a crap about any of the characters aside from Shale, the prettiest Elezen in the entire game imo. Oh and Otis was a blast. Loved Otis.
I like Lyse. And I ain't afraid to say it either. the problem with the story this time around is that although we're supposed to be a mentor we don't get any scenes where we do any actual mentoring.
Lyse was relatively minor in SB too. She was there, and her fate was dictated by the story, but it wasn't really Her story.
Tbh, one of my critiques of SB is other than being there, Lyse barely did anything (then leads the parade like she's the hero of the day). Pipin legit did more than her.
It was the story of those two regions far more than anything.
DT was 100% the Wuk show. No one could get a word in without her grabbing the camera, including us.
Wuk is Lyse x10. By now you'd think they'd know the Nepo Baby to Leader arc is a problem.
Replaying SB I really got the feeling that it was an emergency situation and Lyse had no prior aspirations for leading. It wasn't like because of who family is she deserve the role. She knows nothing about her people because she was a refugee who left her homeland as a child and only learned her history through stories. Lyse makes sense to me though I did find her a bit frustrating.
@@seekittycat Those are good points. She had a logical reason for not knowing much about Ala Mhigo. And she got pushed into the role not by her family but by the ex-leader. (Though why she seemed like the best choice - particularly when the Ala Mhigans had previously rejected hereditary monarchy (granted, the ex-king was insane) didn't seem well explained in the story).
You shouldn’t be afraid to like Lyse
How dare you jump scare me with Ardbert's voice now I'm sobbing again.
The difference between Ardbert and what we do is he was a ghost. It's a little bit different when we can physically stop things. So we are basically letting people die, and souls get consumed because it's a learning moment for the new rulers 😅 I understand why people don't mind it. But it's so against my head cannon for my wol. I found myself wishing my character wasn't there at all.
Anyway, it's a very good video. Worth the wait.
He also didn't have to buy the expansion or pay monthly to play. That freeloader! 😉
The only reason why "people don't mind it" is because they turn off their critical thinking skills when it comes to a game that they like.
I'm really surprised that wasn't an instance with us battling up through the streets and towards the palace.
@RockR277 YES. I really thought that scene would have made so much more sense if we stuck around to fight while Wuk goes ahead. Then, after an instance of fighting with bakool ja ja on our side. We go into the throne room to find everything has gone wrong, Lamat'l is crying, which causes the echo to show us what happened.
The plot doesn't change at all. But now there's no dissonance and some much needed action between hours of text only content.
Hind-sights 20-20, I suppose. But there's so many little tweaks throughout the whole story that could've made the entire experience better. Really feels like they needed more time for this one.
I honestly feel that this expansion had a very good premise, a very good lore, but it was written in a very amateurish way.
this is absolutely the case in my opinion. alot of people make fun of tural and point at wuk as the problem but theyre actually symptoms of the fact the script is just awful and feels like it didnt get edited enough.
and im saying this as a person who likes this expansion and wuk. the ideas are good, the characters are good, the setting is good, but the execution was bad and it felt like someone somewhere refused any form of writing feedback.
@@BobbyHopp Me and my FC have a theory, that each person on the writing team had to do a section of the msq and everyone had to complete certain checkpoints (wuk lamat saying she want peace, talking about the local culture, comedy moment). And in the end, everyone put their parts together and made the story.
@Koutakurai I pray to Hydaelyn that isn't the case, because that would mean the team is actively repeating the same mistakes that doomed FFXIV 1.0's development.
You cannot create by committee and just bash everything together and hope for the best. You need a lead, a director, a head, etc to make sure all the elements work together.
@@graffitisamurai I'm also apprehensive, but if you look at dawntrail's writing, there are things there that could easily be resolved with a review, but along the way, something failed.
I cant help but wonder if there were sudden last minute writing changes too.
Like for example with Graha Tia being so standout in the final zone and the fun twins doing next to nothing it really does feel like he was intended to be in the group from square one but someone at SE intervened and forced a script change.
The final zone also having good character dialogue distribution instead of just Wuk also feels very distinct to the point where it feels like its part of a different DT script iteration that was left over.
My headcanon is that eventually, once all of our fragments are brought together, we go back in time even further than Elpis and become Azem, setting in place all the macguffins that we’ll need as a younger WoL and creating a stable time loop. Not being a *reincarnation* of Azem, but the original that would grow enough to survive being Sundered and start the whole thing over again to ensure Etheirys lives on
My theory exactly!
Yeah I have an image of the last scene our WoL will have will be traversing to Elpis to "start it all off" as Azen. I also think Azem created the convocation in general
This is now also my theory, and I love it.
My Issues with Dawntrail:
- Too much Wuk Lamat, give me time to miss you (Let her and Alisaie bond over have smarter brothers (Koana/Alphi) and the stronger role model (WoL/Zoraal Ja)
- Watered down Scion Rivalry during the competition, I really expected a more divided scions with more issues/hurdles then just 1 dungeon
- So many fetch quests with not a lot of action
- Zoraal Ja's Inferiority Complex/Daddy Issues not being explored more
- Gulool Ja's whole existence left unexplained or developed
- Underutilized Scions who feel like they are only present when the plot is needed (Estinien/Y'shtola)
- Lack of Krile development (Which was left till right at the end)
- Smile (XD)
I'm actually thinking that there's a lot more going on with Gulool Ja than meets the eye. I don't think he's actually Zoreel Ja's son at all, unless there was a lady Mamool Ja who was on the train and everyone had their memory of her sucked up, which seems to be the assumption the locals are taking. Betting we find out more about him in 7.1 or later.
I came into this Dawntrail knowing...knowing that we were going to fight against Thancred+Urianger. I was so excited thinking of every way that the fight could go. And it would be a mostly 'fair' fight. True, the game has shown that the WoL could defeat both of them even together, but the game also has multiple occurrences of both of them defeating far strong foes with skilled planning. And Thancred+Urianger knew they would be facing us in the last patch of Endwalker....We didn't know we would fight them until MSQ 91. They had plenty of time to plan how to defeat WoL, Krile, and the twins. But it never happened. It is my biggest disappoint of the expansion.
@@katarhI'm guessing clone or something.
But have you tried talking to Wuk Lamat?
@@katarhmy money is on cloning. Possibly linked to the actions of Preservation as a whole
One thing I really liked that I REALLY hope they put in future patches: The level of your characters classes can change the dialog of others. For example, the food making competition. If your CUL is high, Krile will have a different dialog text. I want npcs, good and bad, to look at your work and see you as either a friend or major threat.
I liked that Krile moment. I hated earlier in the expansion at the HanuHanu when Erenville said we couldn't examine the water because we'd need an alchemist. My level 90 ALC at the time meant nothing
that would be way to much work for basicially flavour text, that doesn't change anything else. Next you want npcs address you differently according to the current class you are. The producers of FFXIV allready said, each expansion is getting more and more bloated because of the former content they put into former contenct. Like new classes or races that have been introduced before.
If you were playing Viper, there was voiced flavor dialog during the first Gulool Ja Ja solo instance that acknowledged your job. @LuriTV
That already existed in the Zero questline in 6.4ish with reaper, made me instantly switch to reaper and continue MSQ on that job
Some of it does; my husband was dueling the Dawnservant as BLM and he proclaimed "I see you've learned the ways of the Viper", and my husband went "Bruh!"
the biggest thing I feel like dawntrail fumbled was that we should have spent a zone with each of the claimants, some of them are under developed interms of their character or story
Honestly, I think ZJ is the only one that really needs more fleshing out
@rajabuta Arguably Koana should have been involved with Shaaloani and there should have been more in Mamook for Bakool JaJa. His turn feels so sudden and his reason comes out of nowhere. Never hinted at or mentioned until just as it's happening.
@@omnilisk279I have a suspicion this is reserved for patches story. I definitely see more Heritage Found/Shaaloani and Yak T'el development.
@@omnilisk279 why would he be involved with shaaloani? He's got a job now 😂
The biggest fumble is that the story contorts itself to have Wuk Lamat succeed, followed very closely by being a morally bankrupt tale of supporting mass genocide
I think a lot of backlash came from Yoshi P overhyping it. He said the Scions would be split in two as they fight on opposing sides, but we just got a bit of sass in one dungeon and remain buddy buddy. We're told it'll set up the next ten years of story but the two storylines basically wrap up in the expansion; there's no simmering strife or background machinations that you see in the other expansions with Garlemald, the Ascians, Uldah, etc. As for the hooks, they're hard to see coming but there doesn't seem to be anything like the Crytsal Tower, references to Doma, the threat of Black Rose, the effects of the Garlean Civil War, Nidhogg's Eyes, Warriors of Darkness, etc. to come back to in the first half of the expansion.
But that's what a lot of people were expecting from the promos. Apart from the key, it doesn't feel like there are any threads or mysteries to follow from base expansion so people are frustrated. If the devs leaned more into the vacation aspect, that we were taking a break before the next big things and maybe dropping some important hooks along the way, I think people would have been more positive about the expansion as a whole instead of being wrapped up in the last couple levels and not caring much about the rest.
Given how much Final Fantasy likes their wars, I think we're setting up for an inter-Reflection war. Before war though, first we need to know the Reflections that will be in this war. Hence the visit to the Void, and to Alexandria (which someone said was the 9th Reflection) and Azem's Key to travel between Reflections at will.
I wasn't expecting anything, but I was still disappointed. The writing was just subpar, and it wasn't because it was a new arc with a smaller scale than Endwalker.
Any story can be good without relying on years of build up and set up, a lot of Shadowbringer's story is self contained and was reaally good. Dawntrail's writing meanwhile felt like it was done by an amateur at some points, with too many extremely convenient plot points, bad pacing, bad dialogues, etc.
There's still things I enjoyed in the story, and I had a good time overall, but the bad stuff leaves a bitter after taste I can't shake off. Hopefully the patches will be an improvement.
you are an dummy if you thought we were going to take a vacation...lol dumbahh
The first dungeon not ending in a 2v1 or 3v1 against thancred, urianger and Koana was a gigantic wasted opportunity. Apparently the inter Scion competition was blowing up some rocks to block our path and calling it a day.
@@joshuayung5158 thats the devs fault for putting that seed in our heads, but like many people stated this xpac wanted to change the formula but didnt want to fully commit because they didnt want to alienate people but it was still the result
In my opinion the expansion would have been better if we got Koana as a secondary protagonist rather than a supporting character. Have HIM deal with the Alexandrians and come to terms with the dark side of unchecked technology and advancement. It would have been a real moment of character growth for him. It also would have done a great deal to relieve people's fatigue with Wuk Lamat. You compared Wuk to Lyse, but Lyse was far more bearable due to only having the spotlight for half the expansion. Let Wuk Lamat be Lyse, but let Koana be Hien.
I agree. Koana is after all, the Vow of Reason. Stands to reason that he too gets his own arc as the other half of the king duo. Also I think Solution Nine suits his vibe better, makes a lot more sense to see him in there rather than Wuk Lamat.
Lyse was actually part of our party even when we went to the Far East, so we did have to 'bear' with her for the entire expansion. Compared to her, Hien wasn't even really even around that much as we went through the Ruby Sea and Yanxia without him, and only got in contact with him at the Azim Steppes.
@@XieRH1988 Even then, Lyse wasn't all that active once you hit Yanxia and Azem Steppe. We spent more time with Yugiri once we reached Yanxia and got our asses kicked by Zenos with her. Hien was more prominent in Azem Steppe and the return to Yanxia. Arguably spent more time with Alphinaud, Alisae and Yugiri in the Ruby Sea since the subplot was centered around the latter.
I think that's the main problem with Wuk Lamat. Lyse's presence by comparison was more subdued and allowed other characters to develop. If we replaced Lyse with Wuk in the Ruby Sea, I do feel as though we'd learn more about how Wuk felt about Sui-no-Sato rather than Yugiri's history with her hometown.
@@XieRH1988 I'm aware Lyse was with us, I said she only had the spotlight for half of the expansion. Even during the Ruby Sea portion of the Doman Liberation arc, she took a backseat to characters like Gosetsu. Point being, distribute the load between the characters and the audience won't find them as grating.
holy shit, an actual good criticism!
The narrative idea of "standing back and advising" would work just fine for a videogame RPG where you could have actual choices that impact the story. The problem is this being an mmo specifically means nothing the player does can have any actual impact, the boiler plate moments we get to even pick an ultimately meaningless dialogue response once in a bluemoon are even kinda rare in the genre. So the narrative concept behind the expansion just doesn't suit this specific genre.
I really liked the general idea of having Dawntrail be a lowering of stakes after the last expansion, and I think it would have worked better if it had instead been an almost anthology style series of smaller quests for each of the scions that was their stories and it could have ended with us getting drawn into Lamats narrative towards the end instead of being there throughout.
The issue with the whole 'advisor/mentor' bit that's been bandied about is that the WoL didn't really do much of that at all. We didn't even give Wuk Lamat any tips on how to fight, she just naturally grows so strong over the course of the expansion... and even ends up (involuntarily) inspiring the WoL to break their limits at the final boss! Very little actual mentoring was done... WoL was just hired muscle and someone to be talked at.
@@cobalt968 I always remember reading and totally sharing the idea of instead of you, us, the WoL , put in Hoary Boulder and you have the same story with little to no change at all.
But yeah, to the mentor idea, it can work in a game when you can pick an option, lets call Fallout, or more fresh Baldurs Gate, then i wouldnt have a single issue being a "Mentor". Yes, obviously every outcome will bring the same result, but those little details can make everything more interesting. Having Guk and two options of dialogues being you're nice, and you're SUPER nice to say an example isn't exactly my idea of having options.
It would have worked if the entirety of the scions were actually doing the advising including the WoL. But there weren't any moments like that. Even the point where Wuk Lamat decide to stop pretending to not be scared, no one brings her to that conclusion and instead she decides it on her own. Which only then the scions say "🙂👍 Good Job"
She legitimately solves all her own problems. And that's the issue. And any problems like her naivety, which Alphinaud gets punished for in ARR, gets completely rewarded.
@@Kanamon22 I did think of this. Replace the scions with Hoary and the gang and the story doesn't change much, could've also freed us up to kinda... float between the claimants I guess? Like experience their struggles, we run into Bakool Ja Ja struggling with the weight of expecations, Zoraal Ja in another comment has us fight him and him failing too many times causes his obsession to go into overdrive, Wuk Lamat's Naivety and Koana's blockheaded "Foreign technology" as we help them over come, (and also drag Zoraal Ja deeper into his failings as we are not the ones who can help him). We could have the duality of Bakool and Zoraal being us helping Bakool ja alongside Lamat and Koana, while failing Zoraal Ja and being too late to help him/causing his decline.
Could've also had the story begin focusing on Scions that were side characters before and have them be fleshed out like Krile was supposed to have. Krile alongside us as a duo floating between groups wouldn't get smothered by Wuk Lamat as much and give her, and the others more breathing room. Her echo would also let us get into some of the more nitty gritty issues a bit more.
@@StormierNik I agree with this. I'm okay with being the seasoned bodyguard who could kill someone with their left pinky--that in itself is a kind of power fantasy--but I (the WoL) don't know anything about leading a nation. But you know who does? Why didn't we bring G'raha instead of the twins, especially when he's been begging us to take him on an adventure for ages now?
I was curious who Zoraal Ja's mother is, especially since everyone thought two-headed mamool ja couldn't have kids, and it was this crazy thing that he was born at all.
And then they did it again with Zoraal Ja's son, completely omitting any mention of a mother! very strange
I just assumed Zoraal Ja's son was a clone. But the lack of any acknowledgment was weird.
I follow the reasoning but I feel like its a bit of a cop out to say "its just ARR again" when the entire community for years has been like "sure ARR isnt great bc they were so rushed and had no money"
it just feels weird to have a dip in cohesive storytelling rn specially when all the surrounding stuff like the raids and the new zones and new music are still top of the line
see, the thing is, I went into DT expecting something like ARR. Which isn't an insult- I actually really like ARR. I've played through it several times. it has a great vibe of being a new adventurer learning the lay of the land and making their mark on the world.
However, I don't think I'd ever play through DT again. Hell, I've stopped watching any of the streamers I used to because I don't even want to watch someone else play this story either.
I find the reasoning flawed as well. ARR wasn't weaker simply because it marked the beginning of the story. Beginnings don't inherently suffer from weaker writing. While it’s true that early narratives lack the luxury of building on prior plot points for immediate payoff, they are also free from the constraints of pre-existing storylines. In fact, conventional writing wisdom often suggests the opposite: it is generally easier to craft a compelling setup than it is to deliver a satisfying conclusion. To claim that Dawntrail’s writing is weaker as a result of it being the start of a new arc feels like a poor excuse to hand-wave criticism
Honestly, I'm so sick of people saying ARR is bad. It's really not. It's clunky, but story-wise, it's very, very good.
While we as the player and WoL already had our "Ultima Thule" moment, I'd argue that Living Memory is actually the Anti-Ultima Thule for us.
Instead of breathing life into an empty canvas, finding civilizations in decline and despair, here we have a civilization where its people believe they've reached paradise, with some having niggling suspicions about its unsustainability, but everyone nonetheless participating - even Krile's parents, for all their disgust at what is happening, still 'participate' in life in Living Memory, rather than openly rebelling similar to what Cahciua did.
....and we're snuffing it all out. We're erasing the bright, colorful pictures on the canvas. We're calling it quits on a world that stopped moving on and accepting the realities of life, all while trying to carry their legacy with us in a far more active, involved way than we ever did for, say, the Ea. In a way, we're still following Emet-Selch's request: Remembering that they once lived.
Thematically, I think it goes hand in hand with Ultima Thule's embracing of hardships while still determining to carry on through them - here, we have a people who rid themselves of hardships, the risk of untimely death, and even the memory of their loved ones after their passing (however imperfect, going by that couple in Living Memory, where the woman never had another partner despite not remembering her lover). We see how wrong it is, and say goodbye, while Sphene is utterly incapable of letting go and living on with the pain of loss, while it eats her up inside, while knowing just how impossible her refusal to accept reality is.
And I'll go even one step further: Sphene is pulling a reversal of Zodiark. Zodiark was summoned to be the salvation of the ancients, at the cost of half their number's lives. Meanwhile, Endless-Sphene, too, is the salvation of her people, the people who worshipped her, who wanted her back, but it's not for her that lives are sacrificed, but for her people. Instead of the sacrifice coming from the people, she sacrifices for them - by burdening herself with the countless deaths of innocents from outside. Again, we put an end to this, similar to how Venat, the previous Azem, did back in the day. We recognize its unsustainability and the hurt it inflicts on everyone involved, and make the choice to take actions that the people involved are incapable of or unwilling to take themselves - and even the Endless who recognize and want this cycle to end simply physically cannot. Sphene, too, is not capable of it, by virtue of her programming through memory. We're told at some point towards the end that she's basically an idealized version of herself - very much like the original, with the original's memories, but we can be certain that certain aspects were amplified, such as her devotion to the people of Alexandria. She's a victim of her very nature.
But unlike Ultima Thule and Endwalker in general, we don't find the people in despair. We don't find *them* clinging desperately to their fake lives in Living Memory. If anything, they're all too happy to pass on. Few of them have lingering regrets strong enough to keep them materialized for quests, even. They pass on with smiles, happy to have been given the chance to clean the slate. None of them who realize what we're up to asks us not to go through with it. They walk into the sunset with their heads held high. Where Endwalker showed us hope amidst despair, Dawntrail ended on a note that taught acceptance of the inevitable, to make your peace with what has to be, and not resent life's ending in the first place.
The people behind all of this, Preservation, are also yet to really feature. We got bits and pieces here and there, plus a dungeon, but we never did find the information Krile was hoping for in Living Memory's 3rd zone. I have the feeling that we'll see that plotline becoming relevant in the future.
I mean that's why it's supposed to be tragic. That's why it was supposed to be hard to do because it is a colonizing organization that is devouring worlds and destroying life with reckless abandoned in order to preserve a couple hundred people.
That's not altruistic. And all of the dead people in the machine don't know that and I don't think that they would choose to be kept alive by killing thousands of other people.
That's the point. But it is really hard to tear down a bunch of people living in harmony and perfect peace while there is war and destruction and death outside of their pretty little paradise.
It's actually like a first world and a third world kind of metaphor that I think you're missing.
But either way I think the arguments are that it happens too fast and there's a lot of loose plot threads that felt like they should have resolved by now but are now kind of moot because of how they moved on.
It's also just a huge bummer to have to go around and say goodbye to people after we just said goodbye to people like a lot at the end of endwalker.
As far as a game having impact and really saying something I think it failed to really do that although you can sift through all the metaphors they gave us.
They were marketing it as a vacation as exciting and new with you know aspects of danger but I thought we were going to ratchet it down not try to keep it at the same world ending stakes.
11:42 Hades and Hythlo were definitely talking about Azem going to a different volcano. It's about that site short story where he uses someone else's concept to make Ifrit out of a volcano's aether, not him going to a fire-aspected shard that Krile's parents would've come from, since the world wasn't even sundered yet, Hydaelyn and Zodiark hadn't been created or fought yet, and lalafell didn't exist yet because the Ancients hadn't been broken up into different races yet.
Krile's parents people came from the Source originally (See: Aloalo Island), the Source is (most of the time) hit by a near apocalyptic event during a rejoining, there's a reason civilization has been reset multiple times over the worlds history. Them finding a relic that appears to have a link to Azem, while living near a volcano is quite a coincidence so I'm with Jesse here.
@@ExileTwilight I don't get how lalafell could possibly exist before the Final Days, Zodiark, Hydaelyn, etc. Azem's volcano situation was before humans were split into races like lalafell.
@@FishSkeleton- DIdn't say they were. The implication is that the Milala found Azem's relic after the Sundering. Remember that the sundering split the world in identical reflections, it didn't completely reshape it from scratch, thus said volcano would still exist, to be settled later. Much of the world on the Source has since been changed by the 7 calamities, but a remote island likely survived the worst of it.
The WoL plays the role of Brock Samson in Dawntrail. We’re a body guard with a ton of backstory who’s there to make sure the kids are safe on their adventure.
Omg...you're right XD that actually sort of makes me feel better
"You want my swords? Go ahead. TAKE THEM FROM ME." *eye twitch*
The WoL should have spent more of the expansion actually being on vacation tho
Literally only tuning in when sh!t hits the fan lol
@@filipvadas7602*chilling on the beach with shirtless cat boys and one of those island drinks*.
"WOL WE NEED YOU!"
*cue WoL changing into gear superman style*
XD
Yikes
If they were going to introduce a character like Wuk in level 90-100 content, I would of liked it if she showed some more competency and have some prior feats to back up her strength. Endwalker set her up like an outgoing hunter, while Dawntrail depicts her as only ever leaving the palace to get tacos, or get her axe fixed, with no prior knowledge of the landscape or cultures. She feels like someone that boosted to current MSQ.
Yes exactly, like she’s been in stasis since she was born and now that we’re here it’s time to learn about her country. I need the writers to understand that watching competent people do things and still fail is exciting. Watching competent people learn things, or be successful, can still be exciting. Wuk Lamat is brand new to everything and it makes her exhausting.
The way you have been working on this thought it was going to be a feature length film! excited to view it
It definitely felt like making one.
@@jessecox Just finished watching and it was great of course, love the enthusiasm. Could not agree more with the take that the majority of the scions did not need to be there. I do think the twins were just there as a sort of a familiar face so it was not just the WoL, wuk lamat, erenville and krile. Excited to see where the story leads!
Something I feel like gets glossed over in the Lyse WL comparison is the length of each expansion. Dawntrail has over twice as many cutscenes as Stormblood, around 21 hours worth, even more than Shadowbringers. That's a loooooooong time to be a side character in a video game. I'm of the mind that she should not have been given a reason to follow us to Solution 9. She's the dawnservant now, her goal is accomplished, she's grown on her journey, etc etc. She should've become the side character while we take over as the main character and deal with the greater threat as it is _our_ area of expertise, not hers.
I've heard this before, that WK shouldn't have gone with us to Alexandria, but removing her undercuts both the ending of her story and the thematic resolution of Sphene. WK has to be there to avenge her father and put down Zoraal Ja. She's there to see how her philosophy of protecting her people gets twisted into an extreme form by Preservation and the AI Sphene.
Agreed on the length. I'm wondering if it seems paced funny because the devs WANTED us to do every side mission that popped up as it did. It would have lengthened the playable parts by a bit. I mean, most of us still have some exclamation points around Tural, I'm sure.
@@diamondmagus I'm aware she had a reason, I'm saying she shouldn't have been given one. Also what does she learn from Sphene? That besieging other nations for the sake of her own is evil? That loving her nation so much will turn her to the dark side of the force? WL may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but you cannot actually think that she would ever entertain the idea of conquest. She is the most peace loving character in her entire nation. I am tired of people talking about Wuk Lamat's character and growth and then just blatantly ignoring what her established character traits are just so they can go "But Sphene and WL are not so different!". Both are rulers and both love their nations, that's where the similarities end. You might as well be saying it was important for Merlwyb, Aymeric, Kan-E-Senna, and Nanamo to tag along because they needed to see what would happen if _they_ loved their nations too much as if it's a lesson that any of them need to be taught.
Also if you're worried about Sphene's side of the equation, how about this instead: We would spend the first half of the expansion helping a character usher in a new dawn for their nation. Then we would spend the latter half with a character whose "new dawn" we ultimately have to stop.
@@prinnyblackblade They definitely wanted people to take more breaks than they did. I didn't struggle from pacing problems personally until I hit Shaaloani, and in hindsight it's because I kept on grinding instead of listening to the NPCs when they said, "You've had a long day. Maybe you should take a break."
(I noticed them, but I didn't mind them, if that makes sense.)
If you take a break when the NPCs straight up say "YO TAKE A BREAK" and go log off and digest what you just saw, the pacing problems become more bearable.
Lyse also isn't always present to point I'd say SB was more about WoL/Alisae than it was a Lyse expansion Alisae got so much growth & Zenos was super focused on us that Lyse was kinder in background for lot of SB story.
I think part of the problem with justifying "hey we're just here to support her" and using Ardbert as an example, is that there is nothing actually STOPPING the WoL from helping. Ardbert at least had the excuse of being insubstantial. In fact without that limitation, him not helping when people are literally dying around him, is often used as a sign of someone being a villain, or at least a coward. The WoL has no such excuse. They're just standing there, thumb up ass, nodding their wobble head nod, and not dealing with the problems, when "supporting" someone in such a situation WOULD be dealing with the situation.
To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom─it is indolence.
@@seekittycatto rush in and think we’re helping by doing whatever we think is right without taking time to get to know these people and their culture is foolish and actually doesn’t help anyone eg the crystal braves half of stormblood and all of garlemald.
This expansion, the WoL rarely does anything if not explicitly asked to. They are guests of Wuk Lamat and trying not to interfere with power struggles of the nation.
You may not like the approach, it certainly seems silly. But that's the reason the WoL is idle so much. Because as Jesse said, the WoL and Scions could end a lot of this immediately.
Yeah apart from lazy writing Ardbert had the legit reason of being a literal ghost for being not able to help, we in DT just got lazy writing.
@@LittleListy21pretty much exactly this. Solving Wuk Lamats problems for her doesn’t teach her anything and yeah we end the threat but we are also just sort of steamrolling in that case and imposing our viewpoint on a culture we know nothing about. There’s a word for that it’s called imperialism and it’s exactly why the WoL shouldn’t be solving Turals problems for them. This also just goes back the everything they told us in previous expansions where eorzea came to rely on us to solve all of their problems and thus we became a crutch for them. It’s why the scions disbanded in the first place. It’s why hydaelyn sacrificed herself. Victory claimed through the strength of someone else is not a true victory. Teach a man to fish and all that.
The twins were added to the story because we need NPCs for trust dungeons.
Personally i would love if we use the Sions in a way of "Hey Alphi? You ok? Ok good, i want to know if you're available cause i need to venture into a unexplored zone and i wonder if you can come to heal me... yeah tell Ali and Urianger, i'll bring my shield just in case", just for dungeons, unless theres some good use for them in teh story.
That's what is seems like! Which is ridiculous because they could have just made Erenville a combatant, and we had Krile and Wukky (and Estinian!) right there -- that should have been plenty. Krile was previously a healer before she became a DPS -- it makes more sense than Alisaie healing!
@@alisongill4425 But Erenville is firmly a pacifist. It'd be a detriment to his character is he was like "Look, i don't like hurting animals. I like documenting and preserving things." "Erenville, we need you for this dungeon" "Yo why didn't you say so? Lemme get my glock and flamethrower to really TORCH these animals to a crisp"
@@TheJamieellis We could have had NPCs from Tural help us
Like Vipers DPS, or a PCT somewhere, there was always a solution that didn't involve the twins
@@Mankryl I fully agree, but the solution 100% wasn't to butcher Erenville's character. That'd be a horrible thing to do.
Personally, I felt Lyse's growth in a way I didn't feel Wuk Lamat's. I think I want my characters to need a therapist, but Wuk Lamat just needs a pep talk and some dramamine.
I'm of the notion that the focus of the expansion should've been the rise of Wuk Lamat to the throne, learning of Turali and the culture. Solution Nine should be put that into the next expansion so we can fully get into more zones and explore more of place, and the build up with Zoraal Ja ruling over SN and Sphene could've hit more especially when Tullioyal gets attacked and Gulool Ja Ja's death can have more impact.
Sadly I don’t think this game’s pacing issues with story can ever be resolved. The game is set up such that there’s always 2 new city hubs, 5 areas and 1 final zone. And somehow the MSQ has to touch all of those areas by any means necessary even if it means shoehorning in plot points to force you to visit each and every place. The writing team will never have the power to say that this next expansion’s plot only needs 4 areas, not 5. The quota is always 5 and the writers got to find a way to make it work.
Shaaloani is the biggest example of this, as it wasn’t even really relevant to the MSQ’s big picture but they made you go there and do stuff.
I have no problem not being the main character. I have a problem feeling like I'm not a character at all, which is how Dawntrail made me feel, which is a huge punch in the gut since I started playing this game after quitting WoW for making me feel the same way.
I wish I could see this expansion through the eyes of the people who liked it. I genuinely loved everything that came before to a life-altering degree. And I hate Dawntrail almost as much as I love everything else.
Yeah following around for the cultural stuff I was fine with, but then once you just sit back and let Zoral ja get up using obvious outside tech and just sit back doing nothing just feels wrong.
@@zero1343 Unfortunately Gulool Ja Ja had told us to not interfere, and at that time I personally thought Gulool Ja Ja would just strike him down again, so confident I was in his abilities. :/ We felt Wuk Lamat's frustration at not being able to stop her father's death perfectly. However, I wouldn't have let Zoraal Ja walk away after using that tech. THAT's what frustrated me.
Thinking about it again though, it makes complete sense, because that fight was a one-on-one duel to the death, and technically, he won. Even if we don't like to accept it.
@@zero1343 All it would have taken for me would have been Zoreel Ja zapping us with a lightning flavored stasis field to make none of us be able to interfere once he went Oversoul mode for the entire scene to make sense. Paralysis is a lightning based debuff.
Speaking of WoW PTSD they even forced us to commit mass murder/genocide now in 14 - a line they crossed in WoW and one I thought I'd never see in 14. If I'm not going to be the MC - and personally I very much do mind not being the focus - then at least don't make me a mass murderer.
@@katarh Hell, why did we even need to be in the room? That bridge is huge we could have still been running across it with Erinville while that fight happened and then we wouldn't even be there to stand around and do nothing. Just show the fight as a "meanwhile..." cutscene. Such an easy fix the writers didn't do
How I feel about the expansion as a whole is like: They made a really good setting, and a solid first draft of the story. But then they seemed to have difficulty fleshing out that story, further editing the draft and so on. A few examples I will point to being Bakool Ja Ja, his story is heavily based on him doing awful things, because that's what's expected of him, and at no point, until the very end of his arc, is that shown.
And take Estinian, his inclusion into the story was 1. doing the trailer fight, and then saying hello in the 4th zone. He may as well not have had a single line of dialog.
I felt Krile lacked purpose in this story where she was suppose to be centered. I felt the entire Mamook part was dealt with to quick, (Bakools dad doesn't get any line after getting called out, but can still attend the crowning, despite his crimes), and much more.
I also do believe that the writers had difficulty telling this story due to how FF14 has chosen to follow such a ridged style of delivery. Where we can only advance to different zones at a set pace, meaning that places where story wasn't all that necessary, like second half of 2nd zone was too long, while the aforementioned Mamook part, being only the second half of zone 3, was too short for what it was trying to do.
Yep the kidnapping part was terrible
I think out of all of these I mind Estinien the least. Him just travelling around, hanging out and being a cool dude feels great for him.
General pacing issues kind of permeate the whole thing though yeah. Bakool Ja Ja doesn't get the development he needs, Mamook is sort of glossed over, not to mention Zoraal Ja's immense lack of focus in part 1 of the story.
IT WAS FORETOOOOOLD
Agree with a lot of your points. The bringing the Scions when they are needed would match so well with Azem calling on their friends to resolve things.
*Puts on tinfoil hat* Azem definitely set stuff up for us to find and we have to become whole because we are Azem's past. Our future is to go back in time and become Venat's replacement this completing the loop and the game.
It's quite cathartic seeing such a lorehead and positive guy like yourself share some of my frustrations with the expansion (pacing, implied stuff versus shown, unsatisfying writing choices regarding consequences) especially as the fandom has made me feel like I'm wrong for feeling let down by this expansion! Thank you for posting this and for sharing some honest and heartfelt critique - critiquing what we love is super important. I'm hopeful for the patches, really hoping they cook with those 🙏
Really? I feel like I'm inviting people to call me a SE plant or a dupe (both of which have happened!) for thinking it was good - not great, but good - and that there are a lot of positives here that should improve and be executed more smoothly in future expansions. Perhaps the problem is that people are completely alienated by measured takes.
@@serisothikosI'm less on the positive side of my experience with the expansion but I think it mainly comes down to FFXIV fans being afraid to critique something they love. Critiquing something doesn't mean it's bad, or The Worst Expansion Ever!!! but it means you can look at where it went wrong, and what could have been done to improve it. I think it did a lot of things well, but it was overshadowed by clumsy writing that felt like there was a lack of care.
Does this mean I hate FFXIV? No! I just think it could have been better. And these kinds of measured takes are absolutely the ones that get drowned out by those who think the game is perfect AND those who think it's the worst.
I'm in agreement with lots of your critiques; my biggest one, as Jesse points out in the video, is how scot-free Bakool Ja Ja gets off for unleashing what's essentially a natural disaster. Yeah, it gets resolved in the best way possible, with us killing Valigarmanda so they don't have to worry about resealing it, and then Bakool gets his very fast backstory, but still. I'm really hoping they touch on it in upcoming patches. Having him serve out his sentence in the Landsguard.
Meanwhile I've been hearing nothing but complaints about Dawntrail. It's been refreshing to see Jesse actually enjoy parts of it, because there's some players I know who're frothing with hatred for DT. I completely agree with his stance, couldn't have said it better myself.
What spaces are you in where the people mostly enjoyed the expac because I'll trade you places. The complainers and media illiterates spouting shallow and often regurgitated takes has been obnoxious
I don't mind resetting the stakes. But what I love about Final Fantasy is traveling with a party of characters. And dawntrail was almost completely Wuk. It was missing the dynamic of a group of characters (and your character)
Yeah it showed that a lot of FF's story isn't just one character, it's the whole party. FF10 isn't just Tidus, but his relationship with Yuna, Auron, and the whole party, not to mention his relationship with Jecht/Sin
If Tidus hogged all the screen time, didn't let Yuna or the others have time to shine, and got everything his own way without struggling, he'd be a lot less popular.
And some people already don't like Tidus.
Besides the action combat, my biggest problem with FFXVI was that it was a story about one dude, and everyone else was essentially a temporary member (besides his dog I guess). I thought it was antithetical to the whole point of the FF series.
Maybe the producers of these two games should get together and figure that out between them. Hmm.
exactly...i want to get rid of the scions...i want new people to hang with...sure graha and the twins are nice but we dont need them around everywhere
See, this is a fair criticism. I wish we'd had more banter with Thancred and Urianger whenever we bumped into them, even a bit of friendly sparring as a solo duty. (Obviously we as the WoL weren't going to go full-on fighting against them, because we would wipe the floor with them and both we and they know that.) That bit in the first dungeon where they're like, "oops, we accidentally blocked the shortcut, looks like you'll have to go the long way round"? I wanted more of that. Not full on ugly fighting and drama, but, competitive snark. I wanted to get in their way a bit, too. I wanted some snarky dialogue choices of my own to fire back at the two of them. I'd even have loved a callback to the "Uh... Kupo?" joke from Shadowbringers, perhaps in response to Koana or Thancred saying "Well, what do you have to say to THAT?"
@@emceen8566 no more scions...they are not worth the extra dialogue
My main issue with DT is that the dialogue quality got a considerable downgrade compared to ShB & EW. You can feel it was missing that Ishikawa touch. And I agree with your critiques. Illogical excuses to make our WoL not act in situations which are sensible for him to act in. Also, DT's story concept was really good. If the execution was more tight, with better dialogue and pacing, it could've hit the emotions way more. Especially the last zone. Living Memory could've reached that ShB or EW level. It's still good and emotional, but it was missing that special something.
Oh this is ridiculous. Ishikawa didn't fking one woman write your favorite moments.
I can guarantee you half of your favorite moments in previous expansions were written by one of the guys you are currently trying to trash talk while praising Ishikawa, and I can guarantee you some of your most hated lines were probably written by Ishikawa at some point too.
Hell she concepted and wrote Smile, the song everyone is dogging on. And then Koji wrote the English lyrics based on what she wrote.
Games of this size have *writing teams*. The lead writer isn't a all powerful dictator they just steer the general direction. Ishikawa in her current position has actually more control than she had as lead writer and everything in DT she would've signed off on.
Everything you love about previous stories is equally because of the entire writing team's influence, and everything you hate about DT is equally on Ishikawa's shoulders along with the rest of the team.
@@TheDarkFable Clearly the elements that were present before and no longer (not just ishikawa) made the difference, so the point still stands
They have 10 years of experience writing this game and it feels like it was all thrown out the window. There's a distinct shift in the gondolla scene, it feels like it was written by someone completely different from the rest of the expansion
@@vaan_ You get it bro, it's so obvious the Gondola scene is written by Ishikawa and then the entire writing shifts agains to pre-gondola after it LMAO
Thanks for calling out the bad culture thing, because i felt super pissed and uncomfortable when Solution 9 just continued drinking peoples souls like a pepsi from a vending machine post DT, while Wuk Lamat was like "eh, it's their culture, the morals be damned" [Wtf btw]
And then WL marched forward to kill Zoraal Ja because of his 'rule the world' culture. Remember, Wuk Lamat? "Morals be damned"?
They left this part to be wrapped up in the post-expansion I believe. Arcadion is already addressing it - WoL gets a chance to stop fighters using souls if he wins. You bet I fought hard in Arcadion.
However, think about it. Every single person willingly put on a regulator knowing their souls will be collected and used for another when they die if they do. This would be no different from volunteering post mortem organ donation here on Earth. Many people still do it. A life for a life. If it was your mother saved by a stranger's willingly donated soul, you wouldn't be as against it. Might even thank them, inside your heart. The thought that it's an eternal soul that should have been reborn makes me uncomfortable yes, much like having another person's organs inside me had I taken a transplant from a dead person, but.... it's practical, it works. (Of course, Arcadion was using souls for entertainment, which is a totally different problem altogether)
@@applepie9806 I dont think it's quite the same since they forget anyone dying, and likely dont know where the souls come from.
Not to mention, we have more context than they do when it comes to how souls work. By turning souls into Aether you prevent that soul from being reborn. Would people still donate organs if it prevented them from living again in the future? I know i wouldnt.
At the end of the day the biggest sin this expansion committed is nothing happened. The things that did happen were self contained developments that will never affect the overarching narrative. This was the very definition of an episodic story that maintains the status quo, as it were.
We got the key that might help us open travel between the Shards, so I wouldn't say that's nothing...
You've clearly articulated the critiques I've had with the expansion, but also, you've clearly expressed all the EXCITEMENT I've felt, too! There's a lot of good stuff ahead, and honestly even when FFXIV's story is at the "well that's pretty alright but could be better" level, it's still a GREAT time overall.
Also all the battle content absolutely slaps, I'm having more fun actually diving in and hitting my buttons than I have in ages, woooooooo
Doing those dungeons first time through on launch and having to use tank LB in *dungeon bosses* felt amazingly refreshing, honestly. Even 2 months after launch thereabout, getting a group of newbies for the lvl 99 trial can still end in getting wiped.
I always like it when content requires you to engage with it. Battles being story-battles is not excuse to not throw fun stuff at the player to make them think "oh, what's this now? How does that work".
My biggest beef with the MSQ was the 2nd half. It was a perfect time to focus on Erenville and Krile, fleshing out the Northern continent and more about Alexandria from people who had a much more personal connection to it. But it had to be Wuk around evey other corner even tho the Rite was over and a interdimensional threat from a shard became the villain.
We learned of Krile's past, altought it felt like a couple of seconds of moments it happened, we may still get to visit her homeland one day
@@ardunodragner1943 We do. It's called Eorzea. Lala's are from Eorzea. They're very explicit that the Milalla are from the Source
@@ValanwayAnd we've been to Aloalo Island, one of the southern islands that Lalas migrated from.
The Milala lore did throw me for a loop too though.
I was also hoping for more Erenville and Krile focus as we went through the second half. These are characters we have history with and it felt like we mostly glossed over what could have been their emotional moments to keep rushing forward.
Honestly I think burning through Wuk’s entire arc in a single go means she is likely not showing up much past 7.3. The writers likely knew it and wanted her whole arc out there before she becomes a nation leader we see rarely if ever and mostly in side quests.
Great video, Jesse. I had been looking forward to what you going to say.
Between FFXVI and now Dawntrail, CS3's really been in the line of fire lately for pacing issues. They've always had that to some degree, but had been afforded more grace by fans due to factors like being beholden to FFXIV's MMO trappings along with the ongoing acknowledgement and pruning of extraneous early quests. I know that the official stance for Dawntrail is that it was meant to be a testbed for future story direction, but there needs to be a tighter editorial hand somewhere. It's not just the second expansion in a row stapling two expansion-worthy premises together, but also how CS3 writers handle the rise and fall of story tension. I'm not sure what the solution is, but when Grinding Gear of all channels had a mini crisis-of-faith with the cooking story pacing post-Valigarmanda (although the second half of that zone naturally roped them back in), I think that speaks to some systemic issue the current approach is running into.
i had a whole thing written up but my biggest gripe is that dawntrail felt like it told more than it showed. there's other problems, of course, but i think that's the biggest one. even when we are shown something (after we've been told about it), it doesn't go deep enough.
I appreciate this point of view of the expansion. I REALLY struggled to get through the MSQ and was absolutely scared for the future patches. Now seeing it from this perspective I can have a somewhat appreciation for it and actually look forward to see how it goes from here.
The WoL being a mentor could of easily worked, but we really needed more moments actually mentoring.
Ontop of it, it would of helped of Wuk was a more likeable character. Wuks intro in Endwalker I actually liked her personality and how she seemed like she would be, but getting into EW they really made her grating and annoying. She loves her people but she doesn't know anything about them? It just makes no sense at all. If they wanted that angle they would of needed Wuk that her words were empty and she would actually need to learn about her people before she could claim she really cares for them and understands their troubles with her changing to reflect that, or given they wanted her personality the way it is, have her already knowing about her people with her shown to be far less ignorant and effectively teaching us showing she really does care about them which would make her come off far more genuine at least about her cause.
That doesn't fix the side with Sphene at all, and it doesn't fix her flaws and I still think she would be an overall disliked though perhaps far more tolerated character, but still how she was approached at first really did a good job of destroying any and all care I had for her as a character and I'm not someone who cares even if the WoL takes a backseat, hell I'm the person who thought it would be better if the Scions were mostly absent the entire story besides those more directly involved like Krile or who were supporting the other heir.
Those weren't the scions, those were cardboard cut outs with speical guest graha on a boat.
Dawntrail feels like it was designed to give you the stream viewer experience where you're stuck watching someone else play through the story while you offer emotional support.
I'm not kidding.
I came out the other end of DT I think in about the same space as Jessie. I didn’t hate the story and saw what they were going with (minus all the experience and nuance that Jessie pointed out in the video), and came out going “it was fun, not the best but this IS a new story.” I think the one thing Jessie nailed was pacing; when you think about that it makes a lot of sense all the seeming hiccups the plot has. Great work Jessie :)
Now I can't speak for others on this, but Dawntrail is the most disappointed I've ever been in FFXIV's story. It feels to me like the devs gave up before they even got started. They had this idea in their heads that nothing they could do would measure up to past experiences, and so they didn't even try.
In reality, Expansions like Heavensward and Shadowbringers were 80% original story focused on a new land we had to explore, with only the beginning and ends being their connections to a grand narrative. So they've managed to do it before, and all they had to do was fill in that last 20% with new ideas.
Then there's the idea that they wanted Wuk Lamat to be the main character, which I don't know of anyone that thought it was a bad idea. It could have been great to guide and help someone stumbling reach their potential. We don't get that however. Wuk Lamat just goes from terrible to unreasonably good without out aid. All while we stand off to the side occasionally nodding. It wasn't that we weren't the main character, its that we weren't a character at all. It felt like every single situation that happened could have been solved without us.
Then in their attempt to make Wuk Lamat the best there ever was, other characters like Krile, Erenville, and even Sphene, all suffered massively. Because for all the focus they put on Wuk Lamat, she basically doesn't grow as a character, and judging from the interviews, they knew she didn't. So everyone around her suffers because they try of quantity over quality.
Everything is tied to the MSQ maypole, so it also brings down many other aspects of the game. I found myself either entirely uninterested, or quickly losing interest in any dungeon of trial we went into because the story would continue with or without me. One of the most egregious for me being the solo instances, where your participation isn't even necessary, only your survival. The only cool thing you get to do in the entire 7.0 story is fight the Dawnservant the first time.
It becomes even more upsetting to me, because having recently finished up every piece of side content in Dawntrail, every single other piece of writing is up to the standard I have come to expect from this game. With great world building, characters, and fun things to do. Why is it I came out of the Role quests and raid story caring about the people involved more than anyone involved in the MSQ? How is it an afternoon with the Arcadion made me care more about the people of Alexandria than anything in the last two zones did combined?
I appreciate this take on Dawntrail. I found a lot of things to love in Dawntrail, and they also helped me look past some of the things that you've mentioned that may have not "hit the mark" exactly. It was also really cool to hear some of your theories or things that you pieced together from your knowledge of the lore- I knew something was familiar about that portal but didn't make the connection to Nier until watching this, and that, as it did for you, immediately filled me with even more excitement to learn about all that is to come. Looking forward to seeing how things play out and continuing this suspenseful journey!
I feel like I have seen nothing to convince me how Zoraal Ja get so psycho even after a "30 years later" as all I saw was one person begging him for more land, and that he was defeated by smocky dad. Assuming dad was good dad base on Wuk, how did his own son grow up to be like that?
What made him feel like he has to proof he is a miracle? Where did he get the idea to make people appreciate peace through war?
Even Asahi got more back stroy then him and he was the thread for almost half the story.
The part of him proving the miracle was explained in Tural's major city AFTER you beat him in his lvl 99 fight. Wuk Lamat and Koana talk about it when you are walking around town together. It's not in a cutscene, let alone voiced, so it's pretty easy to miss.
Apparently, because Zoraal Ja was born to a man as legendary as his father, on top of being the result of the impossible circumstances of being the progeny of blessed siblings, as well as being the eldest of three siblings, the people of Tural expected Zoraal Ja to be every bit the match for his father, especially in terms of accomplishments, and thus saddled him with the weight of expectations. Expectations Zoraal Ja could never hope to meet. His inability to meet the expectations of the people thus pushed him to extremes time and time again, resulting in us having to kill him.
@@Dragonpit Well there is the problem. It's not very helping to have them "explain" why THEY THINK their brother when crazy (after his was defeated non the less) without showing us players even once how did any of the pressure affected him.
It's just not very convincing storytelling to me. I don't feel like knowing Zoraal Ja any more than the point when we beat the 93lv trial. Or the fact that where is his mom and where is his son's mom is still in the air.
It's there if you understand what he's going through and read into the scenes he's in. Eldest Child, Head of the City Guard, LITERAL ONLY CHILD TO HAVE BEEN BORN TO A TWO-HEADED MAMOOL-JA WHO IS ALSO THE KING, it's kinda obvious he's been hyped up over and over to being this prodigy, this borderline chosen one etc that he's not dealing with the pressure well. He can't talk about it, because then he feels he's seen as weak and then the reputation/image of the child prodigy, born with the best of both halves of two mamool-ja tribes in one body with one head, shatters. That's why he's aloof, he doesn't want anyone to get close to see him not dealing well with this. And that insecurity turns to bitterness after losing to his Fathers in their prime, which then festers over 30 years.
@@TheJamieellis Exactly - and to build on this, Zoraal Ja just isn't very intelligent. He knows it, too. Whatever philosophies he recites are bored into his head by his sycophant advisor who thought he'll be the Aristotle to his Alexander, but he got got without even reaching an inkling of his goals. So without any real guide, Zoraal Ja is just aimless warrior, resolve without reason - as directly shown in his boss fight where he assumes a two-headed form with one head missing.
This isn't a Zenos case where on top of being a combat monster, Zenos was also somehow a highly intelligent researcher. Zoraal Ja is just brawn - and since he doesn't speak much, he can keep the illusion that he's worthy all the praise and titles heaped on to him, when in reality he'd be much more suited as a general of armies in service of a wise ruler. That is his tragedy - because of all these expectations and titles, he cannot settle for that. He must be the best, despite not being qualified. So he does what such a person can do - wages war and hopes it'll work out.
An exceedingly safe review. Well done.
My issue with the story of Dawn Trail is that they decided to go straight to another world ending threat for the climax. They say they wanted to have DT be the start of a new arc, well they could have split the story over 2 or 3 different expansions. First expansion we are just coming to the New World as an adventurer for hire with Wuk Lamat. The Scions and Twins arent there at all, and the entire expansion is about the succession trials, and us exploring in our off time to find clues to the Golden City for Krile. At the end of the expansion Zoraal Ja is rejected as successor by his Father due to not learning anything or something; so he takes his most loyal followers into Xak Tural where they form a revolutionary group in the hills - striking convoys and taking overoutposts that are loyal Tulliyollal.
The second expansion is about us essentially doing a reverse Ala Mihgo / Dohma campaign where we explore and try to weed out the Zoraal's group; freeing communities from his rule as we go. Towards the end in desperation he would run deep into the Yok Hoy ruins in a cave that he was using as a base and come across the gateway to the golden city. We end up being too late to stop him going through it - running into the ruins just as the portal closes.
Third expansion would be a more expanded version of what we have already for Alexandria and the invasion. Like Stormblood with the liberation arcs the story beats for it are there, but really need the time of a full expansion to be told properly. Not shoved into the last third / half.
Wasn’t biggest fan of the MSQ of this expansion… but… I have confidence the next expansions beyond this one will be great.
I like your takes Jesse. I’m definitely down for an Azem-centric story.
FEATURING MORE KRILE PLZ!
Thank you Lil JC, for your refreshing perspective in this review and your long form live streams. As one who enjoyed the story as a way to escape real life loss, it was nice to hear all the theory crafting and lore you had to share.
As one of my Fc mates put it the whole thing felt like FORCED time off and not a real vacation. Definitely agree with your points i just hope we get better writing when they tackle the Azemvengers bit if that doesnt land well then im not sure if alot of people will even come back after this break in DT. DT should have been only ARR not every ex mashed into one no wonder it felt so rushed.
It definitely wasn't a vacation by any metric.
Just wanted to drop a line and let you know you kinda realigned my headspace about the expansion. I was stuck in "I hate Wuk Lmao" mode and you've given me some much-needed perspective. Thanks ♥
My issue with the whole Wuk Lamat focus is that there is way too much of it and way too much of her. Pacing is all over the place - paradoxically, it feels both too slow and far too quick. Spoilers below, so read at your own risk.
Wuk Lamat starts as that badass, strong champion who demolishes enemies effortlessly on the Isle of Haam, only to immediately revert to scared, wide-eyed fledgling that has constant bouts of sea sickness and cannot even dent Bakool Ja Ja despite giving it her all, only to utterly demolish him via (presumably) a surge of Dynamis and a severe breaking of her own limits some four levels later, not even halfway into the story. Which happens immediately after she is kidnapped by the fella and was helpless throughout the whole ordeal. And worse yet, she then retains that power up, immediately gaining another one in the next solo duty a couple quests later. And then, once more, literally breaks reality and shears off solid ten percent of the final boss's health right at the end of it all. Where did all that power come from? We don't know. It definitely wasn't the journey she went through, because she was weak all throughout it all until she suddenly wasn't. And Dynamis is temporary, it's a sudden power surge that fades as soon as it comes about. The power creep for Wuk Lamat feels too rapid and incredibly unearned.
And at the same time, the story crawls forward in a glacial pace throughout the first half of the main scenario. At first, it's refreshing - we get to learn about the Pelupelu and... sort-of about the Hanuhanu, despite the differences between them and Vanu Vanu being really miniscule, so we don't really learn a lot there. And then we do the same thing with the Moblins... and then the Yok Huy... and then the X'braal... and then the Mamool Ja... and then the denizens of Yyasulani... and then the people of Alexandria... and then the Endless, culminating in a flashback Final Boss Origin Story Dungeon volume three (Shadowbringers and Endwalker did the same thing) - which is way too much and slows down the entire story to a crawl. Nothing happens, we just go through the same story beat nine times within the same expansion. Ten if you include Dinosaur Texas, though at least nobody is holding our hand and steer the exploration this time, which itself is very refreshing. And then, at the end of each storyline, Something Happens and we immediately resolve that Something. Be it Wuk Lamat's kidnapping in the Kozamaukan cliffs, Valigarmanda being released, the Mamool Ja eugenics program or what else have you - after the glacial pace of the Let's Get To Know These Folks!, things happen suddenly and are instantly handled. From a leisurely stroll, we're chucked into a rocket-powered shopping cart, sent hurtling at breakneck speeds, only to come to a screeching halt within minutes. It's the storytelling equivalent of whiplash.
Wuk Lamat being the focus also means there was little attention given to everybody else. The story was meant to be about Krile's family and origins - of which we see two flashbacks and one excruciatingly awkward scene. It was meant to be Erenville's journey as well - for which he just kind of tags along as a Swiss army knife of doohickeys and a resident problem solver in one, only to have his mother's plot condensed within the final three levels of the expansion, for which he is majorly absent. We're following in the footsteps of Kettenramm (a.k.a Handsome Squidward - I can't be the only one who made that comparison) only for him to barely be there and then disappear almost as soon as he suddenly appears, only to then Be There during the invasion. Koana felt like a secondary protagonist, only to then be reduced to a supporting character that cheers Wuk Lamat on from the sidelines. Zoraal Ja felt like he would be that one character we would need to butt heads with eventually... only to barely exist in the story at all. We were told he MUST BE STOPPED before Dawntrail even came along, only for him to exist in a time limbo for nearly all of the story, with barely any shred of insight into what drove him and why, and absolutely no attempt made at making him change his ways. He was just The Enemy to be defeated.
On the flipside... Sphene is the character with the second most voiced dialogue lines in the game, despite being absent for 75% of the story. Wuk Lamat has more voiced lines than the next three spots on that list combined, Sphene included. Krile and Zoraal Ja are eighth and ninth respectively. The disproportion of focus is jarring here and contributes greatly to Wuk Lamat's infamy as the character who just won't shut up - and, in my opinion, reflects a grievous issue with the character: there is way too much of her. I get that she is the protagonist, and Sphene the antagonist and Lamat's warped reflection (perhaps literally - who knows?) - but there is so much of each of them condensed into such a short tale that I became tired of their antics by the end of it all. Especially since they barely change throughout the journey and continue yammering on about the same things - Wuk Lamat about how important it is to get to know everyone (despite affording no such chance to Zoraal Ja) and Sphene - how benevolent she is and how sad she is that we have to die for her benevolence. It feels like hammering home something we as players understood immediately. The nail is well embedded in the wood now, there's even a depression where the hammer keeps striking. And it gets deeper the more we hear the same things being said.
Which is a shame, because I quite enjoy the vacation from being the world's warden. My annoyance with the story comes from a place of love. I want to love Dawntrail and what comes after. I hope Square and Yoshi learn from the feedback of this expansion (Yoshi P. already appears to be learning, as per his interviews - which is great!) and deliver to us an amazing continuation of the FFXIV saga. Fingers crossed.
and then, in the final battle, wuk lamat does more dps with on attack than the entire party, making her 10x stronger than endsinger and even more stronger than the WOL
imagine a story friendly fight between the scion teams, while the new cast just watches mouth open. and then bakuul thinks "no way I am gona defeat THAT", and then releases the prisoned monster. like with some logic behind what he does, not just a mustache twirling villain with evil laughing and then a 180 turn
Everyone talks about pacing and character focus. But rarely do I see authenticity, plausibility or believability be mentioned.
I guess for me, I just didn't feel like I inspired much. Wuk figured almost everything out on her own with us giving approving nods or one liners here or there.
Unfortunately, being a mostly silent protagonist kinda soured this because we couldn't give an inspiring speech like Ardbert. We didn't step in to offer up our axe like he did when we were at our lowest- she actually came in to help us. We mostly just sat back and let things take its course, lending a small hand when needed, but not actually doing anything that would help her grow.
I appreciate this video. I am not one to follow XIV lore that much, so having a refresher course every once in a while is really helpful.
I love your optimism, Jesse... focusing on the things you liked. But I can't give a pass to the terrible, amateurish writing... especially in a game where story is "THE THING." Calling them on it is the only way we get the amazing moments you mentioned to happen again.
I also have to disagree with you on the arc building. ARR did far more to build the ongoing story than did DT. For example, ARR introduced the beast tribes, the primals, the Garleans, and the Ascians... all major threads... threats to worry and wonder about. Threads that were left open to build upon.
What open threats did DT give us? For the life of me, I can't name a single one. Zoraal Ja was resolved, Bakool Ja Ja was resolved, Sphene and Alexandria were resolved, Valigarmanda was resolved.... every threat they introduced was nipped off and tied up in a little bow.
The only open thread given was Azem's dimension hopper... which means you could literally tell someone "Hey, you get a dimensional mcguffin with Azem's symbol that was once held by the people of the South Sea Isles..." and they could literally skip the rest of the expac. None of the rest of it matters going forward with the story because everything else is introduced, escalated, and resolved...all within the confines of this one expac.
I cannot get over how ham-fisted the story decisions were either... like how the abduction happened after Earthenshire, or the death of Gulool Ja Ja, which should've occurred with only Wukie present and then shown to us in the Echo...the writer had Krile have an Echo multiple times, but then apparently forgot the WoL also has it and that it's actually a supremely useful narrative tool... kinda like leaving one of your best horses out of the race because you forgot it was in the stable. The impact would've been far greater had Wukie been alone with Zoral Ja and her father when the fight happened....
In the end, the story felt like a teenager's first attempt at writing a fanfic... jamming and shoving plot points in forcefully instead of incorporating them organically... like using a wrecking ball to force a square rod through a pinhole. Like yeah, you got the plot point in there... it ruined everything else in the process, but you did get it shoved in there.
That enormous decline in writing quality is basically unacceptable in such a narrative-heavy game... and after the masterful arts of Ishikawa, the whiplash is extreme.
Well we also have sphene’s regulator to worry about in addition to the azem key. Also sphene told us something right at the end. So there are 3 threads dt set up. Not great but its something.
As for the writing, it wasn’t any worse than stormblood imo. My biggest issue was the pacing. Did we really need 3 whole zones and half the expansion for wuk to become dawn servant? I feel like they could have wrapped that up in 1 zone. 2 max. And Texas didn’t even need to exist. Literally nothing happened there. We fixed a train track, stopped a gang and made the train into a bomb. That’s literally it. The last 2 zones were endwalker tier imo. So good. If they instead paced the story as 25-30% dawn servant trials, 70-75% war with Alexandria and more emphasis in Kiryle and Erenville’s stories, it would have been a great msq
I'm not upset at being a henchmen for Wuk Lumat. In my opinion, the henchmen are almost cooler and more exciting than their employer.
I'm upset that as a henchman, we don't do anything special, it didn't feel like we were being taken seriously by the antagonists or protagonists. At best we are known for being pretty powerful but it never seems like anyone is making moves around us working for Wuk Lumat. We just stand around and watch like a basic goon instead of one of the lead henchmen.
Probably one of the most fair and even handed assessments of this expansion
I think it wouldn't have been so bad for me if Wuk Lamat wasn't so naive....maybe ignorant is the better word. Preach made a point about her living in this nation and basically knowing nothing of its people that I completely agree with.
I agree with you on most points Jesse. I understand what they were going for, and like you I am really excited about what's to come.
But I feel like, for all the flaws you note, the biggest issue was their usage of the characters. It's not just an issue -- it's a blaring alarm that I am shocked the devs didn't hear during the development.
From the sinful underuse of the scions, to the sheer overuse of Wuk Lamat - a serviceable character who due to the constant overexposure I ended up despising by the midpoint. Whenever she was off screen, I was like "oh she's not so bad, I kind of like her!" and then she turns up again and I'm like "oh for fucks sake, whyyyyy!", to the point of yelling "No!" when she turned up in the final trial. It's such a shame, because it didn't have to be this way. Most people I play with liked her until the overexposure set in.
Honestly, I WISH it was ARR again. I can replay ARR on an alt and enjoy myself. My second time through Dawntrail I was skipping cutscenes like it was my job. Even cardboard cutout ARR-era WoL felt more *connected* to everything than the cardboard cutout Dawntrail WoL, which is my real problem with DT. I love overthinking about my characters and stuff, and Dawntrail gave me virtually nothing to latch onto the way every other expansion (plus ARR) did until the very end.
I'm still optimistic that the patches will be good (partly because the raid series immediately showed that SOMEONE writing for Dawntrail remembers how to write a fun story where it feels like the WoL actually does need to be there), but man.
What a wonderful review, I truly enjoyed watching your playthrough on this story and the moments of your lore grasping and internalizing were by far exactly the nerdstuffs I LOVE. I often have those thoughts but have trouble with specifics of names of places or people. So to hear you speak it, is just so amazing and I'm right there with you!
What really helped me enjoy DT was the backstory I gave for my character leading up to the release of the expansion. We traveled to other reflections and to the edge of the universe to fight despair personified. Following the Endsinger fight and even through EW Post Game MSQ, you as the Warrior of Light have never really been given a chance to rest. You've been thrust into a position of protecting EVERYONE at EVERY TURN. The pressure of the world weighs really heavy, so I was totally fine with us playing supporting role to Wuk Lamat. It truly is like a generational story, and I think it is a great direction to take moving into the future
I agree, and it's not just your headcanon, either! As far back as Heavensward we've known (through the DRK questline) that the WoL is canonically absolutely over being everyone's go-to for everything all the time. So yes, getting to kick back and be the "advisor" to someone else IS holiday vibes to the WoL. (That said, we were promised tacos in Xbalav Ty'e and never got one, so all I can say is the post-role quests in 7.1 BETTER follow through on that for us...)
@@emceen8566 you know, I took PLD thru msq from HW thru EW, then in EW post game thru DT I played DRK. Its very possible that those job quests planted the seed for that from the start haha
Not only does the portal resemble the Nier portal, but it also happens to lead to a realistic cityscape, and the boss also has this dialogue:
"All memory lives within me."
"So many dreams slumber here..."
"Each memory's form is unique."
Could have a hell of a cool lore tie-in!
Honestly, I wouldn't be upset if FFXIV started to weave in more of the "Taroverse" like with the YoRHa raids. I wouldn't be upset if more raids drew us into "worlds gone mad" like what happened with Midgard and "Ending E" Earth. We've already travelled between worlds, and IIRC someone from Eorzea even made their way to Eos (I still remember that questline from FFXV), so the multiverse is pretty open at this point.
Hell, while I reckon it'd infuriate certain people, I wouldn't be surprised if Sora ends up on Hydaelyn at some point, assuming that Squenix organizes some form of crossover-content with Kingdom Hearts IV. Though that'd probably be many years off, since KH4 is probably still cooking. For all we know, it could be Donald and Goofy that we run into, since they're meant to be searching for Sora after the events of KH3. (it's implied by the contents of that one KH4 trailer)
@@GmodPlusWoW It's not impossible. Yoshida admitted he wants to do a crossover with KH, but the thing stopping it is the amount of negotiations that would have to happen to get the rights, given that he'd have to not only talk with the ones heading KH in SE, but also Disney as well.
If they decide they want to promote KH4 in FFXIV, then it could be done the other way around.
@@FelixFalora I wouldn't be opposed to it being the "other way around", considering that one of KH3's many problems (emphasis on many) was that it went too heavy on the Disney at the cost of the FF angle. And with Sora now on a whole other plane of existence (described as "unreal/fictional" by Ansem the Wise, and "not part of light or darkness" by one of the Xehanorts), there is a chance he could end up on a Reflection that we haven't visited yet.
Though that's not to say that KH4 should minimize the Disney aspect, ofc. But I reckon they should lean more into the Disney Afternoon, partly because I want to see Sora end up in TaleSpin (aka Jungle Book meets Crimson Skies, which is pretty cool), and partly because if Sora ended up in the world of Goof Troop, it'd lean further into the unreality of the "other side" since it'd lead to Sora meeting another Goofy. Given that Goofy and Donald are trying to find Sora, that could potentially lead to mainline Goofy running into Goof Troop Goofy at some point, leading to a wholesome Goof-off that causes Donald to have a stroke from overexposure.
Also, I just now recognize certain parallels between FFXIV and Kingdom Hearts; both settings deal with light and darkness, and both involve one world that effectively split into many. Just a little something extra to gnaw on.
@@GmodPlusWoW Please no. The nier raids were awful for FFXIV. No tie ins to the world, no reason they're there, no aftermath. Just "Hey guys, do you get THIS Nier reference? Look, it's 9S! You love 9S! Oh listen, it's THAT song, isn't that neat?" and as a FFXIV player you're just like "...Ok"
You hit the nail on the head on this one Jesse, this also sums my feelings on DT
The lvl 93 trial was definitely my biggest disappointment with the msq. So much hype for a throwaway mob boss. The extreme mode was fun enough gameplay wise at least.
Though on the expansion as a whole, think it’s still okay. I do like some of the things and, again, you pointing out the connections really helped out a lot in making it even better, so thanks! :P I’m actually excited to see what happened in post, cause then we’ll get more development and here’s hoping it’ll make things better!
On the whole, I think Dawntrail had great ideas, but failed to deliver on any of them. Wuk Lamat included. And when the main character of the expansion fails to deliver... The whole expansion is incomplete. I also just feel like the story has gone back a level of maturity. It's very much a Pokémon-tier storyline where you're all there to stand and gasp, but we all end up becoming friends with all the races and we all end up living happily ever after in perfect Harmony. That's a huge step back from, say, Garlemald where we go in with the intent of peace, and people literally choose to die out in the cold rather than making peace.
You liken the mentorship to Ardbert, but honestly I never felt like Ardbert was a mentor. He was an observer, against his will. And he constantly voiced his frustration with his inability to do anything. Which is kind of crazy because your analogy makes perfect sense, and now as a player, I was constantly voicing my frustration about my inability to do anything. Because Ardbert had a reason, and Dawntrail fails to explain even once why we don't jump in.
As for Zoraal Ja... Yeah, your story takes are what should have been in there. It's clear the writers had huge plans for it, but they completely failed to convey that character and I think they must have cut like 90% of his screentime without realizing it.
Great video! On the parallels between Wuk Lamat and Sphere (and lessons for Wuk Lamat), I think one key lesson is about being your own ruler and not just deriving their happiness from the happiness of their citizens. Both say something to the effect of "your happiness is my happiness" (Wuk Lamat in the scene where Smile first plays as she jumps off the balcony and Sphene in the Alexandria dungeon, I think). I saw Sphene as a lesson as to what happens if you take that to the extreme and she is ultimately a warning to Wuk about that.
I'll be honest. Dawntrail's msq almost walled me unlike ARR. The potential of the story/lore means nothing if it's told poorly cause every story can have amazing potential. And considering that the story is meant to be experienced over a video game, it simply won't work well for the player to have such little importance in the plot. Made worse when the plot only works because we sat on our asses doing nothing when by all accounts, we should.
I thought Wuk Lamat was silly, but a bit annoying at her introduction, and the sheer screen time alone made me despise her. And she's ultimately at the center of the problem because of the severe pacing issues, choices, and execution the two stories the game tries to tell.
But the biggest issue for me is that this expansion is filler. Of the interesting plot threads we got, they were resolved or answered almost immediately and have little impact on the overall story. With only the last 10% really being important. And all that did was effectively give us a boat in the ocean with no destination in mind with the Azem cup and crown.
I hear a lot of people talking about DT setting up the next big story, but... it didn't?
In ARR we were introduced to: 3 nations, beast tribes, all Scions, primals, tempering, Zodiark and Hydaelyn, Ascians and Garlean Empire. That's a lot, and those were all completely new story threads at the time mind you. All of them ended up relevant for a long time, were continuously developed and eventually resolved by now.
What new story threads were introduced in DT:
- new continent; if it becomes relevant again later
- a couple new characters; by that I mean basically only WL, if they don't poochie her. All the others are either dead or very unlikely to appear again outside of cameos. Maybe someone else in patches?
- the key with Azem's symbol, which is not even new and just continues the Shards storyline from ShB
- Alexandria; resolved in 7.0
- S9; will likely be resolved in patches
- some new lore about lalas I guess
that's it I think? DT is mostly old stuff, and the few freshly introduced ideas and characters don't seem to have much future outside of 7.X. I don't see how 7.0 can be a foundation for anything tbh. Maybe patches, but not 7.0.
You've always been a great level-headed guy, and I enjoyed listening to this take on Dawntrail's story. I'm really looking forward to the patch content!
this video sums up my feelings about this expansion *so well*. I am very excited for what and how the story is going to move forward, especially if its following in a certain someone's footsteps.
Honestly, it sums up mine as well. I think it's well thoughtfully well-put.
It's definitely setting the foundations for something big
Let them cook I say
15:50 in a perfect world the void storyline from EW would have been postponed and we got proper lead-up for Dawntrail. Everything feels rushed because we didn't get 2 patches from the last expansion as set up.
I am so here for this!
I love how your mind works and I totally agree with everything you said. I have a feeling this is going to be one hell of a ride.
What Vacation? Outside of a bit of Not-Texas, I felt more like the Wandering Minstrel than someone there to chill out. There's not even a beach to lounge on! (The main city doesn't count)
Ardbert COULD NOT help. We, the Warrior of Light, CHOSE NOT to help. The only way this comparison works is if we are being meta about the game itself and the illusion of choice. So I don't think this really matches up. "Not my Problem" is almost finding oneself in Neutral territory - which, frankly, was where I the player was at fairly quickly.
I just reached the WL vs. BJJ fight on an alt - and holy cow Miss Kitten repeatedly telling us how much they have learned is so so bad. Who thought that was a good idea? Imagine Emmanellain constantly reminding us to "Protect the carts! I will bravely guard this one from the rear! Don't let the cold slow you down!" in the cart fight.
The corner-cutting is not hidden very well this time - a meddling boss? Just tired? Bored? Distracted?
The fear in the back of the mind of the players is that CS3 has lost their fastball.
There are no vacation vibes aside from the Look of the City and first zones, there isn't even a beach Episode, it's just 1000 hours of exposition and bad Dialog
Oh my gosh you expressed it PERFECTLY
I’m also willing to forgive it a lot for the quality of life and content (femmehroth and housing) updates we got, honestly!
First off, Congrats on the MMO award Jesse, and I am happy to finally see your Dawntrail video.
I find it quite appropriate you made the Dragonball comparison, I agree but I also want to draw parallels to Naruto, where by the end of the story, It doesn't feel right to have a sequel where the main character has to fight these weird new villains when they saved the world already.
At the same time, While I mainly felt the same way as you regarding the WoL and I also wanted to show off in the story, I don't believe we are that incredibly powerful just yet, We did amazing things for sure but that was with A LOT of help from gods and others, I'd say we are oddly as strong as the characters are in the game right now, Which is like unsynched, maybe we can solo Shadowbringers extremes lol.
I enjoyed Dawntrail overall, I didn't quite understand how so many people overly despised it, given that it is clearly a restart and building towards another 10 years of storytelling, I treated it like ARR despite it having elements of Stormblood and other expansions. I also agree that the biggest issue with the MSQ was pacing, there was just too much time focused on Wuk Lamat (they kinda did her dirty) although I expect her to be a recurring character. There were so many others who also needed time to develop like you said, Krile, Erenville, Sphene, Zoraal'Ja etc. I said in my own personal review, I wish that they had dedicated the first half of the story to Wuk Lamat, Koana and Tuliyollal and then the second half for Erenville and the Alexandrian storyline.
Jesse hit it right on the head with Zoraal'Ja, His character was so poorly established, I wish they had shown him talking more and his past and his resentment towards outsiders and his family, Why he wanted War so badly etc.
As a Sphene, FF9 and Cahciua fanboy I really wanted more from them as well, I loved seeing Living Memory and Solution Nine, and while I think Sphene isn't quite done in the story, with her regulator thing, everything else with them had kinda been wrapped up already.
I also agree that the Scions felt out of place, they could've been utilized better or like you said, Completely removed but unfortunately a lot of story decisions have now been influenced because of the need to include them for Trust/Duty Support. The only Scions that truly belonged were Krile, Raha and Estinien IMO, it felt weird to reunite the Scions so soon after Endwalker and most of them come out of nowhere into scenes.
But yes, The best parts of Dawntrail and the hints about what comes next with Azem, learning some more lore, The music and gameplay for sure.
Man, Jesse, another banger video. This is so spot on for how I felt as well. I really hope some of your theories turn out to be true, because they sound awesome!
I don't mind Lyse, but I do hope Wuk'Lamat never returns.
As always, I love these videos, which are the product of thought and reflection, not just "Oooh, this made me mad so I'm going to scream about it for views." You're the best. Never change!
In the early part of the expansion, I liked the moments where you, the Warrior of Light, got to pick a line to say to Wuk Lamat to help push her forward, whether it was giving a suggestion or asking a question and letting her realize the answer on her own. That set the whole mentoring mood for me--I'm just the muscle here, but when you need it, I'll help guide you in the sacred art of traveling to different places and talking to people. But as the expansion progressed, those moments got less and less and you were just the person standing there. I feel like if they'd let our voice continue, even if we didn't get to smash problems, it would've been less...agonizing at times. (I swore that if they didn't unleash me and let me start fighting bad guys at a couple points in the game, it would be the start of my villain arc.)
11:55 I feel like Zoraal Ja's belligerent ambition already showed through the whole contest with hints of indifference/sociopathy. But the snakedragon was literally the devs going we need a lvl 93 trial here.
Just as the entire living memories section was "fuck we need a dungeon and trial for lvl 100 aswell..."
@@Varichan Living memory has the conclusion of three storylines and a final boss fight is kinda understandable
He also tells you straight up in Wachunpelo that he wants to plunge the world into endless war. I think a lot of people must have missed that, cause Jesse is not the first person to say that ZJ's heel turn was a surprise.
@@TehLB Well - from Zoraal Ja's point of view, it won't be an endless war. It'll end once he's won it.
You said everything I felt playing this!! Thank you and I'm looking forward to forging on also!!!
Been waiting for this. Glad you had a good time and possible future adventures were enough for you to stay positive. I went in with a similar mentality , lower stakes, less involvement, new characters to take the stage and a lot of world building. Unfortunately the overall execution just wasn't for me, I struggled finishing the MSQ with the pacing and the writing. I constantly felt frustrated with our WoL because he is not a dead ghost that no one else can see like Adbert, the new characters were fine but Wuk got overused and having Scion caricatures around was just adding insult to injury. I really hope the post launch patches are good.
love the video, Jesse!!! definitely a lot to think over with all of the things to come with this new story arc. with this expansion, i'm glad we didn't just get a copy-paste of Shadowbringers, cos then people would probably just say "this is so lazy, they're just doing the same thing they did before.", you know how the internet can be. i feel like this expansion was good at not forcing a Shadowbringers/Endwalker heaviness on us, but also not being as rough to get through as ARR. this at least had comedic moments to entertain us enough. also, i feel like because this is the 10th anniversary expansion, it was kinda like a recap story of the past 10 years to celebrate, and Wuk was just our stand-in, hence us being Ardbert. that being said, as to why we held back during the expansion... we 👏were 👏 on 👏vacation, and i think after beating Endsinger and Zenos back to back, we deserve our *little R&R. (*Lala pun). but, honestly? it wasn't our fight because it wasn't our throne to take. it's Wuk's throne. it was Wuk's test to see if she was worthy, not our test. so i feel like if we interfered, we'd make her path of worthiness null and void, because she didn't do anything to prove she's worthy to take the throne, because we would've done all the work for her, so we had to sit back to avoid that. 10/10 on the video, my dude. can't wait for many more of these in the future! #letlalasride
Fr. Because I actually started playing when Dawntrail was released, I rushed through ShB and EW, and I was so emotionally exhausted at the end that Wuk Lamat was like a breath of fresh air.
Ayyy been waiting for this!
Kinda refreshing to hear a generally positive perspective. Even though I disagree, I still appreciate your POV very much.
I think there's a lot of good in some of the details but generally the arc was bad. If you measure the msq only, I prefer even ARR over DT.
But you have brought me back to being hopeful for future content. For that I commend you.
100% shut 'er down, why do i have to wait 5 hours to do this? Let's go, hit the button, c'mon, hop to it
Been waiting for this! Can only imagine how much you had to cut out of the script to keep it on topic to the meat of what did and didn’t land in the expansion.