Today was A Bad Day: Dawntrail MSQ - Day 6 [LEVEL 96 SPOILERS]
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
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![You Can't Do This to Me! - Dawntrail MSQ - Day 5 [LEVEL 95 SPOILERS]](/img/n.gif)
Missed solo duties:
1) Alpaca hunting (maybe with new Beastmaser kit, or FF7R style when you need to hunt Chocobo)
2) Of course cooking mini game!
3) More duels with Bakool Ja Ja to show us that Wuk Lamat gaining strength (we had it with Zenos in Stormblood)
4) Tuliyollal first defense when we try to reach a palace but it is too late and Goluul Ja Ja is killed and not like this where we were just standing and doing nothing...
5) Train solo duty to Vanguard
6) Duel with Zoraal Ja before cool cutscene and they can spice it up with Alphi\Yshotla\Estenien gameplay to defend Tuliyollal second time
My thing is, we have the echo... you can literally keep the exact same scene. Just have us show up right after the fact and give us the scene as a flashback. That would have been so much better. I was pissed that we were standing like 10 feet away and did fuck all...
So weird to me how people didnt think the body swap was one of the best moments from EW. Like there is so much tension and there being rumors before the expansion about scions maybe dying. It was amazing and tense. The urgency that it created is some of the best ive seen in any videogame
People dont like losing control over their character.
I just heavily dislike that kind of gameplay. It felt nothing but annoyance from not playing my own character. Also i have seen this often enough, i have played ff for long enough, the scions were never at risk. The last scion they killed off was in heavensward, papalymo and he was about as neglectible to the overarching story as krile is. Aka literally just there to push the story at a very specific moment in time and for the rest of the time useless
But regardless of that second part, when that duty started, i killed the first enemy and immediatly decided to just get myself killed, set it to very easy and get it over with asap, for no other reason, that i was pissed by the very idea of slugging through that the "intended" way
imagine thinking they'd actually kill a main character after the 350 fake-out deaths lol
and yes, having to do a whole instance with that lvl 15 gladiator rotation was extremely boring
I think the problem was largely the original instance was a bit of a roadblock difficulty wise, and it's hardly a comfortable thing to come back to and fight your way throguh. But I enjoyed and am glad I got to see it in the un-nerfed state.
I only hated it because it took what felt like forever and there was NO payoff. I knew they weren't going to kill off one of the Scions (or any side character even) with this. That's what made it feel insufferable for me to play on top of taking way too long. Had there been an actual payoff it would have been dreadfully glorious.
All I needed for the throne scene was for the antagonist to say "Take one more step and my army attacks again. This is between me and him." One line. EASY.
Yeah, or they could've had the gang running in last second so they weren't able to do anything in time, yet still got to see him die.
The echo exists! It’s crazy they handled it like that. The funniest thing is “we did everything we could” line from Alyse lmao
Genuinely this would have been such a hard line for Zoraal Ja to say, and would have made the scene far better.
Or a paralysis field that literally locked everyone in place.
Or! Maybe a dozen of the robot soldiers between us and the duel that have to be dealt with
That song that cuts in at the chorus with all the subtlety of a truckload of bowling balls is "Smile," and the way they use it has the same energy of that one scene at the end of ARR Praetorium when all the ghosts of the characters fly at Lahabrea and shout "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
bruh why did you summon that memory from the depths of my brain. it was happily buried and forgotten 😭
Power of friendship. Good times.
Well, that "Friendship Beam" is at least memeworthy, lol this is just Disney cringe.
Nothing can ever be as bad as that, but man do some things come close
re: ~16m. If only there was an in-universe narrative device to give the player flashbacks for events their character was absent for.
Dany kind of forgot about the Echo.
The MSQ takes a long time before we get an echo flashback.
@HiddenEvilStudios our echo doesn't work like hers. She sees people feelings and thoughts to an extent. We see past events and immediate danger.
@@HiddenEvilStudiosKrile use of the echo is more on an empathetic kind of way rather than flashbacks like we have it, it’s even on her Codex entry and why she wears her cat hoodie to not get overwhelmed by people’s emption. That said the lack of echo use to tell the story in this expansion is beyond weird and just bad in some cases like the throne room fight scene. Perplexing choices all around that I’m confused on how was this approved because it feels like amateur hour.
@@HiddenEvilStudios kriles echo works differnetly than ours. she feels emotions. we are the flashback kind. people after 10 years still not knowing every echo works different >.>
People like to say that the story "gets better" in the second half, and it's true that the cowboy zone is a nice breath of fresh air, because you finally get to ditch Wuk Lamat for once, and collecting pterodactyl shit and throwing it on a campfire is unironically more enjoyable than traveling with her, but for me it didn't "get better". It just became bad in another way.
Hopefully Preach gets something out of it, but I sure as fuck didn't.
Why couldn't they just have had us show up literally right as Zoraal Ja is striking the killing blow on Gulool Ja Ja and then shown us the fight with the Echo?
Zoraal Ja could still have given his ultimatum to Wuk Lamat and then left; maybe she could have been even more broken up about it since she was "too late" or whatever.
I feel like they don't leverage the Echo when they really could and do use it when they don't really need to. Just my opinion.
The writers don't leverage the Echo because the writers seemingly forgot the WoL needs to be in the story. It's honestly pathetic writing.
It's bizarre how they use the Echo in this expansion. Instead of a power that gains us new information it basically plays a movie for us that is just the story we're being told by someone else right then. Everyone else present gets the same exact details, we just happen to see it too. It's completely redundant. I think there was one exception but the Echo was pretty much worthless otherwise.
@@mintyfresh3533 Krile quite literally gets an echo going "Hey Zoraal Ja is completely fucked in the head" and we're all collectively just like "eh, not our business!"
@@Reruro "I've never seen someone harbor such dark thoughts towards their family!!"
"lolnvm though, what's he gonna do? lmao so anyways, this taco we made..."
When the jobbers/minions during the Wuk Lamat vs Bakool Jaja solo duty actually showed more initiative in helping out during the fight compared to the WoL and the Scions...
As soon as they saw Zoraal Ja rebooted and then overclocked, that was when someone, ANYONE should've intervened, or at the very least stand between him and Gulool Ja Ja.
To add insult to injury, after the father vs son cutscene you can talk to Alisae and she will say: "We did everything we could. Everything. But it simply wasn't enough." Thanks game.
Bakool Ja Ja also said he did not want their help, and they answered they did not care what he wants. That was different with the Dawnservant. We did care about how he wanted to do this.
When SE spoke about a vacation, nobody understood it was about the writting team
The "WoW did it better" line stings in itself, but seeing you pull the superior storyline from the feature film is just gut-wrenching.
Train sequence should have been like that gold saucer mini game, missed opportunity IMO
When I saw the guy tourelles, I thought we was gonna get a Resident Evil5 on that jeep moment...
Yeah, this bit totally broke my enjoyment. After so many minutes of cutscenes, it got to that train bit and I was like "wait, right now, my avatar is playing a far more fun game than I am". It might be the only time in the whole game that I've ever felt genuinely disrespected as a player.
Exactly! How did they make a cutscene out of what could have been the highest stake event of Air Force One?! Like just imagine the memes. "Just like the simulations" -literally every Gold Saucer nut in the community doing that sequence.
Enter the OF post where someone has never successfully completed that mini game and putting a segment like that in the msq would make them quit the game.
They forgot in a game to add in gameplay, having to wait 8 hours before the first dungeon, that's the entire trilogy extended edition of Lord of the Rings almost before you get any gameplay,. Absolute critical lack of gameplay and it's like that throughout the entire MSQ, cutscene after cutscene most of it not voiced, I don't know what they were thinking, this isn't slow it's snail pace.
Even Endwalker you had gameplay instances, think back to when you were body swapped and you're the soldier that's a bunch of gameplay breaking up the cutscenes, there was nothing like that in DT apart from the follow mission.
I don't think the last boss in the Vanguard was speaking about anything mysterious. He literally just told us the reason his "honor" was besmirched -- it was because we, as an invading force, breached the security of Vanguard. That's it. No larger meaning. He says our deaths will redeem the honor he lost when we broke in to begin with.
Exactly this. I couldn't get why he was obsessing over that one throw away line so much 🤣
@@bloodrose9467 He's desperate about there being any interesting story
Fortunately there is, it's just way too late into the 10 level gap, it's like he said, they tried to do too much
I really like Preach's takes but sometimes... o.o
There is a lot going on in this part of the story. There is also a lot to take in during a boss fight. It's possible that Preach just missed this part of the context. This is also obvious when he went through the 99 dungeon and at the end he had to be told there was RP chat to read in the boss fight.
It's hard to catch every fleeting moment and analyse it, when you're literally trying very hard to take everything in and analyse it. As odd as that sounds.
@@vaan_ Yeah the story right before the fight and finding the discarded son and the story after with the "after life" are all very well done, the initial story is very throw away and generic but...I really didn't mind too much after finishing it all up. Felt the 1st half was a palette cleanse of sorts and just a trope. Anyone thinking it was going to be Endwalker or even Shadowbringer levels of quality...there's just not enough there to build on. ARR initial story wasn't all that amazing until the final patches before HW
The comment I made to myself immediately following the scene is “my warrior of light would’ve done something.” I lost the immersion because standing there doing nothing is so out of character for the warrior of light. Heck, and even Alisaie the girl who uses the limit break the split second it pops up would have been divebombing sonny boy the instant he resurrected.
At this point the WOL is a massive plothole. My character can summon a literal SUN, a blazing hot star, in their filler rotation on BLM. I can swing an axe thrice the size of my body. I can combine with a demonic lifeform from another dimension into a super-powered abomination. Yet we just stand there in cutscenes, looking angrily at opponents who we could butcher with a snap.
@@ich3730If all of what you said wasn't convincing enough for someone, we also defeated not only God, but God God, a pantheon of God's, Giga God and despair itself.... There is 0 reason that part should have played out as it did lol.
Machinists must be fuming just sitting there with their gun in their hand.
I'm sorry to say that, no, standing there doing nothing is the MOST in-character thing the warrior of light would've done. They'd stand there doing nothing because that's all they've ever done in cutscenes. There are many cutscenes from previous expansions where the warrior of light just standing there doing nothing is WAY more egregious than the one in Dawntrail (just standing there watching Mikoto get kidnapped in Bozja is still the stupidest time it happens). Suffering from a severe case of cutsceneitis is simply a part of who the warrior of light is.
@@gizenzirin8351 There's a reason for that. It's a really dumb reason, but there is a reason. That being because they would need to animate a fight for every single class in the game, which obviously each class fights differently, and it would need to be animated to work with every race in the game. so it's not viable at all. That's why the only time our character actually ever fought anyone, was the zenos fight in end walker. That's also why we didn't use our weapon. It's utterly infuriating because as you said, we never actually get to fight in cutscenes, that's always reserved for after, but it's still really annoying.
Honestly so much mossed opertunities to make the base framework of this new plot better. Bakloo jaja deserved more scenes setting his turned leaf arc, we deserved maybe one less group in the first half to make peace with so that there would be room to make more complete peace making arcs.
Agreed, I still don’t forgive him but I would feel more bad for him if they showed more of the pressure he felt etc. The “dead baby dungeon” could’ve had more related to the dead resting there like ghosts or something.
I think Bakool Jaja *definitely* needed some moments of penance in the MSQ before we just straight up forgave him for unleashing a monstrosity capable of wiping out life in an entire region.
Now Mike knows exactly how I felt during Endwalker when the WoL failed to save Ahewann. Dude was about to be eaten alive and we just couldn't cross that 30 feet to reach him in time. No ranged attack, no gap closer, no spell, no sprinting. We just let that man die because the plot demanded it.
Also, the fact that it was Alisae who told Wuk Lamat to stand down was absurd! Alisae, who showed zero hesitation about engaging EMET SELCH one-on-one. Alisae, who has always worn her heart on her sleeve and will cut a fool down the second they hurt someone she cares for. I keep telling myself that she did it because she knew Zoraal Ja was the kind of person that would resume the attack on the city should he feel backed into a corner, but you could have had Ketenraam be that voice of reason.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who noticed how strange Alisae feels this expansion. She is far to docile and complacent with everything that happens. She needs no encouragement to leap into action to save people! But this expansion She feels like she needs explicit permission or commands.
I had abit of a laugh when Koana was like "Zoraal ja has never bested father in combat!" I thought he was supposed to be the smart one here. Zoraal Ja is clearly back with like fockin DLC armor. I half expected missiles to come outa his shoulders.
Both train ride and city invasion could have been solo duties, it truly does feel like they've toned down solo duties after EW feedback. In Dawntrail we got only straightforward boss fights, nothing different/experimental like Garlemald duties
It's sad too. I think there were too many complaints about In From the Cold's solo duty and SE just backed off from that instead of trying to innovate more.
It sounds literally CRAZY to me that they made this genuinly artful, weighty gameplay section about feeling what its like to be a normal soldier in a world of magic and godlike beings and then just stop doing stuff like that because... people felt bad? Prime example of art being hindered by money...
@@ich3730 i don't think a lvl 15 gladiator rotation is "art", but each to their own
@@rickmel09 To each their own, yeah. I saw the limited rotation as a flavorful way of showing who we play there: A literal nobody. Did you expect steve, the garlean footsoldier, to perform confiteor combos?
@@ich3730 This, exactly.
im hung up on that sequence not being a playable duty because at least then we'd have the in story excuse of being exhausted and/or too late to stop GJJ and ZJ fighting.
@@Kuribohcoast Would an arbitrary "down for the count" really work there better an change people's minds?
@@thesunthrone Beats standing there with our thumbs up our asses
Describing the plot as the Cartoon Network version of Final Fantasy XIV is so fitting. Tural feels like it can resolve almost any internal problem just handwaving it away with a little chat, even the Mamool Ja are extremely quick to just accept the word of the foreigners that promise them a magic solution to their age old problem. I miss back when Nanamo was trying really hard to hold her nation together and help her people, dealing with political intrigue while trying to also help refugees and having to deal with the reality that she can't just help everyone by herself.
Even thinking back to things like Garlemald and how slow and troublesome that rebuilding was, and compare it to what we saw in Dawntrail felt really, really off. Garlemald, facing huge distrust towards outsiders, even when tyring to aid them they turn and run. They are immensely suspect of you and even turn on you. Quintus suicides because he felt his time was over when he could not return Garlemald to her former glory in their own way.
Meanwhile in Dawntrail, we give the Mamool Ja a pep-talk and offer seed to boost their agriculture, all is well.
To be fair, isn’t that because Tural has been united for 80 years by their version of the wol and the expansion is basically a friendly internal competition? Like if Tural was 7 independent nations and the expansion was set during a world war it would be much darker but because it’s following basically Turali royalty we get a Super clean and friendly version of it?
Mike's final statement "what did this accomplish aside from upsetting Wuk Lamat" imo nails the problem here, as well as why for some of us, the scene doesn't work. Unfortunately, that was exactly the point. And it fits with the rest of the MSQ narrative so far: The zone exploration was too often shallow because the zones existed mostly to develop Wuk Lamat's leadership abilities. At this point in the narrative, Wuk has been named successor and should have faded into the background as the WoL and Scions go on to pursue the 2nd half of the story. We've already said goodbye to her once. But here, this scene in which the WoL is made to literally stand to one side as a leader is murdered and the citizens butchered makes everything about Wuk Lamat and her rivalry with her brother. Again. What the WoL and the Scions would normally do hardly matters - we are extras in this scene. At this point I realised we weren't ever leaving her behind and she'd be with us every step of the way.
There is no leadership abilities being developed at all. How is repeating let's be friend and have peace a leadership skill? Is being kidnapped part of that leadership skill?
Where are the choices that a leader have to always take, choosing the lesser evil when being presented?
I would say Koana is a better leader since he actually did sacrifice to save wuk lamat instead.
@@cordeliacentauri1737 No argument there from me :). She isn't credible as a leader. ARR Alphinaud was just as naive but the MSQ put warning flags all over him and his clever plans, while Wuk just sailed to victory.
that train montage music should have been some western railroad song
Listening to the community all the time especially on forums is why we will never get a solo duty like the body swap in Endwalker. That thing was to show you how OP you really are and how the fodder soldiers are basically grinder meat. Was it frustrating and hard? Yes! But that was the point. Maybe just make it a little bit shorter but come on.
Also the plot in itself is fine but the way it’s executed is like a bad shonen anime and no one from Tural ever gets humbled like Nanamo, Aymeric, Hien, Lyse, Admiral, etc. They just go “hell yeah problem solved” which is why it seems to be some big leaps of logic even by this game standards.
people who do sastasha roullete know very well what it's like to play a low level character, no need to put that in the msq
@@rickmel09it’s story telling via gameplay, the community really needs to stop being babies because you play as something else for like 10 minutes. It was a great setting and set up. Just make it shorter because apparently people were so bad it took them ages.
they already did what needed to be fixed because of the reaction to that duty afaik- let people pick the 'easy' version of the duty from the get-go instead of making them fail once first.
@@Keira_Blackstone which makes it even more weird they back out from duties as a form of story telling even weirder. Hell if you want to make it chill have them ask you before you start it what difficulty you want instead of showing that when you die.
The only reason the soldier part of EW was poorly recieved, was because the player base couldn't do it. They were just simply... bad. And complained accordingly...
literally this
exactly
they are doing the same thing with the Bakool Ja Ja Duty when you play as Wuk, a LOT of players complaining they cannot do it on v.easy.
These are some of the players that you are geting in your daily roulettes
So keep that nightmarish thought in your head when you see the following
The player that ;
- Kites the Orbs through the entire raid in Diablo in Dun Scaith
- drops the Dome on the team during thunder God in Orbonne
- Aims the group stack at the other groups during the flight unit fight in Puppets bunker
@@Mezegis I would argue the last one. Most of the time the lazer wiping out an entire alliance is on purpose and I don't think the same people that have a hard time with solo duties have that kind of coordination XD
and why are they always French? kekw
This MSQ makes Zeros story look awesome in comparison in terms of our player agency in the story. Lmao. Doorstops of the Seventh Dawn.
Yeah I actually miss 6.x story compared to this!
One of the things that disappointed me was they talked about the Scions being on different sides and essentially being in conflict with each other. And the best we got was Thancred blocking the path in the first dungeon.
Not only that, the "opposite Scions" were kept secret for so long it's irrelevant until like two thirds of the way in, we only get the cave-in and then we're working together all the way. They really didn't need this in the promos like it would matter.
Not to mention it was literally TWO of them, three weren't even in the whole arc. I wouldn't call the scions split over this. lol
different sides doesnt mean beating the shite out of each other. i put that on the transslation of what was really implied with "different sides" opr "at odds"
@@AbigatorM Of course. But the way they emphasized on it, saying "scions find themselves in conflict", it's not a surprise that people thought they meant something more significant than basically being on different sports teams. And even then we see very little of this "conflict".
Why aren't we helping is probably what I yell the most during DT.
with one very big 'please go away and stop helping me' right at the end.
I felt like yelling "why are we leaving the door" and "why don't we focus on the door" a lot more.
I got so frustrated during this part that I, like Mike, had my immersion completely broken. I got upset to the point where I actually needed to stop playing for a few days. My character and the Scions would NOT have just stood there watching like 🧍♀️. This was a truly baffling narrative choice…
"I expect Wuk Lamat will be humbled at some point" ... hahahaha. No.
that scene in the temple meant to me that us and the scions were not actual characters with agency in this story. We were just set dressing, witnesses to Wuk Lamat's journey, so of course we do not interfere, because she doesn't. We can't do anything without her leading it in this expansion and it annoys me to no end. It feels like you're not even really a part of the story anymore, you're just around to see it happen. And it wouldn't feel quite as bad if her dialogue lines and actions weren't 90% useless dribble. Say what you want about Zero, but at least she didn't take up so much "screen time" that no other character besides her had any chance to feel human.
I completely agree. It wouldn't matter to me if Wuk Lamat were as charismatic as Estinien, although it doesn't help that she's a spoiled Disney Princess. Feeling my WoL recede into the background and become a viewer of the MSQ broke my immersion and interest in this tale except when I was running instances (all very well done however). My head canon is that my WoL had a muddled confused dream brought on by one two many drinks and the hot climate. I hope my WoL wakes up soon. I was thinking the WoL was like an extra in this movie, but set dressing describes it even better.
I also felt this alot. To me, after finishing the story what felt the weirdest was looking back at the scions, they didn't really have any relationship with Wuk Lamat. Even though some people had problems with Zero she had scenes with Alisaie & Jullus. It feels like Wuk Lamat didn't really interact with us or the scions in a meaningfull way. We "supported" her but we weren't really involved with her struggles. She considers us and scions friends at the end but I didn't feel right to me. I would have been fine not being the main focus but it felt like scions also didn't develop much. And considering krile was supposed to be important this expansion I felt really sorry for her because her story was told so bad this expac.
True
@@Alimer_1 the part about Krile is really sad, she should've taken over as main character in the second half. Gods now, we could've gotten more intelligent dialogue with her as well.
@@qamarqammar7629 I like this headcanon. In reality we've been hanging out with Estinien this entire time, exploring this new land, getting into trouble and we just got nailed by some weird disease that has us laid up in bed after a night of partying. I'm on board.
The train song had me laughing my ass off as this overly happy and joyful song as the locals make a war machine of death and destruction.
Divisive is a good word for these quests lol
also just want to say, thanks for making these videos, as someone who doesn't enjoy live stream vods these videos are amazing for getting your perspective
it's a much nicer word than I would use.
I wholeheartedly agree that the scene in question was, sadly, rage inducing especially as I was playing with friends over comms as we were going through the MSQ together. This, alas, wasn’t the first time the WoL was put into this situation because of plot contrivance, last major offender being post Endwalker MSQ where a fallen foe got up, dusted off like nothing happened, and monologue a good bit while tossing someone we specifically were there to rescue to a pit.
This is a disturbing trend of lapses in their writing team to up the stakes in a very very sloppy manner, as you stated in the video and gave several good examples of several other ways such situations could have been handled better. I am just hoping when dust settles here that they take stock and come up with better reasons for why our WoL wouldn’t immediately try and intercede in a combat scenario they are present in and don’t have pressing stressors preventing them from engaging to help.
Remember in Endwalker where Hythlodeus counted on us to jump in front of a bullet to save him because he knew we would do it?
Pepperidge farm remembers
I must comment, and cannot hold back.
Yoshi P's comments about never wanting to make the players feel anger or be upset is exactly the mentality that is the source of XIV's woes. You cannot make a story with that mentality and hope to satisfy everyone. You have to be willing to upset, to anger, to frustrate even, because friction in a story is necessary. One of my biggest problems with Dawntrail is how clean everything is in Tural. Everything in Tural is incredibly peaceful and idealistic to a fault, except when it's not and when it's not it is fixed by 20 minutes of Wuk Lamat idealistically beaming about peace and happiness. Even the bandits are sympathized with as if they wouldn't be bandits if not for some wrong done to them by Tural. This mindset is absolutely breaking to the willing suspension of disbelief if you care about characters acting realistically.
A story needs friction to be able to set stakes and tension. In From The Cold was fantastic for doing this (despite how we got there and the lack of any consequences ruining it otherwise). The violation and discomfort players felt was felt by everyone, it just depended on how tolerant you were to it. The feeling of powerlessness and desperation is part of the story, and without it, we lose valuable exploration of yourself and your WoL put into such an uncomfortable and stressful situation.
A lack of friction in storytelling manifests in other ways here, though. Papalymo is the last scion who died, back before Stormblood. Since then, the devs here have been reluctant to ever kill a major character/scion no matter how much it would have benefitted the story in fear of angering fans of these characters. Yet refusing to do so, but repeatedly putting characters in dangerous situations or even giving them noble sacrifices just to yank them out of harm's way, is an erosion to the stakes. I think by the end of Dawntrail the stakes have eroded to the point that, in an effort to make sure no one feels any discomfort or gets upset or angry at all, they have eliminated all stakes in the story. Nothing bad can ever happen to anyone important, and if it is about to, character X will get a dynamis power up to stop it. You can only tease deaths or yank characters into safety so many times before the stakes are gone and people don't have any investment in your story anymore. Because stakes, willing suspension of disbelief and investment into a story are all inherently intertwined, and Yoshi P is so afraid of offending or making people angry that he is endangering the story himself.
I'm not saying they should be trying to make people feel uncomfortable or angry with overly provocative writing, they just need to not be afraid of doing it to the point of paralysis and killing all the stakes in the story.
Yeah and… that is exactly what happens in Dawntrail. YoshiP explicitly said they will NOT be afraid of making players upset this time around and see how it plays out.
Can look over the comments section how that’s going.
yeah, even as someone who liked Dawntrail alot, there was a few moments where i was like "nobody feel like jumping in right now? just gonna let them keep going? alright"
you clearly never played league of legends in solo queue if you think your allies will save you from dying :)
This is a huge anime trope where if someone says it's a duel, even with the threat of death they are honor bound not to have assistance. It's ridiculous but it's literally in every anime I've seen that I've stopped questioning it
@@rickmel09 Even in league, the team would atleast try to yoink the kill. A goddamn league player would have done more in that situation xD
I kinda wish my character was somewhere else doing something else while stuff like this goes down. Like, I don't mind the WoL being a background character, but even B scions are fighting beast tribes or protecting towns when the A plot is going down. They're not just standing doing nothing.
The throne scene could have been solved by galool barganing a ceasefire in exchange for a true 1v1. It would have held our hands after the kill because if we violate the agreement he goes back on the attack. I do agree that this is a pretty weak part of the story.
It would remind me of the Asahi scene where the WoL does nothing and he mocks how you can't just attack him. That if you do then Hien's negotiations will all fall through. It didn't really work cause he went off the deep end immediately (I wish we at least moved to attack him) but at least the game tries to give a reason.
Yea there is so many things they could have done to make that scene have more impact, meaning, make way more sense, and actually feel good. But instead they did nothing. Less than nothing. They actively made it worse by having you show up with everyone together, and just stand around, then have the gall to even add the line when it's over of, "there's nothing we could have done"
Or just make a force field like in Star Wars The Phantom Menace and let Wuk Lmao go "Noooooooo" when The Dad got stabbed like Obi Wan lmao.
"It feels a bit cartoon network" yup thats our equivalent. It's basically writing for a shonen anime targeted at like younger teens and kids. It's Naruto with Wuk becoming the next Hokage and we follow her on her journey to bring peas for -leaf village- tuiliyoLOL
You're entirely correct that this is not at all what would have actually happened if the WOL wasn't stripped of their agency in service to Wuk's story; stopping Zoraal Ja and saving as many lives as possible is WOL 101, honor be damned. I think the core issue is that the story is focused entirely around Wuk's perspective. Everything that happens is shown in relation to how it affects Wuk, and that's why nothing feels resolved. I understand what they were going for, you can see the pain in Wuk as she forces herself to watch, her unbounding respect for her father holding her back from doing what she knows in her heart is right. It's tragic, and could have worked with only minor tweaking. IMO, The WOL and Scions shouldn't have been there at all. They should have seen it in an Echo as they were busy saving people outside. My overall impression of the expansion is that I like the general story beats, but the way they are handled is frustrating.
The funny thing is, had the WoL "killed" ZJ, he just revives and glasses the city.
All they had to do was put "meanwhile in the imperial palace" 😭.
The invasion seems to be missing 2 solo duties: one where you fight through the town to the palace, and another where you would get "RanJit'd" by Zoraal Ja. (Also another one later in Heritage Found.) I wonder if they had to do cuts on MSQ battle content when they decided to add a field operation to the already packed roadmap of Dawntrail and then decided to turn this pivotal moment into just a big cutscene. This expansion was noticeably low on MSQ solo duties compared to the previous ones.
But yeah I absolutely hated seeing my character stand there doing nothing. They didn't even ask me to help heal afterwards. (Krile does in Stormblood if you are on a healer job after a certain scene.)
ZJ can't RJ us, we are way too powerful nowadays, which is indeed a narrative challenge (not a problem, a challenge). But they really needed to make us not so passive.
they knew people wouldn't want to heal because they're on a healer strike 🤣🤣🤣 I'm joking but it's the only way this would fit, how the hell could they not include extra parts in these scenes for more completed content
No, they cut that kind of content because people that play this game are actually fucking terrible. The amount of complaints about In From the Cold was insane and has ruined the future story potential of this game.
@@Auesis The future story potential of the game isn't bound up in solo duties... they're just ONE tool they have.
@@Auesis that makes me so depressed, well we had a good 10 years lol
I'm glad someone else took issue with the father, son duel. It felt so incredibly contrived. Like, this is not the time for an honorable duel, when your city and citizens are being slaughtered all around you. Pur characters should have hopped in and fought too...
There are ways to go about it, like we dueled Zenos(elidibus) in ghymlit dark, which made sense and our allies tried and were defeated while we were on our way. In sum, the execution of the story telling and narrative was just flat out bad, like Preach said, maybe have us fight his lieutenants while their duel went on, or have some plausible reason for the cast not being able to help, specially wuk lamat and Koana!
@@ShoteR_Omega the normal trope is just "we got there too late" - that wouldve been 10000x better then our character looking like a idiot and not doing a dam thing.
@@YellOhPanda I audibly chuckld when after the duel Alisaie went "Damn... at least we did everything we could" xdd
They never even tried to set up the concept of a 1 v 1 duel being important to respect, culturally. They had several moments but they just didn't.
From my own memory the dad wins the initial dual, which is probably a given because of his over all strength. Brother Ja getting back up suddenly and taking a cheapshot into the chest of daddy was completely out of left field and a surprise so it would make sense no one jumped in? I could be misremembering that part though but I don't remember him getting up, powering up and monologueing and then going in for the kill.
He did the holla ballers, but where is my bro fist? Smadge.
No brofist for us all
I rewatched Preach's ShB and EW roundups recently after finishing DT msq, and it's so painfully obvious, even from the few snippets of that story those videos have in there, that a B-team wrote this, or that they didn't have enough time, had too many directors, or something, anything. Something here went horribly wrong. I know Ishikawa (hope I got her name right) took another role for DT, but surely she wasn't the only competent writer in that team? In Heavensward I believe she did just the Dark Knight? But that expansion had an amazing overall story as well. Did all those writers leave? Were they on other projects when this was written? Did none of the proven ace writers do even any proofreading?
It's taken such an enormous, dramatic plunge.
Yeah. Somehow there was something very wrong with the reviewing process. There are so many points that would have been caught by even just one or two rounds of someone sitting down and carefully reviewing the story. And I agree that the overall story is good and has potential, making the situation worse for me - why was it released in this state?!
I personally hope that the devs would maybe halt the post-MSQ and fix the story. I think you can fix a lot of it even without expensive changes by just adding a bit of info here and there and cutting/removing some cut-scenes.
@@mrnotsoevil It's too late for that though. We're done with the msq, there's no going back to story bits that fell flat.
@@maxmagnus377 The thing is that these story points are the ones that will be apparently the foundation for the next 10 years. If the foundation is shaky as it's now, it will be interesting on how they will proceed. They better have some kind of backup plan.
Still a shame that the whole Tural story basically has been ruined by this. That's why I want a revision, while I know we will not get it.
I think the HW writer did FFXVI. Dunno if he's still working on 16 or back with the 14 team or doing other things, but I don't think he was working on the DT MSQ.
It's the writer for Werlyt and Four Lords and the writer for the Pixie/Dwarf quests, with Ishikawa supposedly in a supervisory role.
One of the things I wanted to point out is DT seems to be really afraid of using the Echo for some reason, even to use it to help it in scenarios like this where you weren't present for something but need to know how it went down.
They could have made the city attack a solo duty (even a constrained one) and then had us arrive in the palace to find GJJ dead and given us an echo flashback, solving both the fact it's very boring and that we have the unimmersive passivity of the duel.
I feel really sad to agree that the weakness and general obvious shortcomings of the story definitely has opened questions that shouldn't be asked about the writing of XIV. I feel this scene pushed the tropes and problems of DT to their logical limit and I can only hope SE is basically soul searching ATM and hard compiling feedback for the future MSQ.
Whether they got too comfortable with their laurels, had an idea on paper that turned out to not work in development or something else, Square just didn't deliver what the game needed.
A lot of it felt like an Echo flashback... The only moments they thought to give us an Echo vision was when people would tell us something. Seems the devs were like "maybe a bit more showing than telling"...
@@markup6394 They actually really smartly used the Echo for moments when other characters would get exposition dumps, but failed totally in using it as our unique perspective.
Honestly I would rather they go with an echo flashback + solo duty for the WoL in a lot of these instances. Our power level is at a point where us being in a cutscene will just ruin it because we will just stand still. Or just have a "Meanwhile.." when we finish the duty and play the cutscene and have us enter at the conclusion to see our reaction. Hopefully they learn from this.
Wasn’t this expansion our summer vacation? What summer vacation activities did we do?😅
I was hoping for more of that as well before it got into the second half where things pick up the pace more, but given how people reacted to the first half of the MSQ it seems like a lot of people aren't happy unless we're dealing with Serious Shit all the time.
I wasn't angry. I WAS disappointed. As noted, this is fiction. The writer has an infinite number of possibilities to make it believable and in character. Instead, they chose "lazy" and "contrived." A simple solution would have been remove "the stand around do-nothings" by having a Landsguard run into the throne room and yell that there were enemies approaching a school filled with young ones. The WOL would have been on the run before the sentence was finished (Harvey Dent / Selina Scenario). And, the immaturity of Wuk Lamat required a watershed moment between her and the WOL. He should have been sparring with her at every location you visited. You could do it off camera if you want to save resources...but always finish with a lesson capper from the WOL. Some of them could have been rather jagged and unkind...because that's what she needed. "You talk too much. Your axe should do your talking for you when necessary. Or perhaps, just perhaps, there is no need to say anything."
Personally I think we just should have never been in the room to begin with. Why would we even rush to the palace when the city is under attack? Its not like we knew Zoraal Ja was there. We should have been in a solo duty to protect the city + maybe beat some robot mini boss. Then it does a classic "meanwhile" and it shows the duel with no one spectating. We could just walk in at the end to see the conclusion and then Zoraal Ja flees.
@@D3adR0ck3r Yeah, Zoraal Ja's duel with his father would have made much more sense as an echo vision after the fact tbh.
Yo remember the visual effect of a slashing swing and sound coming down from behind Ketanramn? Let me repeat "*Shhhwinngg* blackout"
Doesnt that shows and sounds like i dont know he died? Or BADLY wounded?
Tune in for more things that dont make sense next time XD
I thought there would be some reveal that he gained some form of immortality from the golden city or something, but nope. he's a complete non-entity in the story as far as I can tell.
This confused me so much. That hit he got was very much a "you just died by getting sliced through down your back" and not "I got knocked out".
Someone said that maybe Ket isnt your average Roe to begin with... and I willing to give is some consideration: Roes arent known to get very old, and when he met Gulool Ja Ja, he must've been in his mid twenties at least (he was captain on his ship after all). And that was 80 years ago. Which means this guy is over 100 years at this stage, yet he survives Zoraal Ja's attack AND joins the city's defence crew later with Alphy. I hate so sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this guy is fishy...
@@markup6394 And there is zero reason to give him a custom Roe face for a bit part. The old man is holding some secrets under his poncho.
He's a tough guy
14:10 One most biggest change in the DT, is the story don't go around WoL totally. Surely we are god-like and can overrun everything anyone, but we are still just friendly outsiders. If we just walk around and killed anything we don't like, than we are no different from who we against, even Zenos. The twelves didn't interfer much, as i supposed. Furthermore, we are meant to guard our new kings, which our old kings preferred.
The temple scene and others you mentioned make me feel like it was written by amateurs or new hires with minimal oversight. It's really sad coming off Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Hope this doesnt continue going forward.
lets not pretend watching the villain monologue and run away while we just stand there, isn't a staple of FFXIV, it's just gotten more egregious.
Bro shadowbringers had nuance even to the detail of Emet Selchs body posture!
Its a whole nother level compared to DT’s writing.
Ever since Ishikawa got that promotion, the writing has gone down the toilet. I wish she was directly working on this again, because I don't know if managing is her strength (if she really even is directly influencing the writing at this point through the others, seems like maybe not). The Werlyt head writer in her old position rn is straight up awful. Incredibly amateur, immature writer. Guy should be canned IMO. He's tarnishing the quality of the whole game. This stuff isn't even ARR level.
I completely agree with preach at 19:30, that is the only song in 10years of 14 content that i actively dislike, the vibe is just off, it does not fit
The only time in my FFXIV history I had to turn down the volume during a cutscene... literally couldn't take it
@@rickmel09ff4 boss music is the best boss theme in all of FF.
@@BautistaPeserasno that’s how they sold it but it’s not what the expansion is about or even appropriate after the story events that unfolded before. It adds to the cheese but in a bad way.
I felt like I was watching Little Mermaid for the first time.
@@rickmel09the Zero patches were based on FF4 that was still appropriate and even if you didn’t knew that it’s just a hype battle music.
I'm just gonna say- if they consider it a goal in their design to never do anything that will cause the player to feel hatred or frustration with what they are doing in the game, this MSQ reeeeeeaaaaalllly failed at that for me.
Edit: getting to the end of the video, I felt that 'WoW did it better" in my soul, and it hurt like hell.
You can thank the playerbase for that, after complaining so hard over the In From The Cold solo instance
@@namim629 it's pretty sad, because imo that solo duty was a brilliant piece of video game storytelling. I've never felt that much genuine tension from an on-the-rails mmo story in my life.
How to fix us not helping.
"Let me fight one on one or else my forces will continue to fight and kill."
that would work right up until he wins, at which point we should attack him. it would probably be enough to keep me from being taken completely out of the story like I was, though.
Idk why people forget ZJ gave his ultimatum when you arrived in the palace, “surrender or I kill everyone”. People don’t seem to realize the position everyone was in; the city overrun, it’s defenders struggling, warships in the sky ready to bombard the city, the Scions and allies were in no position to do anything. Lets say they all jump ZJ, well then he has his soldiers kill everyone like he said he was going to do.
He was already doing it, soldiers didn't stopped in any moment while Bakool jaja and the scions were defending the city so his "ultimatum" doesn't make any sense since his soldiers were still killing everyone anyway. Pointless dialogue from him.
@@KnightOfCarim2 except his goal for the first invasion wasn’t killing the populace, it was only to instill fear. Killing people during the first attack was just a show of power not genocide
Surprisingly enough, I didn't have that much of an issue with this scene. Reflecting on that now, I think my reason for it was that the story of the first three zones was just so poorly executed that by the time this cutscene rolled around, I didn't even care anymore.
Kudos to Mike for lasting this long into the MSQ without breaking and his best attempts - for the most part - to remain cool and level-headed throughout this playthrough. It truly is a challenge worthy of a WoL.
the purpose of the first three zones were to introduce the races and learn about people, and thats exactly what happened, how was it executed poorly?
@@JustinK0 It was executed poorly by being incredibly boring and having poorly written and repetitive dialog.
Meanwhile poor Zepla needs a stray jacket. Pray for her 😂
@@IDC-P5GHD4Z8J7Zepla has been constantly annoying for some time now it feels fake to farm content either the positivity or the negativity of that makes sense.
@@IDC-P5GHD4Z8J7 One can only take so much before reaching a breaking point 🤣
Me when I was playing Dawntrail: So many missed opportunities to tell a better story...
@@BautistaPeseras Then where's my taco and martini? We literally arrived and got sent to the first feat.
@@BautistaPeseras You say that like it's an excuse for bad execution.
They really fucking blew it in every regard, it's almost impressive
I can agree with your points but I think at least for me the redeeming quality came from context. Everyone “knew” Zoraal Ja should be no match for Gulool Ja Ja since they are unaware of [future context], so why stress about it. To the party Zoraal Ja had been gone like… a week most. They wouldn’t expect the change in power level to be so large. The other thing is: none of that would’ve likely happened if the Head of Reason was still alive. Gulool Ja Ja is POINTEDLY making the wrong choice, because he no longer has his half that would normally bring sense to the situation and realize a duel is not the correct choice here.
There’s also something to be said about Gulool Ja Ja feeling like this is entirely his problem to deal with because it’s not just “the enemy leader”, but his one biological son. He does, after all, iirc make it a point to say because of it this is HIS problem to take responsibility for (insert Resolve vs Reason again here)
For me the biggest issue is how Zoraal Ja leaves the room. "Beat me up and show I'm wrong" or what ever he says and walks off. Like you walking to the center of the room so we can have the fight now? No. Just walk off casually to leave and fort up in a place we can't get to. Like wasn't the point you want to fight right here right now? Show you're more powerful and your way is right?
Then later we see he can teleport from field to the tower, one could think he could similiarly teleport to his airship. So why not have him clearly proclaim to come and kill him at his new base and teleport off to clearly show we're not going to fight now but later.
"Come kill me" -> oh but we need to run around and have to help the survivors who are hurt.
The pacing and what was said and implied was so off for me.
I share the same issues about the way the dad son fight was handled but for me its not the worst part, its the follow up for me.
Yoshi-P doesn't want players to feel angry, upset or frustrated? Sir, that is how I felt towards the entirety of the dawntrail msq.
@@SILVERONIN who said anything about failing? I’m just talking about my experience as I am a player too
Smile is a great example of the criticism I hold, the bright song everyone seems to hate.
Go listen to it alone, as a single track and it's phenomenal. One of the most uplifting songs I've ever heard, and the vocalists kill it.
But they way the song was used, made it become something totally it's not, a misuse of the the song and moments. That's how a lot of Dawntrail feels, a misuse of characters and moments. There's tons of times when talking to Wuk and wondering why the hell the mute Main character being the one to reassure her of something, when Alli, Alphi or even Shtola would have better words of wisdom.
Lots of situations like that, just a lot of missed opportunities and moments that fall flat because of it. If the expansion didn't stick the landing so well, i think it THAT would be Dawntrails legacy
it's my biggest criticism of Stormblood, only turned up to 11. the writing tries to take a lighthearted tone, but that's at complete odds with how serious the subject matter is.
Not gonna say anything about the second part of the story except: The writing team did not do their homework, they forgot about multiple tools and very important plot points that would solve the problems Dawntrail presents as "unsolvable" nevermind us feeling useless most of the time and set dressing, but them forgetting one of the most important plot points of the Scions, and a whole Alisae arc just so "self-insert lamat" can be the sole hero of the hour is beyond frustrating.
Be better Square Enix, you have 10 years of story you can pull from, and you chose to ignore it when it's right there.
Mike, you may never see this, but you expressed all my frustration better than I ever could have. Thank you!
My only real problem with all of this is that I don't understand Zoraal Ja's motivations for any of the shit he does. It's not like Gaius or Thordan or Varis or Zenos or Emet-Selch where I can understand and I do not agree with them at all, or Hermes or Fordola or Elidibus where I deeply empathize, but still have to stand against them because they're on the wrong side. Those villains make sense to me, even as I oppose them. That's what makes a lot of them really good villains for me.
Gulool soloing Zoraal? That makes sense. Gulool loves fighting and he's been the front line standard-bearer for decades. I don't agree with it? But it tracks in my mind. But why Zoraal is here in the first place, leading the enemy armies? Why!? That's what baffles me and is the sole biggest problem I have with Dawntrail. I literally do not understand Zoraal's motivations here at all. To the extreme that, even past this video (but still in content that Mike has gotten to), nothing he does make any goddamn sense. Make it make sense. I've taken to calling him "Zovaal Ja" because of this. It's frustrating.
Yeah, I was confused about his motivations from the start. He wants to make the people value peace... by going to war and conquering the world????? This is nonsense, imo.
I really did keep expecting them to go in 'why' Zoraal Ja is the way he is, and it just... never happens.
Yeah my thoughts exactly. Zoraal ja is the worst villian in ffxiv and its not even close.
I think his motivations make more sense by the end (without getting into later stuff here that's ahead of this part). But I don't think they do a great job of laying them out, whether that's because they want the player to contemplate it on their own time or because they just didn't find space for it. Ultimately I think he is a fairly straightforward antagonist - he exists as a cog in a larger story, and I think in that aspect he works better. He's not going to make a 'greatest antagonists' list but I ended up appreciating his part in the story.
@@kenallsop7502 It's fine to have that read, I just find his motivations unclear and lacking. Like... even at the end, I never understood. The reasons he gave are entirely incompatible with his actions in my mind.
Its bad here but FF14 in general has a problem with characters standing and doing nothing while plot happens. Like in Endwalker and we just watch a guy slowly get eaten.
Yea not sure why he complaning, our charactwr ALWAYS! Stands around doing nothing in major moments its ncps who doing something.
@@ruick78 There's usually a reason why we can't step in. Bozja's story was also deservedly blasted for not giving any reason for us letting Misija do whatever.
ok back in EW at that specific scene it was imply that we wasn't fast enough.
That is more like the way the scene was setup, it was extremely Japan drama style where each scene is acted out seperately while they should have happend at the same time.
people use that specific example a lot, and that case it's absolutely not true. the scene goes out of its way to show we're busy fighting something else and too far away to stop it in time, then shows us leading it away to kill it once we get there.
@@Keira_Blackstone no, you literally just stand there and they only show you kill 1 blasphemy right before the cutscene ends after he gets eaten.
The earliest example i can think of with this revenge story trope is probably Dumas' The Count of Monty Cristo, where in the book (hilariously the movie completely misses the point) the main character does exhibit that character growth and break off his quest for vengeance. this only happens after his quest for vengeans almost takes the lives and destroys the happiness of several of people of the younger generation that he has met along the way who are completely innocent and just caught up in everything. too often this trope in video games fails to show the self destructive quality of vengeance and so it always lands flat.
Wasn’t daddy having one on one duels set up from the very beginning? Estinien, then us, then his son
Of course he was. Literally shown as his core character.
I think the points you missed was fighting with honour is how Gulool Ja Ja united the continent and the fact the head of reason is dead has hampered his thought process of don't do the duel just take him and the army out asap. Also the WoL always just stands there and lets people die to fight them later, it's like a running gag
The thing with their duel is that, until the end of it, daddy was winning the fight very thoroughly. The man we want to help actively does not want us to help, and is beating his son's ass left and right so we have no reason to think he can't handle it until Zoraal Ja delivers a one shot. The one thing I'll argue is dumb is that he just slow walks out after the fight's over. We know from later on that Zoraal Ja can teleport, so it would've made more sense if he had teleported out instead of just RP walking out afterwards.
Also, in regards to the audience it's targeting, it's less than Dawntrail feels like it's targeting a younger audience, so much as they're trying to tell a different genre of story. Specifically, it's a very 'hopecore' type narrative, which is going to appeal to a very different type of person.
I kinda agree with you but I have no idea where this 'honour' duel is coming from. It was about a father putting down a son he had a hand in making. He knew what Zoraal Ja's ambitions were but let him take part in the competition anyway and this was the end result. I don't think it had anything to do with 1v1 traditions.
it's just the most common counter argument people have for the complaint that we just stand there and watch. But again, it's just another case of the players trying to fill in the blanks, which says a lot about the writting of this expansion
So the only thing ill say about zoraal ja leaving which he says as one line and is kind of glossed over after daddy death is that he'll pull out his troops anf give them time to challenge him. The funny thing is I have a much simpler way to solve the issue you have with the honorable duel part. Just have daddy say, "fine, ill give you your duel if you tell your troops to stand down." Like that handles the full setup, the scene is the exact same, and it even accounts for us letting him go. Because the logic of letting him go to prepare a defense and see to your wounded if he'll pull back his troops, it's a logical solution that immediately stops the bloodshed and saves more civilian lives. They could just be... Upfront with that reasoning for the honorable duel and the setup on the premise for the next bit of the MSQ
I read the title and already knew what you're going to talk about 😂😂. Thanks for sharing
The quality jump after Vanguard is insane. Almost like it was written by different people.
So, I actually like the standoff and here's why. ZJ was GJJ's responsibility from the start, so it makes sense that he'd want to take him on alone to atone for his "sin" of letting things get out of hand and not being able to teach his son why he effectively lost the right to the throne. Zoraal Ja has never been stronger than GJJ and this is apparent even in the scene because ZJ legit dies and cheats the system with the backup soul machine (can't remember the name). The only reason why ZJ beats GJJ is because of oversouling which amplifies strength exponentially, which was shown off in Heritage Found with the huntress that went from getting bodied easily to obliterating her target. The only people who could have potentially done something in that moment were WoL, Alphinaud and Alisaie, but not only was the 2nd bout over in 3 hits, it was fast and they were dealing with a power they never seen before. We COULD have jumped in after he raised, but it'd be perfectly safe to think GJJ could just beat him again. Even after 30 years in another reflection spent training the military and likely himself for an invasion, he still couldn't beat his father until he oversouled.
Was GJJ irresponsible not to want help? Certainly, considering he's freshly Tuli's ex-leader and his loss would spell trouble, but burdening other people with his personal issues isn't something that many people would be willing to do even irl. GJJ left Tuliyollal in Wuk and Koana's hands. He felt if he should pass on, the country would be in good hands, otherwise he wouldn't've have made them dawnservant.
See this was my take, everyone complaining about us not jumping in to fight when as far as well know from this point in the story he is just reborn, we don't know about the other stuff yet with the souls, so GJJ should just be able to kill him again, but by the point we see ZJ leaping through the air with ridiculous speed and power its kinda too late and then we would have to be idiots to jump in not knowing what the maximum power is on this ability.
People would have been just as angry at the writing had Alisaie jumped in and actually died.
Speaking as someone who liked Dawntrail's story, characters and all that, I feel like the biggest problem the MSQ had this time around was trying to fit in really meaty, interesting ideas into the pacing of a levelling progression system. There's a ton of ideas brought up that could've easily been drawn out more and explored, but not without adding several hours of storytelling that would've been huge speed bumps in the progression to level 100. Some of these things might be expanded on in patch content - the leadership differences between Wuk Lamat and Koana could come up now that the immediate crisis has passed, for example - but other issues, like the people of Mamook just abandoning their old beliefs so quickly, really should have been expounded on for longer than it got.
On a lesser note, I actually like Smile a lot, but even I admit using it as montage music for the train scene was a little much. Between this and giving most of the role quest finales goofy music, I'm wondering how much of that was Soken's choice or not, 'cause he usually doesn't miss like that.
I think quite the opposite actually, i feel that they had more than enough time to show the ideas the story wanted to tell in the 20ish hours of cutscenes the msq has. They just didnt use those hours properly.
Ishikawa mentioned how she felt really guilty over how many times she made Soken adjust the music timing for 5.3 when he was secretly sick. It could be just that scene but it seems writers and music work really closely.
To be honest the "triumphant trumpet" song when things go well generally makes me cringe lmao. Also when the sad themes don't fit what's going on. Can't forget my fav where the game plays the happy music RIGHT after Estinien gets possessed 😂 it's like we don't care about him it's so funny. Music don't always hit in this game for sure and this montage is one of them.
People cried over the "From the cold" quest?? That one and Thancred's little MGS adventure were my favorite parts of Endwalker questing!
Knowing they don't want to do them because people don't want to play the game is so damn upsetting.
I want puzzles, I want minigames, I want CHALLENGES in the MSQ!
I'm so tired of MSQ questing being only "talk to 5 NPCs and maybe click this one thing" before the next cutscene
I think this part was that killed the immersion for me. Shaolani wasn't my cup of tea, but, since I watched the launch trailer (going forward I shouldn't, but hype is a thing), I knew that at the end of the zone we'll shift gears.
Then it happened. I was already kind of annoyed that we didn't get a solo duty of fighting our way back through the city, because I missed those and it was a kinda obvious set up for one, but then we witness the fight between Gulool Ja Ja and Zoral Ja and we just stand around doing nothing. And that is something we have no reason to do. Especially after he resurrects. Just jump him. We have been dealing with people who come back to life since ARR. We should know that it is time to go in. But no.
Also, Ketenram is there and fine for some reason.
And the breaking of immersion is kind of an issue for this story, because if you actually start to think about, what would the logical thing to do would be or you happen to think about a very logical question that nobody is asking, you will realise that there are holes where there shouldn't be. And when you notice the holes, the story falls apart. And when the story falls apart, you don't have gameplay to hang onto, because solo duties are extinct, dungeons aren't really that common and both the second and third trial is at the end of the MSQ.
I'm rewatching the story through the streams and honestly, overall, it could have been great. The execution was lacking however.
I was convinced for several levels that Ketenram was some kind of robot body double, because there was just no way that he should have been alive at that point.
@@MagicScientist I didn't know what he was, but I felt for sure it would be... something, and that at least one person would comment on it, but nope.
I agree that scene was frustrating. I also agree it could have been handled differently, BUT, I think the purpose of the writers was different: we (the players) saw Gulool Ja fight one on one with several characters, including us, which tells me "this is a thing". So when we enter the room, they think "Nah, father/Gulool would take care of him". I think nobody in the room was expecting Gulool Ja to lose to Zoraal Ja or that Zoraal would OR COULD kill him. They saw Zoraal defeated on the floor, then he "gets rez'ed" in a weird manner and inmeddiatly kills Gulool. No time to react. This is clearly an unknown threat, Zoraal has somehow control of an army of giant high tech ships just waiting outside to level the place and it is pissed for some reason that we don't know at that point in the story. I think this, combined with the shock, is why the scene carries out the way it did. I don't remember, but I think he actually said: "if they tried to kill him there and then, we would just throw the might of the full army on them."
I too did think Gulool Ja Ja would die before the end, but I never thought it was going to be his actual (as in real) son.
It feels like whoever was placed in charge of the writing for this expansion wanted to present interesting concepts but didnt know how to use the tact and thoughtfulness to resolve things so they just brushed a lot of it to the side with platitudes and generalization. The resolution to the Mamook stuff feels genuinely insulting to me. Bakool's dad oversaw the death of thousands of children and treated his son like absolute shit and the best they can do by the end is "Dont do it again! We'll leave you in charge. We wont say anything of what happened here. But dont do it again!". It just felt wrong. And I feel like sweeping that kind of thing under the rug is something we'd have railed against in previous expansions.
Preach, youre reading way too deep into that dungeon bosses line. Hes referring to the honour they lost when you guys stormed the base and how he feels hes been dishonored.
Thats it. Thats what hes referring to. Cant believe people didnt catch this on the first go.
The problem with the first half is that there is no conflict really with the trials. Wuk and the Scions basically solve everything by having a conversation, despite the fact that some of these cultures would have a really hard time adapting, especially Mamook. Which feel like it gets swept under the rug.
All conflict comes from outside sources like Bakool Ja Ja.
It's like if we went to the Garleans in EW, had a talk with Quintus and he was just like "Yeah, cool. We'll throw away all our history and join you, no questions asked."
If you don't ignore ambient dialogues and quests and some of the msq dialogue, you would have known that barely anything got solved, and for most people, nothing changed. Like, even in Mamook, a lot of them still do not trust you and wait for actual proof of Wuk not being full of shit.
@@artjom94the problem is that isn’t conveyed in the MSQ.
My friends and I who have been playing this game since 2.0 all shared similar opinions you had here. We've seen the writing team to do better in the past so we understandablely had higher expectations. I really hope Yoshi P and the devs are able to sift through the feedback discourse and separate the Wuk Lamat hate from the actual criticisms of her character and why moments such as the duel betwen Gulool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja fell flat.
A friend summed up Wuk Lamat's character pretty well: "She's ARR Alphinaud without Ilberd." She's got almost no character growth through the entire MSQ, and the things that *should* cause her to take a step back and reevaluate herself simply don't. Someone's dead set on murdering the entire population of Tuliyollal? It's okay! Just give them a hug!
@@Maria_EriasWuk Lamat is a very bad version of Zidane mentality if “you don’t need a reason to help someone” but done in the worst way possible or understanding why it works
@@Maria_Erias I mean she went from a spoiled princess in the first half to going to kill her brother by the end of the story and didn't waver on that even after meeting his son. I think the Sphene situation was different because it felt like there might be another way to solve that situation until it was too late. Deep down she's a good person that doesn't want violence to be the first solution to every problem. And that's how it should be if we're being the good guys.
@@PayAttEx Except these people are not only mass murderers, but Sphene was dead-set on genocide of the entire continent of Tural just so she could steal everyone's souls to keep the flesh-puppet simulacra of her people operating.
@@PayAttEx There's a big different from "violence as a last resort" and chalking up someone who's dead set on wiping out your entire nation as a "difference of culture".
It's also nonsensical that she winds up dead set on killing Zoraal Ja, but not on Sphene - when Zoraal Ja just wanted to conquer Tural while Sphene wanted to wipe everyone out.
100% the avoidance of any real stress or frustration at a situation has made everything the character does feel effortless and lacking in consequence. That soldier scene in endwalker was one of the best (control another character) scenes they have ever done ( shadowbringer thancred would be top if it wasn't so long) and like you said they will probably never do it again. In fact I don't expect any of those scenes to ever be as challenging and engaging storywise again because of them avoiding putting stress on players. We will still get PC scenes like the one with the vow of resolve but those are meant to be won, I'm sad we will never had fights that are meant to be lost/hopeless again in that way
Very similar summary of the pit in my motivation I felt immediately after the dungeon of this zone was completed... Also wtf is up with the massive HP turtle in this dungeon :O!? Did they tune it a zero upwards?!
Yoshi P and team need to stop listening to the players who complain about every instance sequence being hard otherwise the msq will just devolve into a visual novel with no fun mini games or interactions of any kind outside of "speak with xxx". One of the only satisfying part of this expansion is the dungeon content and raids and already there are people being vocal about it being "hard" in the forums. 🤦
My take on the 1v1 fight was less about the honor aspect, though it's true it's a criminally overused trope in manga and anime. Rather, I thought it was more that we as outsiders weren't sure if and when we should step in because this guy was a living legend of a warrior and our interference could do more harm than good for him. In all likelihood we might get in the way and he has to hold back to make sure he doesn't accidentally hit an ally.
The reboot part is extremely frustrating as a player, of course, because it's obvious a mile away. On this specific point I think they're leaning on the in-universe knowledge is not meta knowledge and what's obvious to us is not obvious to the people in the room. If you do the duty support on that dungeon following, the characters will still celebrate early even as the boss is reviving himself and you just gotta facepalm.
20:43 On an unrelated note, that little falling star you see behind Preach' character is something that happens on Fair/Clear night skies, every full Eorzean Hour, I think between 08:00 pm and 04:00 am. It happens inside the frame of wherever your camera is facing at the time.
It's one of those little extra's like rainbows, aurora borealis and diamond dust effects in certain regions.
Definitely agree with the duel. It felt like it was a bit contrived to be a way for Wuk to stay involved. As soon as the barrier popped up, the WoL/scions should have been like "Wuk, you hang out and take care of your city, we got this". But they really wanted her along for the whole thing I guess...and this was the way they decided to get her involved. Also yes, that song was SO weird and out of place considering how great the music has been for the rest of the expansion :-/
While I had a positive reaction to that scene, I'm glad to hear Mike outline his own thoughts so clearly.
My take on the scene was much simpler and was based on the emotional dynamic of the conflict. This was a father deciding to kill his son. That was not something I expected my character or any Scion to intervene in.
Moreover, the father won the fight the first time, and rather easily at that. In the narrative itself, why would the nearby characters believe he would lose again? Had the father been getting repeatedly beaten in a corner, then I would have had an issue. It is important to remember that we, the players, have a better understanding of narrative tropes than the characters. We know that a rematch is more likely to lead to the former losing party coming out on top. Shifts in audio and cinematography reinforce that. As a consequence, the narrative is creating a disconnect between us, the player, and the mindset of our player character. That, along with being predictable, is the mechanical failing of the scene.
As for the son walking away, that is the weaker part of the scene. At the same time, I'm open to the argument others have put forth. The challenge has been set and the threat of the fleet is there. My preference would still be for the scene to have had soldiers swarm in, for the son to have a shield or be overwhelming powerful, or for the entire thing to be seen via the Echo.
On one last point, Wuk Lamat's speech later on doesn't help. The issue of honor gives her motivation to stand aside, but only after the fact and not in a way that would transfer to every player's character.
I can see it now: Next Fanfest They hype up the next big villain who comes out on stage, pulls off the mask and reveals it's Robert Downey Junior....who then pulls off the mask and reveals themselves as Natsuko Ishikawa
I totally get your take. I didn’t think the Scions didn’t help because of a “duel for honor.” I would have to rewatch the scene. I went the father/son route. I thought that Gulool was already half dead (really interested in how a dead body part affects the whole, but whatever), and decided to kill his son himself or die in the process. I also wish they had changed the scenario to make it more obvious what the goal was, but I just thought Gulool Ja Ja was almost inviting death. His throne is given up, his other half is dead, and his own son (that wasn’t supposed to be born at all) is killing his people. At that point, Wuk an Koana should be the ones looking out for the city. The only thing Gulool Ja Ja has left, is his son. Again, I’m not saying it was a great scene. Even in my interpretation, it could have been so much more effective. DT story falls just above ARR (no post content) for me, but only just.
... What makes you think Zoraal Ja wasnt intended to be born?? They only said that he was the first child born of a two-headed Mamool Ja... Knowing Gulool Ja Ja he would've been delighted to have a child!
@@markup6394 oh I don’t think he didn’t want a child. I just thought that it had never happened before. He probably wasn’t expecting a child? But I’m sure he was delighted when he was born.
@@drogoop6759 :)
I've been mulling this for days and I've come to a conclusion for DT:
DT is a good example that a good plot (the what) is not a guarantee of a good story (the how).
And I've made my peace with it.
I think there was some kind of misfire in the theme / direction of the father & son duel. The scene most reminded me of the scene in Black Panther, specifically the scene where Killmonger challenges T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda, in which it's established that you are not allowed to interfere with these duels per Wakandan custom.
One of the side characters, Zuri, intervenes when Killmonger is about to kill T'Challa, and Killmonger kills him AND "kills" T'Challa anyways (or at least he thinks that). And the whole scene, I think, was symbolic of the struggle between custom & tradition versus innovation and progress. This is evident in how T'Challa later takes the stance that Wakanda, mostly an unknown country of vast wealth and prosperity, should become a world power and use its resources and power for good, even if it backfires for Wakanda. It's the risk we take in trying to help others that T'Challa learns to understand by seeing the contrast between the old ways and the hyper aggressive stance Killmonger takes in the movie.
Here, it feels like someone maybe should have intervened and been badly wounded or even killed alongside Galool Ja Ja. Wuk'Lamat ends up taking the stance that T'Challa does in Black Panther in that she wants to use her power as Dawn Servant to ultimately help as many people as possible, using her understanding of tradition with Koana's talents and knowledge of technological innovation, but here it feels like there was something missing to get her to that point.
Gulool Ja-Ja ordered us to not interfere, we were confident he could handle Zorrel Ja because we know how strong he was, we had ZERO clue about his regulator and what it did. I don't see how this is making people upset. Could it have been done better? Sure. Is it worth treating Dawntrail's MSQ like it's Season 8 of GOT because of it? Hell no!
Completely agree. I’d have loved a scene where we saw him land at the temple and we fight our way up to get there and see the duel end in his death. Really awful scene the way it played out
It definitely feels like they forgot who their fans were. If we're playing through the DT story that means we very likely played through Shadowbringers and Endwalker and those stories were absolutely meant for an older player base than Dawntrail was written for.
I mean you say that, but then we have the bit at the end that was much more grown-up. It feels like the writers are swapping between cartoon land and drama land half-way through the story.
@@adognamedsally I don't really agree. I think the final zone had the potential to have some very serious questions about what it means to be alive but then it just kinda skipped any deep introspection of it. It very much told you how to feel rather than asked you how you feel IMO.
@@level7sloth529 Although I cannot say exactly the reason for why I feel how I do, I can at least say that when we met Sphene and that whole arc started, I was suddenly engaged in the story again. In particular, the tension between Cahciua and Erenville was interesting to me.
I don't know, the whole setup in the last 2 zones had that vibe I got when we showed up at Eulmore that something was rotten and things were going to turn dark.
I could hazard a guess: Yoshi P wanted a joyous exp this time around. And maybe, in their japanese culture, it resonates with happy smile anime tropes. It feels wrong to say that, but with a huge team like CS3, surely someone could have felt that weakness in the story telling??
@@adognamedsally I think this is one of the biggest issues of DT MSQ: They keep flip-flopping between cartoony and serious/dark and end up failing both. I think it's fine to have an expansion with a lighter tone, hell most people were expecting that of DT. I think they should have went super light in the first half of the story: no serious threats, literal beach episode moments with the Scions+ Wuk and then you have the city invasion scene that immediately turns everything on its head, and from then on you stop with the cartoony, goofy stuff and actually delve into the serious side of the story. It would have been received much better than what they did: being unable to keep a consistent feeling.
I didn't feel the same during the first half of the duel, because it felt like it was personal. HIS son did this, HIS son butchered the people, and he was going to right this wrong personally because it was his son doing this.
But the second half, as soon as the processor kicked in and afterwards, I was upset that we didn't jump in. He's just WALKING AWAY and we just LET HIM!
With the Stormblood comparisons, Wuk Lamat is a better Lyse. But the blue lizard is a much worse Zenos.
Also you are 100% right about the music, it's such tonal whiplash considering what happened before and the presumption that the enemy forces are just watching us as we build this armored train right outside their base. YAY HAPPY SONG as the city buries it's dead.
Definitely relate to this in that "I understand it but don't like how they did it" feeling. DT has a fine scenario and plot beats but the execution, storyboarding and staging often feels very off like they skipped a proofing stage.
I don't mind the 1v1 between Zoraal Ja and Gulool Ja Ja because we've seen multiple times throughout the story that Gulool Ja Ja is really strong and that Zoraal Ja is no match for him. The problem is what happens after the 1v1.
The scene brought to light what I've been slightly feeling with this expansion. The NPCs are doing the things that I want to do and I can't do the things that I want to do because of how it's set up. I wanted to charge down the hall and stab that dude in the back. I also wanted to explore the city when we first found it but instead was told that I'm going to go explore a desert instead. I would rather go and check out the lightning dome but instead I ran around a city building a train? I feel like I'm being pushed in a direction that I don't want to be in the story. Not that I wouldn't do these things in the story but I want to be in the thick of it. And the story is not letting me be.
I can compare this scene to something similar back in shadowbringers. When Vauthry retreated and made his mountain domain to be out of reach of us. I wanted to charge off and fight him of course but the realistic thing was that we needed to help treat the people in the city. And then of course having to build a way to get up to him. That all felt really reasonable on why we couldn't go charging off after him right away. I don't feel that way this time.
I made screenshots of my character Manderville-posing in front of the broken throne. My emotional investment in that scene was about nil. I wasn't angry. I was disappointed. That scene was very melodramatic. While melodrama isn't bad - this game thrives on melodrama - having the Scions stand there and watch was an insult to every character present. If it wasn't for Wuk Lamat's pain, I would have checked out completely.
It is very odd how they switch between Disney cartoon land where everyone just gets along one moment and the next we're dealing with dead babies. It's almost like the writers weren't aware of how this was going to land for players.
pretty sure they spent two whole zones talking about the wars that happened in the past, and that some groups still reject the unification
I'm a bit surprised no one in the comments is talking about the Japanese bushido tradition. Refusing to interfere with the duel -- even if it is grossly unfair -- was not jarring or surprising to me. And, having grown up in the US, I acknowledge it is likely to be utterly foreign to a western audience. I'm not going to defend it as right or justified or good storytelling or anything; I'm only saying that I think it's consistent with the cultural traditions that I assume the storywriters belong to.
For what it's worth, I like Preach's suggestion that it could have been written so that the Scions and Hero came in too late to help -- that it could have been a viable alternative that doesn't break the honor narrative while also being good storytelling.
100% agree on The duel scene. It was so off and made me feel so disconnected from my character. Even just chastising WoL with a spell or knocking them our would have fixed this. But no. Hated it even more when I knew I would have LOVED the scenes afterward, but I had to stop playing for an evening because it was just so bad. Clearly this strong reaction shows how much I love The game.