Why Dawntrail's Story Didn't Work
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- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- dawntrail sure was an expansion, wasn't it?? opinions are very, very mixed... and so are mine! a lot of my thoughts on this game are actually pretty unconventional criticisms based on what i've already seen, but i don't want to just say the same thing everyone else is saying. that'd make for a boring video!
so have some more final fantasy xiv dawntrail hot takes! i definitely wasn't happy with a lot of the decisions they made, and i know they have to follow endwalker, but come on. there has to be a better direction for this game to go in. i was at least right about it being fun to play, since it's pretty fun! but the story..? well...
0:00 - intro
0:39 - the good(?) (SPOILER WARNING PAST THIS)
3:01 - 1 the scions of the seventh dawn reunion!! woo!!
7:43 - 2 dawntrail is the "start" of a new arc
9:41 - 3 the next arc???
12:55 - 4 the final zone is......... bad
17:51 - 5 krile (lol)
19:05 - 6 zoraal ja
21:36 - 7 sphene
23:09 - 8 wuk lamat
27:29 - 9 uh oh! references!!!!
i'm iska, and i'm an independent vtuber! i don't stream yet but maybe i will one day. for now i just make videos on things i like. i drew and rigged my own model and i edit everything myself too, so please be nice.
despite this video i like final fantasy 14 for personal computer thanks bye - Ігри
You know one thing I thought was weird was the scene with Ketenramm where he gets jumped. I thought he died but then he shows up like "yeah I got robbed". I almost thought that maybe it was a trick and he gave the stones and it would turn out that he was evil all along but nothing happened really.
i remember that really bothering me too!! they definitely made it look like he died there lol what a strange decision
If the story never mentions a persons death, they are not dead.
It is alluded to that Ketenramm has some sort of either immortality or something unique about him. Talking to him after he reappears has him say that the attack would have killed someone else. He is past a Roegadyn's usual life span from everything we know. A few scenes shortly before his introduction to the party we are also told that the people who "find or live in the Golden City never die." We know now this was likely referring to regulators but why would anyone from the original party that found "The Golden City" know that?
My money is on him being a set up for a later patch story that will explain his ominous comments about his own mortality and what else happened before the Sharlayan lock was placed on the gate.
They put way too much work into his sculpted Chad face. No way they're throwing that all away for a fast death.
@@Exaltable I really hope so. It really bothered me that no one in our party raises an eyebrow at the fact that a "legendary explorer" like Ketenramm who was in his prime 80 years ago still looks barely over 50 now. Not a single word about that even from the most inquisitive Scions. One of the many points in the MSQ that just felt off.
I was expecting a manly duel with Thancred.
Instead he just throws rock at us in a dungeon.
aw that would have been a really fun solo instance!
In the final patch of End Walker I really really thought that we'd have to go up against Thancred and Urianger, and hell, maybe even a rematch against Estinian. It was the only thing that actually had me excited for DT
@@maetchiyu8320 "a rift between the scions, clamouring for different goals." and all it boiled down to was causing some rocks to fall....
I hate DT MSQ so much....
I remember being at EU fanfest and yoshiP hyping up people on which scion would be against you. Everyone thought there would be some conflict of some sort, but yeah... we ended up with thancred using double down to block the way in a dungeon 🙃
same . I thought Thancred going to pull something clever and caught wol off guard and made us lose one of the rounds to get the freaking tablet
I think if the goal was for us to be a mentor to Wuk Lamat, then I honestly think we should be challenging her values, choices, and opinions more often. My biggest issue I found with her is how so little her naive views are challenged and put to the test with the potential of it blowing up in her face and having to face real consequences.
huge agree! it doesn't feel like her beliefs are challenged at all, let alone by the warrior of light trying to mentor her. i didn't dislike her, but it would have been nice to see her some actual consequences and learn from them.
She's a self-insert character so she can't have any actual consequences.
Mega spoilers: Yeah, I feel that. My issue with the characters in DT was that in the first half, everyone felt like a completely believable character. Wuk Lamat is a young "princess" learning the way of her world and growing, being wrong at times and showing off her flaws, even it wasn't frequent, but she at least accepted to approach different traditions with openness instead of her own preconceptions. Zoraal Ja is a stoic man with, despite a twisted idea of what brings peace for his people, but ultimately his goal and concern is what he believes is best for his people. To which both, after the right of succession kinda just get thrown out the window. Wuk becomes this unchallenged queen that speaks no wrongs, Zoraal Ja is revealed to be an insecure man-child that couldn't shake his inferiority complex even after 30 years. The list goes on for so many characters and story beats for the central protagonists this plot. And from where I stood most of these changes were from a completely different writer. Not that the second half was bad, I think it just kind of ruins the development and building the first half built upon. And of course there's alot of suspension of disbelief, but I still struggle to comprehend how Bakool just literally shrugs her off the first time he swings at her, then not only manages to beat him and his whole gang alone, and resist a full attack from the expansion's final boss in one of the cutscenes.
@TeemoTemosson Representation i felt it alot throughout this expansion maybe a little too much
she also stays the same the entire story no real proper growth.
also on MANY points I wish my character could say something or say more.
alongside how I feel that Krile got robbed this MSQ and Wuk Lamat took her spotlight away on the 2nd half
"They picked the safe option."
That perfectly describes this entire expansion.
Not just with the story.... Even the new job skills and everything they did is just the bare minimum of effort put in... I'm surprised I found someone on UA-cam who says how it is... We got garbage, lot of reused assets, all dungeon and raid bosses have not a single new mechanic, some are exact copy's from previous ones.... And I don't even want to start with the list,I play from 1.0 and this expansion so far is the worst ever made,even the graphics update is not that big,... The only difference I see is now I can turn off reshade.... Or if I really look I can find some minor things... The 2tone recolor is half assedly implemented to. The hype was immense,but what we got is a big mid nothing, I get it it's a new story arc start, but this story goes nowhere and jumps left and right with a lot of non sense... My friend finished it the first days, I did it slow and literally knew what will happen next without playing it.... They could start fresh without the team and build a new arc with new characters... But no, we got this.
@@UmbraWeiss They went all out artistically tho. Living memory is like Devs saying: "Look what we made! It looks cool, right?"
more like 'lazy' option, for all the time it took, this product is unacceptable.
@@nemnymeria7873 it is, but as you see Ff14 fans love to think everything is alright, and Yoshi P is a God and can't do bad.... And every garbage they do is accepted. This is the biggest problem with this game, it's on live support money while the profit is being transferred to other big AAA projects while Ff14, the money maker gets almost 0 budget.
Outside of the things you listed, my biggest pain point was when Bakool Ja Ja released a civilization destroying dragon/bird thing and has almost zero reprecussions. Like, did everyone forget that? The next scene with him has us making tacos. It was just jarring asf
Yeah, I thought he would be disqualified for that, but apparently that's...okay? I think my Fiancee who I was running the MSQ with pointed out that the only real way to be disqualified was to try and harm one of the people who dole out the little gem things, but just about everything else is fair game. Which is amazingly stupid imo.
Yeah, I was like "Bakool is totally disqualified" and then he was there for the next challenge like, what, slapping an Elector is bad but trying to kill everyone just as a distraction is AOK?
What's even more hilarious is the Elector's are almost set up to keep us in line, too. Wuk Lamat wants to confront Bakool Ja Ja, but the Electors are like, "Touch him and you die." Bakool Ja Ja brings a near apocalypse and the Electors are, "You're mean! >:(... Anyways, make us food, fetch us a rock, trade with us, tell us a funny story now. :D"
That annoyed me too! And then later he's like "Tuliyollal is my home and i will defend it" like this amount of destruction would have happened were we not there to stop valigarmanda?????
What's crazy is that one of the elector's trials was to restore the seal and Bakool Ja Ja destroyed it intentionally. Even by the rules of the election he'd be disqualified.
"Did Hoary Boulder mean so little to you?" Man... That one hurt.
Who dat? Joking.
I liked the scene where the gang got together, and although this statement didn't change my opinion. It did get me thinking. I want Hoary to get a story arc.
They could have been braver with the story and instead of the main scions we could have left for the new world with Hoary, Clemence, Fordola, even the Ironworks crew would have mixed it up a bit. Flesh out the broader cast of characters, this was the ideal expansion to do it
who's that? im not joking, isn't that an elden ring boss with the lion?
being able to spend time with the background scions would've been great I liked riol in the arr patch content alot
Also with the ryne and gaia fight it was pretty evident that we couldnt save her, we were trapped in ice and so was she. The odds werent in the WoL’s favor it was a losing battle. Wukky just steals the show for no reason.
Yeah, she KS the WoL D:
Her voice acting in that scene was abyssmal
@@thehurricane6767 the voice acting was fine, it was the voice direction that wasnt working. the person in charge of directing the VA.
Yeah and you have the context of Ryne an Avatar of Light taking on ice and light aether so much she loses control, so we are fighting against a lightwarden with the power of a Hydaelyn primal on a shard 90% light aether. Like how we beat Emet with our overflow of light aether. Gaia was the only one with the power to counter the light or weaken it enough to finish the fight.
@@DarkKeybladeMaster23 no watch the JP Dub and tell me the NA one is fine, even with voice direction there is no saving that scene. Its shit. The NA ending of 7.0 is a giant meme and it will stay that way. VA ruined it
I actually think if the Scions were used more, it would have made for a better story. Imagine if earlier on you and Krile are separated from the rest of the group, so while the two of you are investigating some ruins or whatever, Alisaie has a heart to heart with Wuk Lamat about what it’s like to have a brainy brother that tends to be so good at everything. Then she goes on to talk about how what she’s good at and how the two of them complement each other and are greater than the sum of their parts. Wuk Lamat could then internalise that lesson in regards to her own brother.
this is actually a really good point, and i completely agree. if they were going to include the scions anyway, it would have been nice for them to actually relate to the new cast rather than just stand around awkwardly. alphinaud and alisaie don't even get any "sibling" moments, in an expansion ABOUT siblings!
The funny thing is that Wuk Lamat's story arc didnt allow her to fumble up either.
While Alphinaud had to learn the hard way of the price of arrogance as a leader. And Alisae's self image issues.
Wuk Lamat felt like a combination of both which was fine but as the OP said. They could've used the twins to help Wuk Lamat grow.
Lowkey kind of wish Zoraal Ja won so that Wuk Lamat can have a Crystal Braves moment.
This is exactly why Zero's character worked in post EW. Her development revolved around not only around the scions but on the other npc's as well especially with people of Garlemald and Radz at han which made the chemistry between her and others feel more organic and complimented her character very well that made her likeable as the story progresses.
Wuk lamat on the other hand is a character being shoved to your face or forced fed and the story is telling you that you have to like this character or this character is one of the main characters that you to pay attention to. And this style of writing rubs people the wrong way.
@@losercat1447 Zero felt like someone's edgy OC. Her only personality trait is repeating a noun another character says and cringely tip her hat afterwards.
Exactly. They just weren’t written properly. They felt like they were written by different people. Compare any dawntrail scene with the scene where ryne gets her name by thancred for example.
There is emotion, real actual human feelings, banter between the twins. It’s lovely. It’s emotional. It’s real.
I want to retain the relationship we built over the years.
I genuinely didn’t mind Wuk being the main character for the first half.
But by the second half I wish she was just off doing Country Leader stuff.
Which sucks cause I was trying so hard to like her - but any semblance of fondness I had for her ended when she interjected into the final trial. Like cmon man the entire expansion was already about you let me have this one moment…
Also, I just wanted to see more of Krile and Erenville, but I was given Wuk Lamat.
Yes, I agreed to help her become Dawn Servant. I didn't agree to her becoming my boss or family.
This is why I get so infuriated with people who go on about how the WoL's arc is over and it's time for someone else to take over.
First of all, no.
Secondly if that someone else isn't the player character regardless of who that person in the story is then I'm not interested.
I do not play games, especially not this game, to be a participant in someone else's story unless the narrative is specifically set up that way from the beginning and means something.
Here it's meaningless, and made all the stupider by the fact that Wuk Lamat's arc is done when she becomes the Dawnservant.. and yet she still imposes and steals the spotlight from the WoL!
So why exactly must the WoL step aside when their arc is done (allegedly), when Wuk Lamat won't when hers is entirely done?
@@zephyr8072 my thoughts exactly, if i wanted to be a side character in a story, i'd go play WoW. this expansion had no business doing this to us.
@@zephyr8072 I wouldn't have minded being a side character. But not to Wuk Lamat past the 2nd half, definitely needed more Erenville and Krile - which I would have been happy to play side character to.
We have 5 expansions where we have our "one moment", at this point our canon WoL could probably no diff all the enemies in DT. The expansions had to be about someone else or the power scaling would've been a little weird, the great savior of the universe having a prolonged battle against a bird, or a soul bot. Not taking into account how gameplay has to be different than canon, we're simply too strong
Most importantly, there was no beech episode. 😢
First time i saw Wuk Lamat in endwalker, my brain went "you have coin? Kajit has wears."
The story was so cliche that I predicted about 75% of it.
As soon as Bakool Ja Ja showed up and wanted to fight, I was like "let's go. Right here right now. I've already fought the most dangerous being in the universe, I will lay the smack down so hard your grand children will feel it."
Wuk Lamat is Naruto ordered off wish...
Well yeah of course they’re not gonna have our character fight Bakool Ja Ja, we’d slap him through another continent by accident.
@@MayHugger It's the "let me do my job" fallacy where if they let me do what I'm good at, they don't have a story... but since they wanted a story, I'm stuck yelling "let me do my job" at the screen... similar to the story Ultima fight in the "such devistation" scene. They're talking for like 5 minutes and I'm just sitting there twiddling my thumbs!
@@fightingblind It wouldn't be so jarring if they weren't so focused on Wuk Lamat and making her the protagonist.
I'm sorry but I didn't go through a 10 year arc with my character to just sit in the background of someone else's generic shonen anime story.
I feel this is why they don't even bother to tailor events to the WoL and their background.
Toxic defenders say I want to just run around saying I'm the Warrior of Light and have everyone worship me. No. What I want is for the WoL to have an adventure that's believable.
Make credible threats. Have the WoL lose their abilities, be weakened because Hydaelyn is dead and their Dynamis juice ran out or something. _Explain it._
Otherwise we just get this. Tons and tons of story that feels completely irrelevant and has me constantly asking why am I even here?
Wuk is Naruto from wish and zoral jaja is Mewtwo from wish
The DT MSQ was basically the "it sounded cool in my head" meme. The story team had this wild imagination that they thought seemed awesome. But when put on paper and executed, it wasn't nearly as amazing as they thought.
The marketing for this expansion talked so much about how the scions would be in opposite sides of a conflict..... that did not happen at all 😅 I was expecting real conflict within our group, scions having different views but... nope
There is still more story coming. Who knows what's gonna happen. :)
@@Dessertpvnkboth wuk lumat and Koana are dawn servants. Both teams of scions achieved their mission. Zoraal ja is dead. And it would be very bad writing if they make Bakool jaja evil again.
@@wrathava It's already plagued with bad writing though. The writers for this xpac were Beast Tribe writers.......
Idk, most beast Tribe quest was better than DT lol
WYM, thancred threw some rocks at us.
If you ask people who their favorite Scion is, you will get different answers. We all like different sorts of characters and we enjoy seeing those characters interact with different characters. The Scions "work" because there are so many different archetypes. Wuk Lamat is a single archetype, and this expansion [mostly] lives and dies on her shoulders. Imagine a world where Dawntrail was a story that had you joining an adventuring group of Wuk Lamat, Koana, Zoraal Ja, and Bakuul Ja Ja. They are all very different personalities and I think sharing the screen time as all being main characters would have made for a much more fun experience. I mean, imagine a campside chat with them...hell, imagine them deciding on how to make camp.
Narratively this expansion was a shotgun of nonsense with very little sticking. I feel the character of Wuk Evu pretty much sums up the expansion...overreaction and immediately moving on to the next thing.
yeah i agree with this completely. i think it would have been really fun if we’d been traveling with that group the entire time! now I’m extra sad we’ll never get that lol
That might've been interesting. There's the troublemaker, the no-nonsense stoic, the brainiac, the energetic optimist, and you, the babysitter who is trying to keep them all from killing each other because they refuse to act like adults.
That would have been so much better. They would still be competing but have to work together at the same time. That would have also left more room for Zoraal Ja and Bakuul Ja Ja to grow and change their opinions/goals as they learn about others, similar to how Estinien changed his opinion of Ysayle and dragons over the course of Heavensward.
If anything those 4 should have been treated as family instead of that lazy focus on Wuk, Like have two different groups and cultures overall working together. Like our job would have more so been keeping their trials safe by accident at first since we're legit on vacation.
Tbh, it would've given more of a HW vibe with that group sorta like Estinien and Iceheart, but more campy and in compliance with the lowered stakes
Imagine if we got the B-team scions instead of A-team. Like imaaaagine bringing in Hoary boulder and company, and start building them up, seeing how they have progressed as you mentor them in addition to Wuk. It wouldve been such a good start to the mentor arc XD
XD CUTE! n.n
I think the real problem with Wuk Lamat was that she was defined as a character almost entirely by what's she's against. Why does she want to be the Dawnservant? Because she can't let Zoruul Ja succeed. Why does she go to the Golden City? Because she can't let Sphene succeed. But when the game tries to lay out what she actually wants, what do we get? Vague platitudes about peace and giving her people a reason to smile. That's the sort of thing one says when you're a contestant for Miss America. Sounds nice and doesn't actually commit you to doing anything in particular. And that's too weak of a character motivation to bear the weight of the whole story on its own. That might have been enough for a side character, but not the main plot.
And that's what I think is Wuk Lamat's biggest problem. This is supposed to be her story but all she actually does is act as the foil in the stories of others.
that's a really good point. they don't give her anything of her own.
I feel like there was a story concept with Zoraal Ja's retainer, Sareel Ja. He seemed to have an ulterior motive or have some scheme in mind. Genuinely thought that would go a different way!
We all thought that would go different. I half expected Sareel Ja to betray Zoraal Ja- not the other way around. Zoraal Ja's transition seemed really out of pocket and ruined what was really leading up to be something great. I can't help but wonder if Sareel Ja is still alive. He did fall off the platform near the entrance to the Golden City after being betrayed. No corpse was shown. He just seemed to have knowledge far beyond what everyone else did about the Golden City as well. To lead Zoraal Ja that far with his own ulterior motivates only to be cut down... that was an interesting and weird choice. It definitely subverted expectations though.
Sareel Ja : says he will get to the golden city
Fails to elobarate
F****** dies
The expansion borrows and relies so much on previous expansions that you could think the devs are the ones building Living Memory
💀
worst part is yout not wrong
isnt that how expansions work? its in the same universe.. going across the water doesnt mean the world didnt almost end for endwalker..
@@JustinK0 That's not what I am saying, Dawntrail feels like it is trying to rehash very specific themes (and the players emotions) from ARR, Shadowbringers and to some extend Endwalker.
The entire thing of not letting go of the dead and even building a fake city and filling them with the dead, it's very on the nose.
The big problem here is that they are not even trying to hide it, it's one of these things where you only notice it right away if it is done poorly
@@beambreaker300they tried to pull an Emet-Selch with Bokool Ja. The whole "he did all those terrible things because of the pain he carried. I said to my FC "did they just try to pull an Emet-Selch with Bakool?"
I had the biggest frown on my face when Wuk Lamat broke through in the final fight like Thancred did with Hades. I was so fucking done.
Same. I was left… fumbled. The fight is really amazing and awesome but… seeing Wuk show up and the voice direction of the VA… man. It took the moment out.
If you play in JP it’s leagues better.
Lol that "SPHENE!" during that scene made me wish I changed it to JP
cringe VA the entire time too.
@@TheSynysterGamera friend told me about getting that trial on roulettes and i changed the va to Japanese out of fear to have listen to that again rofl
@@TacoLex : i played with JP-voices.. believe me it was hardly any better, sure at least the voicelines had a better delivery.. but it was still a cheap copy-pasta of two of the best moments of FF14 ( Eden and Endsinger ) that was forced in because of ~reasons~, not only ruining the trial for me but the earlier moments as welll since those are no longer special now.
Some problems I have with the whole thing are as follows:
- Wuk Lamat being called Lamat'yi by literally everyone? We were JUST introduced to her, then suddenly her family is calling her a whole different thing (a name which we're told the meaning of yet no one else in all of Tural calls their loved ones the same thing. It's exclusive to WL). Then our party, including ourselves of we choose, begin to call her the same thing. Her whole identity is thrown around the room constantly and that's before she gains the NEW names of "Vow Wuk Lamat" or "Vow of Reason". And then even Sphene refers to her as Lamat'yi even though they BARELY KNOW EACH OTHER. You'd think WL would have cared more about who does and doesn't call her such an important name. It was a plot device to allow anyone to say the name and immediately gain status as a "close relationship" .
- Zoraal Ja should've won the Rite of Ascension. From the moment we learn what the plot is going to be before 7.0 even launched and what the threat was, I was SURE that this one who "isn't allowed to become Dawnservant" would do exactly that and become our big threat as a result. Zoraal Ja should've won, become Dawnservant, and been welcomed and celebrated by his people and his family. He would inherit the key to the Golden City, where he would then find his way to Alexandria and the exact same series of events could unfold where he still feels abandoned, he still has a rage inside him, he still hates the people of Tural, and he still has a lust for power that he now has. He would strike the deal with Sphene, bring back his soldiers from Alexandria, kill GJJ, be challenged by WL and Koana, and retreat to Alexandria to give the people of Tural their time again. This set of events fixes a number of things: Wuk Lamat can prove to her people the kind of leader she wants to be by going to Alexandria, Koana can stay back to help the people of Tural, BJJ (give me a bit on him) is able to redeem himswlf in the eyes of the Turali people, and we circumvent the totally unnecessary scene of Ketenramm getting very clearly killed by ZJ just to be totally fine later. With all of this, the idea of the Rite of Ascension itself being a failure and our threat being brought to fruition, it brings to question the idea of their traditions to move on to all new ones (As we see with the dual Dawnservants Wuk Lamat and Koana).
- Bakool Ja Ja was robbed of any worthwhile pay off. His entire story flips the script at the exact moment it needs to just to make himself seem like a sentimental character. He's a bad guy all the way until he's not, then he has to go through his insecurity phase, then he's turned to be a good guy who immediately backs WL's ascension. We get a great moment where BJJ shows up and saves people in Tural, but overall he has no payout, which is a shame because he's my favorite character this expansion.
The ending could've been WL and Koana saving Tural from its own tradition (Rite of Ascension) and then coming together to be the new joint Dawnservants at the end of the expansion but instead the story is broken into two parts: one about solely the Rite of Ascension, one about solely dealing with Alexandria. When the story could have been a culmination of these things where events that happen in both are what shape WL and Koana into being the leaders they are. To me, neither is ready for leadership at the time they receive it but they instead are the "perfect fits" in every moment afterwards. It's so hasty and poorly slapped together when the whole story should've been them learning and adjusting. WL going to Alexandria to deal with a threat and learn more about the world outside Tural while Koana stays to protect and learn from their people is the exact development they both need to become better leaders in their own regards BEFORE becoming Dawnservant, not after.
One of the things that vexxed me was how Wut Lemao went from getting jumped and owned by some pastel haired bandits to clapping Bakool and his army of goons (somehow he had more mamool ja with him than ever shown in the cutscenes) solo. I could understand if she had her sparring moment like Lyse had on Rhalgrs statue hand but there was no such thing.
My theory is Emet-Selch in part told us about the Golden City because he knew and likely had a hand in facilitating a rejoining. Perhaps the Preservation was in part an Ascian creation meant to spur another rejoining. Essentially "You like adventure! Go clean up my old messes!"
I''m not convinced that sphene is gone, the way they focused on the tiara in the end didn't seem accidental and it won't be random
They specify in one singular line that Sphene's crown is a 'special' regulator and don't elaborate. As mixed as the writing is, I think this was one of the especially deliberate lines. Whether she will be the new Zenos or join us like Fordola is yet to be seen. Though I think they're intent on her villain arc honestly I'd take Sphene as a new face in the crew.
90% of Krile's screen time before finding the golden city was just her doing the surprised pikachu face any time it was mentioned
I really would've loved for Erenville to get a bit more screentime. He felt kinda under utilized as did Krile. Cramming both of their stories in the last third of the game made it feel rushed.
Krile has been looking for her parents for so long and all she gets is a cutscene where almost nothing happens.
@@Zurui1150 seriously, even in EW patch quests, Erenville and Krile directly being linked to two massive plot points, and in the end that kinda got swept to smaller parts. I personally don't like how Erenville kinda just got swept up in a bunch of things and is forced to just come to terms with it, but I'm willing to accept and pass it off as he's able to grapple with things more easily than most would, even if he doesn't entirely understand it. As for Krile, a bunch of her potential involvement kinda got pushed to the side until we eventually *came across it*, rather than pieced it together, IE the end of the expansion
Yeah, they had to throw Wuk Lamat down our throats, so no time for other characters 😅
@@zumzici1234 sadly yes.
If I had a nickel for every time we were told to 'hear, feel and think', in the latter half of the story... I would have a lot of nickels. The story, honestly, was middling... but combat is wonderful this time around. I feel like they need to have Ishikawa take up the mantle of the writer once again, for the MSQ.
Yep. Gameplay was I had a lot of fun. But the story… please bring Ishikawa back. I hope Yoshi P listens to the feedback
The problem with Wuk Lamat's presence is that it's so damn high you have to LOVE her, or else you'll have mixed feelings. She's around 95% of the time. Something individual like "I simply don't enjoy furries, I think they're uncanny and unpleasant to look at" is more than enough to not enjoy her presence - and it's very easy to dislike her for her appearance, voice, story involvement and growth plot, and writing in general. So it sticks out extra hard
I see Wuk Lamat appear and got excited to be button mashing to skip CS. I knew I wouldn't miss anything I cared about
To me it's the same issue with Zero magnified x100 times.
Zero now seems very much like a trial run for what they wanted to do with Wuk Lamat. Becoming the main character, having everyone follow her, your enjoyment of the story being entirely based around whether you like her or not.
There are differences of course. Zero actually had more of a relationship with the antagonist than you, and Wuk Lamat is at least not an egregious mary sue like Zero was.
But it's still a style of narrative I detest and it just makes me wonder what other insufferable protagonist we'll have to play sidekick for next.
drinking game: take a sip every time wuk lamat is the quest giver or the objective is "talk to wuk lamat"
@@christianvacchelli1953 Liver failure within the first 3 zones.
I don't like furry stuff but i thought she was cool enough, in a cartoon cahracter sort of way. I started the expansion pretty optimistic because wuk left a good impression on me in pre-DT patch quests. She managed to make me forget how much i hated lyse. I couldn't believe they managed to shove an entire expansions worth of pre-titan and trolley quests into the damn story but they did, and then tried to save it with a half assed shadowbringers in the last 80% of the expac. It was the first time i had ever felt like i was FORCING myself to play the game, a problem i never had with any of the stories prior.
I'm glad they atleast upped the gameplay portion of the expac up a few notches or i dont think i would've stayed longer. I"m hoping they'll start pivoting in the .x patches but unless they hafve a dramatic character arc themselves in teh writers room, Ff14 could be in major trouble.
I didn't mind us being put in the background while playing a mentor role. But I did have issues with our characters having zero reaction time. Our characters can defend/survive against attacks like "Ultimate Fate" but can't react to an attack happening 2 ft in front of us. I think our characters being able to have some reaction speed would help us being a mentor figure. I also do think leaning more into the mentor role could help. It might make more sense of us pushing our "student" forward.
Guess part of that is because there's, what, 19 jobs ?
A ninja wouldn't react the same way than a black knight, who wouldn't react the same way than a machinist or than a summoner or a white mage, imagine a paladin deflecting an heavy blow from an opponent with it's shield... now imagine a picto doing the same with a paintbrush ^^
So, either they'd have to come up with multiple alternative cutscenes to fit the job we're playing with when reaching the cutscene to make it satisfying, or settle for an unsatisfying cutscene, in which case the WoL not reacting in time would arguably a lesser evil option...
Yeah, that makes sense. I still wish there could be a job neutral thing that could be a reason as to why we can't react.
Devs: Krile will finally get her time to shine this expansion!
Reality: Not only were her lore implications basically a footnote at the end of the expansion, but it's kind of just never mentioned even in lampshading that she was born on another reflection so she should have considerably lower aether than Source natives which to my knowledge has never come up/been foreshadowed in the story ever.
Also the advent of Dynamis as a thing basically makes power scaling completely irrelevant at this point. Wuk Lamat can't even touch Bakool Ja Ja but a few levels later she 1v1s him without any kind of powerup whatsoever? Guess it's just Dynamis or some shit.
Edit: Oh yeah Living Memory..."Hey guys I know Sphene is getting ready to cause a rejoining and steal the souls of everyone on our planet but hold on a sec I gotta talk to these kids in a moogle costume and act really badly in a play with Wuk Lamat and Otis!" I hate that zone.
Krille having lower Aether pool would mean she should have better access to dynamis, shouldn't it? I vaguely recall that in Elpis it was mentioned that big Aether makes you worse at dynamis.
@@The_Yukki Well point of dynamis that was set up is that it not some power that you can use "just because". It requires certain usage of willpower/emotion.
And Krile wasn't shown as highly emotional / steadfast - when fighting. Even if you talk to her before dungeon (trust npc selection) - she is unsure, not wanting to hold us back.
I agree with how they pretty much shafted Krile's deserved screentime, but I'm of the belief that Wuk Lamat wasn't using Dynamis to beat Bakool Ja Ja and his gang. Which also means I believe that there isn't really a sensible way that she actually could've pulled that off in the limited amount of time between the events between their first "fight" and second fight.
Dynamis is regarded as something very different from an Odic force, so I don't think it's just accessible to anyone that can access it if their emotions are high enough. Most of the techniques and other things in other character's kits in a bunch of roleplay sequences are just due to difference in technique, and not actually considered Limit Break Limit Breaks as we know them, and Wuk Lamat's instance, I just choose to suspend my disbelief for the sake of narritive. Still don't think it makes sense though
Krile's aether being equivalent to a source native is explained by the fact that her ancestors literally *were* source natives that fled to the Alexandria shard during the calamity of ice along with the "holy grail" key, they are not native to the Alexandria shard originally but the source and therefore have source levels of soul aether
At least I *think* that's what they were trying to explain with that
@@ariw2130 : that may be but how does this work with ppl that are not born on the source? what influences the thickness of the aether? your parents or the world you live in where your aether is formes?
on top of that, even with the explaination.. her aether should still be significantly thinner considering that at the point her ancestor fled, they where only 4 times rejoined. all the stuff in this xpac has no real thought put into it.
I think the fact that Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja wanted to oh I dont know, conquer the entire star would have been high enough stakes. The fact this expansion's last quarter has such high stakes feels like they needed the expansion to have stakes the same as Endwalker and forgetting that to get to the Endwalker stakes it took a full game and 4 expansions, but they did it within only 1. The story feels slow but also rushed
It felt like two separate stories with a lot of potential being mashed together and given the same amount of time as just one.
whilst I agree the stakes raising in the later part was unnecessary, I never took Zoraal Ja's 'I'm going to conquer the star' as a serious threat because even with his Solution 9 power up, Eorzea clearly would have beat the shit out of him if he tried- even without our help.
@@Keira_Blackstone yeah I also think they should have focused on making Zoraal Ja an actual threat cause we dont really see much of him or his character until the Solution 9 stuff, since the early bits are all centred on Bakool Ja Ja
@@Keira_Blackstone My thoughts exactly! Zoraal Ja: I have robots and battleships! Us: Well guess what, so did Garlemald and look what's left of it. Also, dragons.
Sphene may be brought back. They showed her crown at the end and there was a line from an NPC in Solution 9 that her crown was a "special" resurrection device. Though due to the reception of the expansion, that may not happen. Having the scions step back and no longer be central is a great idea, as long as they replace them with new characters. They didn't do that and just dragged them back out to fill their standard roles and it made the whole thing feel cheap.
The writers just didn't have what it took to handle an MSQ run. They did nothing but tell not show and while I don't dislike Wuk Lamat over all, the problems with her were her writing. They wrote her deliberately stupid so she could state the obvious for the player. Assuming the audience is stupid and needs basic explanations is never a good idea. I really miss Ishikawa.
me too. ishikawa’s writing has always made me very emotional, and i know it isn’t fair to hold newer writers to that expectation, but it still makes me miss her. :(
Wuk Lamat is borderline Mary sue which is ironic considering we play the WoL, but at least their excuse is theyre the player character and a blank canvas to RP almost anyway you want to imagine.
With Wuk, her journey doesn't really change her even when she experiences huge losses and her world view isn't really challenged ever.
@@RED_Theory038 Wuk Lamat is... I wouldn't say a mary sue exactly but she is a poorly done character who at least can feel like it at times due to said poor writing.
A mary sue would not have to struggle as much as she did. However this doesn't really matter because the writing was just so bad she only got more annoying.
Yoshi has already said he's started work on the 8.0 MSQ so this expansions MSQ is more than likely already done.
She's dead Jim, gone forever like the birb girl.
To me it felt like they pulled from successful elements of other expansions, but never fully committed to any one path of their own. There was rarely time given to build up an emotional connection to characters, or environments (Like Zoraal Ja's son, the Mamool Ja people's struggles, The Endless, Krile's parents). They wanted to tackle the topic of "The worth of a soul", but they chose the route of "Remembrance and the worth of a people" instead of the importance of the self, and the value of life - which Shadowbringers and Endwalker did better.
The story was 'okay', it had potential, but the potential was wasted by wanting to cram tons of elements in without ever fully developing them. Most issues I had could have been solved with a few more side-quests, and a few more cutscenes.
It really bugged me that Bakool Ja Ja threatened one of the judges, only to be told "If you harm me, my people will send word, and you will be disqualified", only for him to do it later and not be disqualified. Why when Bakool Ja Ja stole Wuk Lamat's keystone did they not go to the village that was still in view and report the theft? Why when Wuk Lamat visited her father did she not bring up the missing keystone? Not every element needed to find a conclusion before the patches were rolled out. I would have liked to see more done with Zoraal Ja's insecurities, and Krile's parents.
yeah, i felt a lot of this too. i really wish we'd gotten to see more of zoraal ja's insecurities rather than just having him stonewall his way through the entire first half.
I agree, shadowbringers and endwalker already spent time bringing up these questions about life's purpose and rationale. Personally I feel like with how rushed and shoved together everything in Dawntrail was, I think it's kind of unnessecary to make the last "arc" of this expansion tackling that idea. Especially when we already visited the Yok Huey (I forgor their race :) ) and paid homage to the idea of embracing loss and life. Would honestly would've prefered if the Alexandria arc for Patch Quests.
@@virtual_iska I agree with that, but personally, from what his original motives and plans for winning the rite of succession, it feels like his sudden inferiority complex reveal came out of nowhere, and could only be pieced together in retrospect *after* confronting him and hearing about it from himself.
@@virtual_iska I disagree honestly, the subtlety's written on zoraal ja's motives and intention becoming a clear picture when you put all his behaviors together is much better written then iff he monologues about his insecurities or about his main plan like some people wanted. it's just missed by a ton of people due to the distaste of the rest of the story. him stonewalling is the best option here in my opinion.
I'd like to believe that a part of why the theft was never reported was because this was indirectly another part of becoming ruler that Wuk Lamat understood.
If Wuk Lamat reported the theft and demanded a disqualification, she would've conceded that she's helpless when someone does her wrong. That when someone breaks the rules, she'd go looking for a higher authority to set things right - and that's not what a ruler of an ancient civilization should do. She would be deemed weak by the people, a matriarch screaming "Unfair!!" and fumbling about.
At least to me it felt like that was the intention. She was going to beat Bakool Ja Ja in a fair fight and not snitch on him.
What bothered me the most is that NOBODY, not in the MSQ or in ANY Dawntrail side quest, refers to the final days or it's effects on the region. It was a global event that had aftershocks even after we dealt with the Endsinger... We also don't explain Dynamis to anyone, despite the fact that Lamat clearly taps into it during the final trial. We're either being hoodwinked on purpose, or the new writing lead fumbled hard.
From what I've read, we basically stopped the final days before it could spiral into a global issue. It started where the planet's aether shield(?) was the weakest - that is Ilsabard - and started to spread through the leylines.
Ul'dah is full of despair and there were no blasphemies there.
Dynamis is probably kept super secret from everyone, just like/more than the existence of entire universe (that no one really thinks about) or reflections (that we end up explaining to important figures when plot suggests it) (this is a copium, they introduce super powerful powers into story and now they have to deal with them writing wise somehow).
@@BrainiEpic I was under the impression that Ul'dah was spared because of all the development it's leader and people achieved from ARR to Stormblood, not to mention most of the dissenters being Ala Mhigans who now have a steady job getting their homeland back in shape while not starving in the streets of a (comparatively) decadent city.
Still, it did seem like the severity was focused around the xpac areas since the incidents in the other cities were sporadic while Radz-at-Han burned in the chaos and Garlemald was still too feeble from the civil war and Tower of Babel to resist the worst of it.
@@BrainiEpic The effects were worldwide. They say so. They're demonstrated in the role quests where Blasphemies pop up all over the place.
We just don't see much of that in-game because a large part of CBU3's resources were off wasting time on the garbage fest that was FFXVI.
Good. The Final Days was just a shitty version of the Flood of Light anyway and deserves to be forgotten.
@@zephyr8072 In Endwalker, the Final Days were because of the lack of Aether coverage in certain areas of the world (And Zodiark only stopped the Final Days by blanketing everything with a larger amount of Aether to counteract that). Even in the past it was small and localized until it eventually grew to overtake the star.
In the story, it was the region around Radz-At-Han and Garlemald that had the weakest Aether, and the Final Days started to play out there, while only a few Blasphemies were seen outside of those areas (limited to role quests). We simply were able to deal with the problem quicker than it was able to spread because of the work Sharlaya put into their ship and our access to the Mothercrystal.
Is it a story contrivance? Sure; But it was one that existed from the onset, not one that they are retroactively claiming.
I was very disappointed when the story paired up Wuk with Koana in the cooking competition. Like visibly disappointed.
I remember thinking, "We just formed some major beef with Bakool, Wouldn't it be interesting if we have to work together now? Maybe they'll both parties will learn something!" Then she got paired Koana and said, "Oh, this isn't even going to be a trail. The lizards have zero chance." At least the story acknowledged that I leveled culinary.
I think one of the worst parts about the whole story was the way zoraal ja killed gulool ja ja, how we were just standing there and watching the duel while outside the civilians were still being murdered by zoraal jas puppet soldiers. Wuk lamat later says that she didnt want to tarnish gulools honor by stepping in but i still think it was absolutely terrible we didnt confront him then. That is because i do not consider gulool ja ja putting his „honor“ over the fact that his people are being slaughtered right outside his palace by his own son. Not to mention that he won the duel and kiled zoraal ja, then he just comes back to life, kills him and walks away, while we, the savior of the world watch that mass murdering psycho go. Yeah, sure he stopped his attack but we should have killed him right then and there, permanently. This fact pisses me off because you could argue that him killing all those people in solution 9 later on is just because of us not stopping him at the first opportunity. So yeah, not tarnishing gulool ja jas honor in a bullshit cheated duel killed a bunch of civilians and endangered all of tural and even the world.
this also leads me to the filler zone, zone 4, after the first part was dragged out for so long with cooking, learning about crafters and alpacas and trading we finally find the golden city and we do nothing with it, its like finding atlantis and then just leaving, yeah, sure, we didnt have the key but the fact that afterwards we just go to shaaolani where we spend 30 minutes just stinking up some criminals base and leading that corrupt guy over half the map because we couldnt just cause trouble by busting their asses straight up. and suddenly after that absolute slog of a zone tural gets invaded and there was a 30 year time skip off screen to have another world ending threat that as i mentioned above, we just let go, is just ridiculous.
not as ridiculous as zoraal ja though, that guy was an absolute clown, a genocidal maniac that is also weak as hell. you wanna tell me he was already one of the 3 that dueled his dad and didnt go out in a stretcher like estinien and the wol, then that guy has a 30 year time skip, returns 30 years more experienced with high tech gadgets and weapons and he still gets absolutely bodied by his basically half dead father. (since the head of reason died 3 years ago, or rather, 33 for zoraal ja)
what kind of villain or threat is that? oh yeah, he revives himself and absorbs a beast soul to kill his dad but at a baseline he still never came close to surpassing his father as he always wanted to prove. and, once again in case you skipped my rambling before, we let that genocidal maniac go even though he has already shown that he would even slaughter his own people and harvest their souls.
i really wished we got to see more of the absolute chad, gulool ja ja, after the duel where we could straight up say wuk lamat aint a ruler and him saying that if the victor was unfit he just wouldnt hand over the throne made him very interesting and sympathetic to me, his smarter side died and he knows its time for change, but if that change came at the detriment of his people he wont just retire and leave them to ruin. the massive responsibility he had i think he carried exceptionally, which is another part that makes him not wanting others to engage in the duel with zoraal ja even more ludicrous imo. he said he was going to break his word of passing his throne even if the victor accomplished his task, basically tarnishing his honor and word in the process to protect his people but then he lets his people die and refuses to be helped? because zoraal ja might retaliate or something? for all we know at the time that might not even change anything even if zoraal ja died, but it would definitely save more people. in the end his "sacrifice" was basically pointless since i dont believe the wol and everyone in the palace couldnt have at least forced him to retreat after killing him over and over again.
we really were just a side character, offering words and moral support from the sidelines. take wuk lamat fighting bakool ja ja, we literally just go to the side and play HER, why cant i play my OWN character and beat a hundred peoples ass but instead play ANOTHER character, i could play games like the witcher or cyberpunk if i wanted someone else to accomplish something. even at the final boss wuk lamat steals the spotlight.... oh, sphene teleports everyone else away leaving only us because we are that dangerous, where tf did she teleport them??? right next to her boss room? like 30 meters to the side for her to just jump in? thats like porting the scions right next to endsingers ultimatum where they just jump in after zenos made the crack and barged in like an absolute gigachad.
in general i didnt even really mind wuk lamat that much, she only became a little more mature compared to the start but her motivations and goals never changed in the slightest but its AT LEAST not always her fault that us and the scions just stand there. people complained about the scions in ew, but in dt wuk lamat is pretty much the protagonist like we were in ew and this time we are just one of the scions standing around her like they stood around us in ew.
kudos to anyone who has read my incoherent, unstructured rambling and yapping up to here but im still not done
i also think they could have made the last zone way more fatalistic and depressing, while also making sphenes character that much more tragic and "sympathetic".
let me explain, we learn that sphene is essentially just a program that is forced to do all she can to preserve the endless despite knowing the suffering she will cause others. so my idea for the last zone would have been that instead of the people being all smiling and happy they instead were pretty much numb, that eventually in their endless existence they came to realize that falsely living an eternity in something akin to a "prison" is not something they desire.
and thus, instead of presenting us with this happy zone in perfect condition they showed us a golden zone, with all manner off food and entertainment, perfect in every way but with inhabitants that have long grown weary of this "fake" world. imagine a fake, perfect reality where you cant die and are forced to remain forever, unable to even decide for yourself to fade away, an existence without purpose and freedom at the cost of other peoples lifes. a perfect contrast between a perfect world but unhappy people
you wouldnt have this moral dilemma of whether we are killing a bunch of people or simply erasing them to save others without most of them realizing but instead it would rather be their salvation from an endless, meaningless existence
that would also be able to make sphene much more sympathetic, she loved her people in life, and in death she was forced to do all she can to preserve them, her duty would force her people to remain even against their will as she essentially is a slave to her purpose, and despite her peoples suffering she would basically be forced to be their jailor. pretty much turning her love for her people into their chains. and despite that her people would still love her, wanting to disappear with the our help to relieve the burden sphene carries, making their end bittersweet and once again showing just how much sphene meant to them. i wouldnt change the end all that much, sphene would still have to be stopped as she is powerless to resist her purpose but finding closure in knowing that wuk lamat will take care of her people in her stead
it would hammer home that life is valuable because it is not forever, death is what makes life beautiful and living forever makes your existence pointless, why explore the world today if you have an eternity to so? time is only valuable because it is limited.
i feel that that would have made the people in the last zone much more interesting and made the relationship between sphene and her people that much more meaningful, neither of them chose to become endless, the scientists chose for them and they were essentially victims
but that is just me rambling about what would have probably made me sad, instead of watching a bunch of happy people i dont know puff into thin air. i would have also left the city perfect and golden, yet completely void of any people, shwoing that altough its beautiful it is fake and lifeless
10/10 ramble
Actually a good read!
While it sounds ridiculous to complain about considering the story, I hated Wuk lamats power scaling because power of friendship, Went from Barely being able to dent Bakool Jajas defence, who as we saw got trounced by Zarool ja. To barely even a Zone or 2 later, 1v1ing (albeit close) the same Bakool jaja, then again a few zones later somewhat matching a Zarool ja that has had an additional 30 years experience. THEN being able to fight hurt and defend against endsinger Sphene which should was attempting to murder an entire star. All through the power of love. If those power amps started and ended with Bakool Jaja fights, i would of been ok with it if they explained a little better, but it just kept happening.
I had no problem with Wuk Lamat until living memory, fatigue is the perfect word,...she just became so draining! And absolutely for the last fight, she shouldn't have broken through. ,The stolen glory was a complete eye roll moment for me.
It's seemed to me Sphene was really offput by Wuk Lamat's advances to become friends. She knew that conflict between them was inevitable and didn't want them to both get hurt. Sphene seemed to get attached to The WoL because we were technically a neutral party. She confided in us a lot. I think it would have been a great lesson for Wuk Lamat to not be so heavy handed. In the end Sphene was more attached to us but Wuk Lamamt got to resolve her end.
@@koatam It helps that by the time she meets the WoL, they've already been to the very fabric of existence with everyone's hope and survival on their back and have seen things only Sphene could relate to. They're like the seasoned veteran whose aura can speak for them more than words could, and with a queen who interacts with everyone under her charge while shouldering the world, she saw a kindred spirit. But then Wuk had to come along because her brother came back here fresh from the patricide slaying fields and saw a leader in her instead of a savior like the WoL.
They didn't have a story to tell and were too scared to upset the status quo. It really is that simple.
They did have a story to tell, they just lacked the skills to tell it well, I hope that Yoshi-P brings on some more experienced writers who can better lead the MSQ
Soooo. I just lost my younger brother to soo is side, and turning the memory data points off felt heart wrenching because I am straight up huffing copium these days by surrounding myself with the memories of who I lost. His pictures are everywhere. I have bags of his clothes that I cuddle and bury my head into just to get a smell of his cologne. I still talk to him every day, despite knowing I am not talking to the living breathing man I grew up alongside. I'm literally living in memories. And it hurts, but it is precious.
Watching Erenville walk along, stifled with confused and anger and shock at the sudden loss of his mother was absolutely killing me. I imagined myself walking alongside my brother in a beautiful place, and struggling to enjoy it knowing full well I have to delete him soon. Ugh. No!! I could never...
PRO TIP you can turn the lovely original look of the place back on with NG+!!
How do you do that with Ng+???
@@davidpower5710 select any scenario in the main scenario categories of NG+ while you are in the zone and while youre there it will return to its original state, sometimes though doing certain things will automatically suspend your ng+ for some reason so sometimes you might have to turn it back on but most of the time you will be fine. Just make sure to suspend ng+ to turn it off when new patch quests come out.
@@davidpower5710 You just have to launch a NG+ in a past expansion. It will reset it's parameter since for the NG+, you've never been there (Also work with Mare Lamentorum for Zordiarch prison and Ultima Tule for the creepy remix)
I'm sorry for your loss. I cant even imagine losing my older sister, holy shit. My condolences ❤❤
@@davidpower5710 NG+ for Dawntrail won't come out until a later patch. For Endwalker it was during 6.58 when all the Endwalker content was released. It will probably be the same for Dawntrail.
I wish they would have dived deeper into the nature of what makes someone "alive" which would have been unintentionally extremely relevant to todays controversy over AI and where it might go in the future. We basically had an entire zone of programs that were certain they were alive yet had no obvious desire for one thing that defines sentient beings: survival instinct. Basically every single NPC was fine with being shut off to save someone else. In reality, I really don't think it would be just sphene trying to hold on. It would have helped the emotional impact of the final zone as well if you shut down a server while someone begs you not to (hell, we could even feed them the Emet line about how we don't see them as alive ergo it isn't murder). That could have been an excellent conflict if the second arc had been the bulk of the game instead of the selection thing. I wish they would have just had Alexandria attack Tural (maybe the advisor guy opens the gate) mid selection process and derail the entire process. It would also allow the main villain to showcase why he might be a good leader by showing us his ability to defend his nation like he did when the valigarmongo appears. That would have set up a whole idealism vs proven success conflict and made us feel worse for googly jaja or whatever his name was when Wuk takes the throne despite him "holding the line."
honestly a good point haha, i do love that emet line so it would have made it way more interesting to me if they framed it like this!
Perhaps its because they did already die in the traditional sense. Due to this they already have at least subconsiously accepted the fact their lives are over.
I agree but in a diffrent sense as me and my friend came to the conclusion (an probably unintentional conclusion that should've been pushed in game and developed) that you don't need a soul to be human. That the soul is like the engine for a living body but the memories make you a person. Its unfortunate that the whole sphene shutting down the zones thing doesn't really have the utmost impact until you think about it this way. And even then, us coming to this conclusion felt like me and my friend trying to make sense of something that was lacking, instead of the plot being well rounded and picked up.
one of the things that Sphene mentioned was that this system came about because their world was ravaged by sudden and untimely loss so badly that they took comfort in the idea of "eternal" afterlife as long as they could be with the people that they lost unfairly. So to them, it only makes sense that to at least even "be" in some sense is a form of alive, even if it's just the memory of someone, and to continuously fuel their afterlife for the sake of "making every moment count in this second chance".
I think it was intentional.
YoshiP said he wanted a story that can resonate with ppl and current world when Endwalker came out and Garlemald part was very fitting for its time.
Sad that DT wasn't written by better writer tho.
Theory on Sphene’s home Reflection is that it is the 12th, a Reflection that was already rejoined in 2nd Umbral Calamity. Alexandria seems to have avoided the rejoining with its barrier, that or the Reflections aren’t fully absorbed by the Source and continue to exist. The Milala are probably originally from either the Source or from the 6th Reflection. Either way they escaped to the 12th during the 5th Umbral Calamity and due to the time distortion they arrived on the 12th before the 2nd Umbral Calamity occurred. (Time shenanigans can be weird.)
Living Memory is another can of worms really
i was thinking it was probably something like that, at least likely the 12th..? but we never get confirmation of what reflection it is so i guess we'll probably be exploring that in the patch contnet.
Sphene is from the 12th no doubt, 2nd umbral calamity was levin. The milala are definitely from the source, it correlates to the disappearance of the lalafells in alo alo island during the 5th umbral calamity. This actually opens up the potential in the later expansions that there's a paradox happening since the milalas arrived from a later time to an earlier calamity caused by an artifact from an unknown source which would make for an interesting next arc.
They're from the source
This is the exact theory a friend and I workshopped while we were finishing MSQ, sadly its the most interesting aspect of the lore drop that happened with Heritage Found MSQ. It has me captivated. The artifact was able to create a pocket of the twelfth that was still heavily aspected to levin when the milala came from our timeline into theirs is what I believe is happening. Its still the 12th, its just the only fraction that was excised from it that remains of that world.
@@virtual_iska It's probably not the 12th, as the moon was not rejoined (we can see it above living memory). A lot of people theorized it was the 12th, but it's never stated in-game.
Besides what was already said, I feel like Wuk Lamat gets a MASSIVE powerboost out of nowhere. During the first zones it's made obvious that she's brave but she lacks strength, she even admits that Bakool Ja Ja stops her like nothing when they trade blows in the Hanu village. Then next time she just get powerful enough to not only overpower him, but also his minions? And later she can even go against Mech- enchanted Zoraal Ja?
Another thing is that there was also no sense of urgency when it was needed, there's a fleet of warships above Tural ready to strike and once we get to the enemy stronghold we just... go check what the stores are selling and the sights? Getting to know the people and Sphene could have been something to do AFTER we defeated Zural Ja, only to then have her betray us or we discovering her plans. That would've made more sense imo. Even Zoraal Ja mentions that she wasn't taking things seriousily
I'm really sad that all I felt at the end was relief that the story was over and that I could go and do the Extremes...
To me she's more reckless than brave in the first half
The sense of urgency thing pissed me off so much. It's even worse that they did it TWICE, the first being what you mentioned and the second one after Zoraal Ja's fight where Sphene straights up goes to prepare to merge dimensions and we go on to help fix fountains and put on plays. There's just so many issues with poor writing, pacing and plotholes its infuriating.
I liked Furry Naruto during EW's patches, the Genki Shounen manga protagonist personality wasn't a problem for me (Hey, it's everywhere cuz it works, right?). By the end of the first half, I was a fair bit disappointed because she practically faced 0 challenge to accomplish her goal, so it felt cheap, but even then, I didn't dislike her. We waved goodbye to her and went on to Fantasy Texas with Erenville, and just when I have connected with Erenville, Wuk Lamat comes back to tell me to keep eyes on her and only her. This made me realize all of a sudden that like 90% of the dialogues in this entire expansion is either directly with Wuk Lamat present, or if by some miracle she isn't on the screen for 5 seconds, the conversation is about Wuk Lamat. When Koana talked with HIS companions, it's about Wuk Lamat. When Bakool Ja Ja talked with his minions, it's about Wuk Lamat. When you venture to Fantasy Texas with Erenville, we gotta retrieve Wuk Lamat's nanny's bracelet, who repeatedly comment on how much Wuk Lamat trusts us. Even Erenville's like "Actually, we're more acquaintances than friends", and even at that, the game has to go "Regardless of how you describe your relationship, there's a trust here".
She didn't just overstay her welcome, she built a giant fortress on your welcome mat, and locked you inside the house. I'm 100% convinced that she's someone at SE's Furry OC/Furry Self-insert and nothing will ever change my mind.
Dawntrail suffered from what the MCU is currently suffering from.
Ehhh, thats not whats happening
@@fredy2041 ok
You have a massively amazing "end game" instead of keeping their word and honestly respecting that "this SHOULD be your vacation" and your level is high so you shouldn't really be treated like a NPC. Then DT ironically rushed two expansions worth of content in one go
@@fredy2041 That is exactly what's happening. The MCU has a persistent need to ramp up threats after Endgame. Everything has to be a colossal existence-ending terror. We can't just have an adventure or localised problem.
Dawntrail does that, and 6.x did before it. Both of them do a bait and switch where you're led to think this will be a lower stakes adventure and then BAM! World-ending threat oh no we've got to stop them or they'll kill EVERYONE EVERYWHERE in the next 5 minutes go go go.
@@fredy2041 yes it is XD
Wuk Lamat felt like a fan fiction self-insert, that just HAD to have all the dialogue, be in ALL the scenes and be the story's end-all. The fact that the delivery of the VO had zero range was the chery on top.
It would be fine if after the 1st half she f-ed off and did Dawnservant stuff, and Erenville took her place as the main companion. Hell, the 2 last areas are pretty much about Erenville and his relationship with his mother, and she still managed to "steal his thunder".
This is really the main issue, and something the toxic positivity people always seem to evade.
The problem is not that she is prominent and the thematic protagonist, and I say that as someone who dislikes her.
The problem is that she sticks around far beyond her arc. She takes time away from Erenville, and from Krille, and then steals your thunder right at the ending and acts like she's suddenly Sphene's best friend despite having barely any interaction with her before.
It would be as if Lyse followed you to the east in Stormblood and made all the events in Hingashi, the Steppes and Doma about her, relegated Hien and Gosetsu to the background, then turned up at the end to punch Zenos in the face before all of his attention is suddenly on her with no thought for the WoL.
In regards to your question of the "next arc". I assume that we will spend some time in the patch cycle story seeing how tuliyollal settles in with its new dawnservents, closing up some open ends (kid of how stormblood handled fordola and yotsuyu) but for the long-term we've actually got quite a few important hints.
1. The artifact that kriles ancestors used to get to alexandria (and her parents used to get her to the source) is definitely tied to Azem. Not only does it respond to azems shard, it bears the symbol of his seat. It is probably of Azems design and seems to be of a similar material to auracite (a material not native to etheyris).
2. Kriles ancestors come from the southern sea isles. And they found azems key in a volcano. Which corresponds to a story we heard in elpis regarding azem, a volcano island and a being called ifreeta (which is basically just female ifreet).
3. Dawntrail holds a lot of hints for the not-as-popular-as-it-should be serpent theory. We could observe the evolution of convergent serpent-related imagery and mythology across all shards of the source. Zodiark, who was created as the "will of the world" is also heavily serpent-themed. The disease that befell the yok huy settlers in northern tural only started appearing after their mining operations dug out an ancient temple and they freed a serpent-like being (unclear if this is the fate boss or the final boss in tender valley).
4. The south sea isles are fairly close to meracydia. Emet called out to us that something significant is happening over there. Probably related to tiamat.
In the mid-term we will probably go to the south sea isles and - by extension - meracydia and try to track down the origins of the key and the meaning it holds. In the long term, we will probably be confronted with more lore regarding auracite, the serpents and the hinted-at primordial entity that exists somewhere within the lifestream.
I feel like the purpose of Dawntrail was less to build new characters to join the main cast (except maybe erenville), but more to build some more extensive lore regarding concepts that have already been drip-fed to us during shadowbringers and endwalker.
During the last trial fight Wuky: "Sphene! let us carry your burden, you can rest now" - right after we went around shutting down the living memory without any remorse and forgetting about it ten seconds later.... yeah.... wut?
Also, with Krile, I think I had more story with her in Eureka than in the expansion that is supposed to be her main shining spot.
On the cooking competition, I was actually really looking forward to get some of the baddies as partners... I was very disappointed.
What's worse is they're aping the entire "Remember us" theme from Shadowbringers without the proper context.
There it worked because Emet-Selch's entire arc was about how he longed for his home, but was also tired and secretly wanted the WoL and their companions to prove themselves worthy of being the Ancients' successors. His plea to remember his people is because you have, because you proved he was wrong and now you can carry on.
Here? Wuk Lamat and Sphene suddenly become frens because the plot says so, and Sphene is suddenly just okay with you summarily shutting down her servers with no other context. It's honestly pathetic.
NGL, I set my standards low for the story when I knew Ishikawa was not writing it... She did supervise, but it just doesn't feel the same :/
Sure …”supervise”
There were, maybe 3 scenes that were typical Ishikawa scenes (this includes the Graha gondola scene). It's so clear when she helms something and when she isn't.
it’s cool how bakool ja ja just doesn’t face consequences for any of the messed up stuff he did. he just shows us a dead baby pit and we forgive him
21:37 I think a better choice for Sphene (and Zoraal Ja, for that matter) was for her bad-guy turn to occur in post-DT patches. Having Zoraal Ja be the big bad of DT 7.0 would have let us flesh out his fall and his tragedy better; and also give us more time to reveal the tragedy of Sphene being so tied up with the Endless. And it’s not like we don’t have precedent for big bads getting defeated in post-expansion; Nidhogg’s defeat only occurred in 3.2, which honestly let Thordan’s badguy arc in 3.0 breathe…
I was thinking this too. It would have been so much better to have her show what she was fighting for (Living Memory so we could have that zone) but ultimately we fight Zoraal Ja as the BBEG for 7.0. The last 1/4 of the story felt almost rushed to me. Like I still will say its great, but it could have been awesome!
It's not like we don't have precedence of them adding additional areas into the game post msq either. We quested in and visited the world of darkness
Nidhogg was 3.3
Remember when they said the story will ''see the scions of the 7th dawn divided''?
This is exactly what I expected to happen, and I am still disappointed. The scions never disbanded, because the scion organization never mattered in the story, the main cast we have spent 10 years with does, and they never left eachother. They have done these ''fakeouts'' a few times now, like the plot point with Matoya in Shadowbringers (remember when we speculated some crazy transformation and it just turned out to be Y'shtola using a fake name for literally 0 reason and just shock value?) and the EW launch trailer raising gigantic red flags for everyone making you wonder who dies now.
The ''reunion'' scenes acting as if they were separated for 5 expansions instead of literally 1 patch, and that sucks very much for how much they wanted to convince us that a brand new arc is beginning. They did a fantastic job with that at the end of 6.0, and undid every single thing in post patches and now in Dawntrail. Up to now we are just rehashing old plot threads, killing world ending threats 3 times in a row now and absolutely 0 new permanent cast members.
yeah this really sums it up, unfortunately. :/
I'm someone who really enjoyed the themes of this expansion and replied to another comment about marketing. They felt they'd been mis-sold the expansion and I feel cheated because I'd disregarded it beforehand. That thing about the scions divided, seeing the scions along with us yet again, knowing a fakeout they'll get back together thing had turned me off completely. When I saw the dimplomatic duo on the boat with us my brain checked out and it had been checked out from DT until release. I was buying and playing it only to do the Vana'diel raids and exploratory content when it dropped.
Only for me to be surprised when the expansion had a lot to say about social power structures, politics and the environment. I really don't appreciate fakeouts like that, the trailer had already turned me off considerably, knowing the scions may be involved turned me off even more.
Had they announced beforehand the scions would have less personality and screentime than in ARR I would have been top hype.
@@TankMain-jd8uw It handles all those themes in the worst way conceivable. It's absolutely, unforgivably awful.
They should've dropped Wuk halfway through. Erenville and Krile got screwed over. Don't even get me started on how Otis was such a missed opportunity to have a death have impact if we got to spend more than a few quests with him. This is the weakest expansion I'd rather play ARR lol
@TheSynysterGamer I'm legit considering starting an alt and just playing through the whole game again, but stopping at 6.5 and pretending dawntrail doesn't exist. Maybe just story skip it when the next expansion comes out.
3 years waiting for wuk lamat
most Dawntrail reviewer I have watched barely talk about Krile and I am so glad that you mentioned how dirty this expansion did to her. I was depressed the whole playthrough watching Krile get turned into dungeon lacky for Wol and Wut Lamat. People were focusing on supporting or complaining about Wut Lamat, but what about our girl who has been with us for the past 3 expansion???? Just to show how the writer wrote her out of the equation that the player doesn't even notice her moment. Poor thing....
The worst part of the final zone is that the game keeps showing you that the endless are people with regrets and feelings, and at the same time tells you they're not people and shutting them down doesn't hurt anybody, which are in direct conflict.
I felt like the whole time we were literally becoming Emet Selch. "No, it's fine. They're not really alive so we aren't really killing them."
They're ghosts being kept in a fishbowl by a lich queen. We're helping them move on.
@@Valavaern The game shows that they're sentient, so even if we're freeing them, it's murder. We are only consulting a tiny portion. If our solution to reach the Endanger had been to sacrifice everyone in Sharlayan to get to the Ultima Thule, do you think they'd have had us just sacrifice the whole island? Or would we have "found another way"?
@@Valavaern The people of the Source and its reflections are fragments being kept in broken worlds by a misguided goddess. Emet-Selch was helping them restore their true forms.
Same logic.
The point is that the game doesn't properly address this conflict so it looks like we're using Ascian logic to sweep aside a society that is in our way without even pondering about what we're doing.
It's a very strange duality, but I kind of get it. The Endless are, essentially, just VERY complex AI, with their training data being the memories of the departed and the people that knew them. Whether or not you want to consider them truly sentient is your decision, but the bottom line is that shutting them down was the morally correct choice - had we done nothing, every single reflection would have been purged of life until countless billions were dead. And, while this is mostly an assumption on my part, I'm willing to bet that most of the Endless would not want to continue living at the cost of billions of innocent lives.
Unfortunately, as much as we would have liked to find another way, Sphene outright wouldn't let us. She purged her own memories and forced the interdimensional merge.
That said, it's rather unclear just how "permanent" the shutdown really is. Who's to say we might not find a way to restore power from a more sustainable source in a patch story? Maybe those Meso Terminals are like hard drives - losing power doesn't delete the contents. I feel like it's a coin toss either way.
So regarding Zoraal Ja
Spoilers below
My gf and I were discussing it (I got through the msq way slower than her because my Wuk Lamat tolerance is way lower) and Zoraal Ja seems like either a victim of cut storylines or was just a missed opportunity writing-wise.
We figured his arc was gonna be: He's the sole blood heir of the current ruler whose birth was apparently unlikely and very difficult. His father adopts *two* other kids and in terms of royal lines that's a big deal. Galool Ja Ja did it out of love but to Zoraal Ja how can that be anything else but creating a succession crisis or at most hedging his bets on having an heir if Zoraal Ja didn't make it out of childhood? It would explain more of Zoraal Ja's standoffish nature- he's been forced to struggle from birth and then his father adds two obstacles to Zoraal Ja attaining his throne. Maybe Wuk Lamat was always the more sociable child and he felt marginalized from his own blood-related father.
If his motivations were as such it would actually loop back around to Wuk Lamat's family theme. It would add some needed spice to Zoraal Ja killing his own father and give him *some* more relatable motive when he fights you and Wuk Lamat later. Maybe it's not just about the throne, it's about the life as an only child and sole heir that was taken from him. Wuk Lamat being unable to win him over with pleas of familial bonding would actually have some emotional weight.
The whole scenario seems so obvious and if this was Heavensward or Stormblood that's probably first draft material for how he would be written. Wuk Lamat drags the main story down obviously but a *single* fleshed out antagonist could have counterbalanced the whole thing- Zoraal Ja should have been that guy but he just wasn't.
totally agree with this. I wish he was that guy :(
I had some shower thoughts about this plotline and thought the same really. They could of had Zoraal Ja realizing Sphene was a bigger threat, perhaps she had reasons for wanting his father, and his murder was essentially a mercy killing (giving his dad death by combat or something?). Maybe he had realized he had gone too far and Wuk Lamat was being manipulated by Sphene via her emotional side. Perhaps he taught her a lesson she needed to learn by making her kill him, a family member, so she knows she has to do the hardest things to protect her people...
Of course, this also wouldn't happen in the last 1/4 of the game.😬
I feel like the writers just expected us to insert these ideas instead of actually developing them. Funny enough early on I sympathized with him more than Wuk. I thought with some good character development he could've been a good character if not a good leader. Then the writers were like "woop here is your big bad evil guy!" In his eyes two outsiders took everything from him. This kind of gave weight to his death speech.
@@docdoom1987 yep that's the biggest problem right there, any characterization fixes/expanding on characters would have to happen in a tiny window be it for Sphene, Zoraal Ja, or Bakool Ja Ja.
Imo the keystones took too much room up in the story and stuff like making xiq pibaal (hope I got that name right) is totally under utilized for antagonist characterization as noted in the video. I was thinking the obvious cooking challenge choice is Wuk Lamat pairs up with Zoraal Ja and the wildcard fun choice is she gets paired with Bakool Ja Ja. Nope. Okay well Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja are on a team, do we get to see these wildly different but ultimately similar (both are willing to break the rules to win) characters will approach a challenge that can't be solved through force? Nope.
For awhile I was wondering if I was just missing what everyone else was feeling. But your video lays the problems out quite clearly.
I honestly felt the first half was the right way to go. We just needed to fill the slower bits with character building between everyone and Kryle
To me, here's Dawntrail's biggest problem: There's no motivation. If we're going to be a side character to someone else's story as an ally and mentor, why are we not affecting their decisions with multiple outcomes available based on the advice we give them? If this was a foundation and a fresh start to a new 10 year arc, why are we dragging old characters along for the ride that effectively don't have any character growth, change, or development at all to justify them even being there?
Low stakes is fine, but then don't have an identity crisis and ramp it up to a complete world ending threat in the last 1% of the story. It's ridiculous. The pacing was off, the tone was off, the voice acting at least on the english side was honestly almost entirely dull and boring. There was nothing to *drive* the motivation, at all. It was a slog. More of a slog than Stormblood was. Even more of a slog than the post ARR quests into Heavensward were *before* they cut the bloat. Unless you *absolutely love* Wuk Lamat, and I mean *really* adore her character archtype, the entire expansion is just... boring.
At the end of the day we all play games to be entertained, to have fun, and to not be bored. The way they chose to implement this narrative idea that they had did not benefit the choice, it hindered it since it entirely revolved around the fact of *really* liking one singular character, which you are never ever going to get in a universal way, not even with the super popular characters the fans enjoy. It's hit or miss, and this time it seems it missed for the vast majority.
I don't even understand the narrative decision at the end to involve the other shards either, when the entire *point* of Dawntrail initially as the selling point was there was still so much of the Source that we haven't seen. So we're going to focus on the shards now? Just ignore the other points of interest in our world that we haven't been to? Meracydia has been talked about and hinted at over countless expansions, has entire cultures already set and waiting for us to see, and a whole dragon plotline we could be exploring... but let's play it safe without risk and go with an Ascian plot without calling it Ascians again.
Dawntrail made me realize that franchise fatigue is a very real foe that every long lived game has to encounter, and I don't think XIV is handling that foe well at all.
very well said!
a lot of people mentioned the emet-selch speech and that he sent us here, but the point of that speech was there’s so much of THIS world, the source, that we haven’t seen yet and should be appreciating. i totally agree with what you said here, and i hope they’re just saving meracydia for a future expansion or something.
I was pretty annoyed by Wuk Lamat by the end of things. Her endless friendship speeches just made her annoying. And yeah, I didn't appreciate her appearance in the final boss, either.
The thing is, though, is that I'm concerned that, despite the fact that technically, Wuk Lamat and Erenville should not be joining us going forward on future adventures, they might still be permanent party members as we venture to other places. If I just focus on this expansion alone, and I'm doing that specifically because I heard that they have new writers on the project, then Wuk Lamat's excessive prominence in the story would indicate that she is meant to be the new lead going forward...which doesn't make sense since she's technically a leader of a nation. And yet, that looks like the direction they are going from my perspective.
Erenville, meanwhile has a slightly more understandable reason for joining us, albeit a rather weak one: his mother's final wish. In which case, I can see him picking up a fighting style going forward. That being said, I'm of two minds as to whether or not he should really be doing this. It's likely that his wish will take him to other Reflections, but at the same time, is it really sensible for that to be the case?
I dunno. Nothing truly serious has transpired yet, in terms of truly destructive dips in story quality, but I am concerned for the future. Especially after seeing that one Asmongold video regarding Dawntrail reviews. We shall see where things go.
Man the Sphene being an ascian is all but name hit me hard, I hadn’t thought about how close they really are. It all felt far to rushed and it really did feel like they just tried to copy everything the .0 stories of both shadowbringers and endwalker did and shove it into those last 4 levels.
I honestly wish they had let us have 5 levels like that brief period of just being off having an actual genuine adventure with Erenville, or let us just wander around like Estinien, that would have been the filler I want to see. And it isn’t like they haven’t give us filler characters for the story run of dungeons before, they did it in Elpis.
It was all in all a meh story that just didn’t give us the time to get attached. The only character I can say I really liked that was new was Erenville’s mom, because she was just really likable. The rest were lots of potential without the time to sprout.
The 1st time i met Sphene, I thought she was one of the Meteia who hadn't been corrupted by despair and ended up on a shard. Her mannerisms and her overall basic character design screamed "I AM METION'S SISTER". I would have preferred that story. What we got was a robot with 1 part of the real Sphene's personality + programed to protect her people. This reminded me of Emet's motivation (wanting to bring back his people + being tempered by Zodiark).
Also, didn't Krile's parents work with the Preservationist (I believe that's what they were called) who created Robot Sphene? Why do we not ask them about anything regarding that group/department?
If the nation of Tuliyollal encompasses both Yok Tural and Xak Tural, why do all the feats take place only in Yok Tural? If the point of the feats is to let the candidates learn about the different cultures of the nation they are going to rule, why are the cultures of Xak Tural not worth knowing? It made no sense at all.
And when Sphene said "Remember us. Remember we lived."... Oh,wait, she didn't. That was Emet Selch.
I’d say my biggest issue with Wuk are the people that demand you love her, then get super annoying and try to attack you if you don’t.
Yep, Some very vocal ones on Steam.
My blocklist is pretty large off this Expansion alone.
Yeah, Twitter has been an absolute cesspool for it right now. I've been avoiding the social media side of the community since release.
GCBTW
@@HollowedXIV All the forums, Steam Twitter, FFXIV ETC have been full of aggressive people lately.
You mention Dawntrail bad or Wuk Bad and they go ballistic.
Where do these people even exist tho...
I literally see nothing but negativity about her on the subreddit and forums..
I disliked her the very moment she she introduced herself in Endwalker.
I enjoyed Dawntrail quite alot but after reading some of these comments I can definitely understand how someone could dislike it
Yeah, it was gonna be pretty much inevitable. Mixed reviews make sense to me for this game. I was a big fan as this is a good start. I am super excited for all of the reflection related things moving forward.
@@Heroisback92192 Great for you, I hated it...
Cancelled my sub, I'm not paying for this anymore.
Here are the hooks that DT left us with.
1) the key reqcted to Azem's crystal with Azem's symbol.
2)The origin of the Millala from the South Sea Isles.
3)The key can open gateways to other reflections. Which is likely going to be used with a story with the 1st and 13th
4)We also get an unanswered question about time relatively between reflections. The Millala flee the Source furing the 5th umbral calamity, and ended up in a world that experienced the 2nd umbral calamity of lightning.
5)they made mentiom that Sphene's crown was a special regulator, and tease it at the end.
One more hook that a lot of people seem to be forgetting; Preservation. The shadowy organization that Krile's parents worked for. All we really learn about them was that they were studying the key with hidden intentions to use its power to drain the aether from other reflections. This could have been for Living Memory and the Endless, but I felt there was a distinct difference in tone when characters talked about Preservation's ulterior motivations vs Sphene's misguided actions. Maybe I'm wrong but I honestly don't think we've seen the last of them.
@@CorpusInsanusjust another group of ascians that are up to no good 😂
On the subject of #2. It's not just Millala, it's a whole bunch of other cross-pollinated cultures. We got a lot of "wait, this is EXACTLY like the other reflection" and first Expert dungeon quest underlines it. I think it's a clever plot to make the "old world" matter again, because all kinds of cultures can be related to the Speaker and cross-reflection shenanigans.
@@Ranziel1 oh yes. I found that story to pretty very intriguing. Hopefully we revisit the idea later. There's just so many questions about the state of the other reflections. Even which shard Alexandria is from is not answered. Is it a remnant of the 12th, or one of the surviving reflections that was nearly destroyed by a different lightning aspect disaster.
Don't forget 3/6 of Emet Selch's recommendations from Endwalker completed.
I def got confused how the game shifted so quickly to another dimension and then yshtola just so happened to know everything that was happening, also that Erenville needed a hug so badly but it seemed he was just brushed off. 😢
I completely agree. I somehow arrived at the same conclusion coming from a totally different direction. They put all of the scions in the story, who are capable of plot-defining feats, and yet they hardly utilize them. Even when it would be morally appropriate, like having Ali use Angelo to heal people in the later half of the game. In fact, everything we're seeing in Dawntrail is a variation of something the scions have already dealt with before. Even the WoL's experiences in high society from AAR and Heavensward are not really represented properly. Are we really going to let Wuk Lamat just run off on her own? Did we learn nothing from the poison chalice incident in AAR? Actually, AAR Thancred was better at keeping an eye on Nanamo than we are with Wuk Lamat given the very first few cutscenes I have in my log.
Fun Spoiler Example of something we could have done:
Sphene clearly wants to tell us something, but keeps glancing over her shoulder at the Alexandrian drone robots observing everyone. We learn that she is incorporeal and can jump bodies. Okay, lets plan a kidnapping. Have Ali beat up a robot and use Angelo to clear its memory banks of any malicious programming. Get a refined crystal of Lightning aspected Auracite to contain Sphene's consciousness or a similar device from solution 9. Take whitewashed drone and kidnapped royalty outside of barrier and install Sphene. Then we can talk to her without the Eternal Queen/Alexandrian system watching.
I remember that specific scene in the Tuliyollal attack where Krile watches as what is apparently someone's soul being stolen... but she never mentions it. Not to a single character. Doesn't even hint that something weird happened. And then you eventually hear about Sphene's goals down the line but they had such a chance to at least somewhat raise the stakes early on. I expected it to have value because it was the only scene of that nature and ONLY Krile saw it. What was stolen? Why was it stolen? Why would the other nation even need that? Instead we're supposed to tap into emotional investment that just never made it to the bank.
It was also weird that when they drained the soul in a combat environment they were able to separate the memory and soul right there. 2 orbs came out of her one blue one gold. I was under the impression that they separation process required the scrubbers back at solution 9 unless a person is wearing a regulator.
I don't know what the future will bring, but I know one thing for certain: During the .5 patch we will do a dungeon where we experience someine else's past world to try and make us connect with it. Again.
Just speculation as I dont think the devs were intending for us to think like this. But i think that the reflection Sphene is from has already rejoined the Source, it why Emet-selch knew about the Golden city already and was hinting at it for us to go explore for. Another reason i thought it might be a refection already rejoined is because in Heritage Found you will notice all the Lightning going on and how they even advance there technology on Lightning aspect, Sphene mention as well in her reflection there was a lot of storms soon after the wars were died off. The Second Umbral Calamity was the Calamity of Lightning which joined the Twelfth back to the source meaning were basically looking back into what the Twelfth was in its final days.
I wanted more competition and less... going around and learning. I think they could've included this so much more naturally. Make it a big lawless competition where there's and end goal with not a lot of layout as to how they get to the golden city. The scions being scions will learn about people in a new place and fix problems anyways so I don't think we need this "go here and do this little dumb trial thing." I think Golool Ja Ja's goal of forging a perfect leader could be the same, with him at the end picking Wuk Lamat for possessing the qualities of a leader despite maybe even failing challenges along the way, but making life better for the people of Tural and solving conflicts. I feel like this could add stakes and more unpredictability (as Golool JaJa will only reveal at the end that he can do whatever he wants and pick Wuk Lamat for being a good leader). The fact that all we really get of the competition between the scions is like 2 lines and a little move by thancred in a dungeon is absurd. Also, maybe it would make more sense if Zoraal Ja does all the challenges and maybe finds the city of gold first but isn't picked because he's a horrible person....
something like this would have really worked better, yeah! it also would have helped zoraal ja's character a LOT if we saw gulool ja ja personally choose wuk lamat over him, since we never really see him do this.
i just wish we didn't get a filler arc of an expansion after all of endwalker patch content was its own self contained filler arc... like we JUST went through this.
As soon as I was told the people who wrote Myths of the twelve would write this I knew I'd be disappointing
Myths of the realm wasn't bad at all but it's different when its one of the side stories theres not as much of a guideline for how it needs to be. MSQ is held to a much higher standard.
who made that decison what? "yea lets get the people who are used to writing stories that are structured very differently to write a many hour long msq story" like what? it almost feel like one of there higher ups didnt like them and is trying to get them fired
The moment I found out the MSQ writer wouldn't be Ishikawa, my expectations dropped like a stone in water.
@@woodenmetal2977 same...i knew disappointment was on the way
@@woodenmetal2977
I expected nothing of SHB or END level of writing but… man… I was left feeling somewhat disappointed. It feels like the expansion was best compared to somewhere between SB and ARR levels of reception.
I hope Yoshi P calls the writer of SHB/END back for the post story and so on. (I’m forgetting her name at the moment)
I feel like one of the biggest issues for me personally when it comes to the story revolves around how Zoraal Ja's family treats him, or more specifically the lack of it. I'll fully admit I'm a Zoraal Ja enjoyer and I would have found him a vastly more appealing focus character than Wuk Lamat, but even if the general beats are the same I feel like the MS misses a few crucial scenes that would feel like they're prominent for pointing out flaws in characters -- but then they don't, because the story really wants you to like Wuk Lamat and this would make her look bad.
What I'm talking about is the genuine lack of any kind of care and affection directed towards Zoraal Ja by any of his family to a degree where if intentional it deserved far more attention than a single line after his trial when you're back in the capital that "we should have tried harder" from Wuk Lamat, because frankly, she never tried. None of them did. If they did it happened before the MSQ and that just goes against part of Wuk Lamat's narrative arc of learning about her people and their culture and what makes them unique so she can better understand and protect them as a leader. The entirety of the Mamook portion of the MSQ has Wuk Lamat go out of her way to try and figure out what the issue with the local Mamool Ja is, and by extension have a heart to heart of sorts with Bakool Ja Ja. There's no threat of losing out on the keystone as Koana is playing it safe, and Zoraal Ja just got disqualified.
So why do neither of them give even a single shit about their brother who's very clearly going through the lowest point in his life right now, especially Wuk Lamat? The fact that she's all gungho and ready to do the trial, and then her, Koana, and Gulool Ja Ja seem to completely forget Zoraal Ja even exists until after he puts on the tron suit and kills a bunch of people just comes off as what would be a genuine flaw in Wuk Lamat she needs to address -- everything she did for her people, she couldn't even lift a finger to do for her own brother, and she just wrote him off as a lost cause and then continued to show any lack of concern when he fucked off because "hey Koana be Dawnservant with me!" Not one member of his family seems to care about him, and that only serves to reinforce how isolated and alone he actually is. Which would be great, but the game never criticizes Wuk Lamat or the others for this because they're meant to be the good guys. Zoraal Ja didn't have anyone, and no one really tried to reach out to him, not even his own family -- which isn't an excuse for what he did, but while it's part of why I like his character because I feel like it adds to it, the fact that it doesn't seem like a noteworthy fuckup that his champion of peace and understanding sister somehow excluded him as someone worthy of peace and understanding during the entirety of the rite isn't at least brought up as something for her to struggle and come to terms with and grow from feels shoddy.
I can't count on that it's meant to be subtle writing in the same expansion where they have to explain something to you immediately after it happens like when Krile has her empathy echo activate and tells you Zoraal Ja wants to do evil shit. And then literally none of you address this or attempt any kind of emotional connection with him. Hell, I think it would have been a good opportunity for the WoL to get some character moment with Zoraal Ja like we did with Koana where we can speak with him one on one just to flesh him out more and at least get an idea of how he pushes people away by seeing it first hand instead of Wuk Lamat telling us Zoraal Ja was always distant even as kids at the dinner table -- that just paints her and the rest of her family in a worse light, but especially her because it continues to raise the question of why she gave up on him and never made another attempt as part of her arc? I'm not saying it would have been enough, but just one scene where she makes a genuine, real attempt to show concern and care for her brother would have done wonders for both of them as characters.
Like, I can't tell if it's intentional or not but even Gulool Ja Ja seems to be flawed in how Zoraal Ja is clearly suffering from some kind of neglect his father never really addressed, and how he never went out of his way to show concern for his own son -- I'd like to think it's an intentional story moment to show that the lack of the Head of Reason can lead to tragedy, as the rite genuinely puts people at risk of harm like with the Hanuhanu; they're quite literally starving (including children as per a line from the Cornservant questline) and Wuk Evu knows how to resolve the situation, but he can't tell them directly because it would ruin the intended way to pass the trial. That's not good leadership to leave a community of your people in a situation like that so your kids can *maybe* figure out how to fix it. Wuk Lamat and Zoraal Ja are very clearly meant to parallel the Head of Resolve by their respective titles, so maybe it's further commentary on how you need *both* in order to make the best decisions, but that's just speculation.
The point, I feel, is that Zoraal Ja's viewpoint that he has nothing and nobody (I'm not going to address the kid because hopefully post patches will go into more detail as to where he even came from because he genuinely feels like he exists to be a plot device first and Eiko reference second and then third a reason to make Zoraal Ja look worse and fourth to try and make you feel sad) is pretty much entirely proven correct. His family forgets he exists at his lowest moment and they don't seem to ever truly realize how they failed him, and while you could argue it's not their responsibility, (though frankly it is a parent's responsibility to put their children first before everything, but that's my opinion) the fact that Wuk Lamat specifically doesn't give a single shit about him, let alone something that would make more sense for her character like trying to engage with Zoraal Ja to open up to her post-disqualification and *failing* to reach him then writing him off to focus on becoming Dawnservant and seeing the direct result of her choice to write off her brother serving as one of many motivators for him turning into a villain which would give her something to regret and develop from, but instead when it comes to him she just comes off as uncharacteristically uncaring -- and it doesn't seem to be intentional, either.
you totally nailed how i feel about zoraal ja. you’re right that they never once have his family be in the wrong for the obvious lack of care they show him, despite how much he laments this at the end during his boss fight. it’s really sad, i feel so bad for him.
I was about to raise that point as well, but you said everything I wanted to and more, thank you. That’s exactly how I felt as well.
I also want to point out that not only did nobody in the village know that the rite enervated their crops, the one person in the in the village that does the repairs on the focus, the one that DID know about the rite innervating the crops, spent years letting the focus go into disrepair KNOWING it's why the food grows.
Imo the issue is that as they're characterized, it makes no sense that GJJ or even WL wouldn't notice that ZJ is suffering. Like we're to believe that the chill dad who solved a century long war with tacos wouldn't at any point be like, "Hey proud of ya son!" Or WL whose entire character is supposed to be helping people? How are the people that are characterized as the most empathetic people in their country going to be the ones neglecting ZJ? So instead of addressing that in some way the story just tries to push it under the rug which leads to stuff like him being forgotten during the coronation. When really all it would have taken is showing something like GJJ being too distracted with running the country, him favoring WL, etc.; or if you don't want to "damage" his character, showing that ZJ always had support and he just never realized because he pushed people away (which is what I think they were going for but that is only developed at all literally one line after he's already dead lol)
@@captainpocky It feels like they were trying to set up some further parallels to the importance of having both Resolve AND Reason, maybe? Like the Reason head's passing left the Resolve one who is comparatively emotionally unintelligent and thus unable to pick up on what his son needs and simply assumes that following through with the rite will solve all problems in due time? But then you have the scene where he directly speaks to you and asks you to look after his daughter so that also falls apart for me. I feel like some kind of set-up where he asks us to keep tabs on Zoraal Ja in addition to watching out for Wuk Lamat could have given us an actual goal for ourselves in this expansion and given us a few one on one scenes with him to better characterize him and give us more purpose in the overall narrative as part of this smaller subplot, or something? I dunno.
Really, the fact that no concern is shown to him while Wuk Lamat has the time to try and play nice with the entirety of Mamook, and Koana literally gives up on the throne to support her genuinely doesn't play nice with the idea that Zoraal Ja just pushed everyone away that I agree they tried to push because that was absolutely the last chance anyone had to try and reach out to him, and no one did. Just adding one scene of Wuk Lamat attempting to reach out to him and him telling her to piss off would have added a lot of weight to his fate and both their characters, and given a lot more impact to Wuk's single line saying she "should have tried harder" if she had actually ever tried at all.
Thank you for legitimately having a critical voice and pointing out many of Dawntrail's flaws that a lot of us who play the story for the writing had issues with.
The XIV community can, at times, be a ridiculous echo chamber which has certain unspoken rules about having qualms with how the game pans out, and as someone who was pretty cynical about Dawntrail's development as time went on, it seemed more and more like people were kinda fighting each other about whether the game was good or not.
It had a VERY problematic side effect, and that was the downplaying or rejection of discussion. Even if discussion or commentary is negative, it needs to be evaluated to decide whether or not the commentary is valid, and in this case, it really was.
So I guess what I'm saying is thank you for creating this video to spur that discussion about what was lacking so that the devs, writers, players, etc. all have appropriate feedback and expectations to roll forward with.
thanks!! i also really hate the current echo chamber, and im glad to have created a space where people can discuss the game without that.
@@virtual_iska fr, felt that. do you have any other places you voice your opinion besides YT? cause your takes are pretty peak
@@quoted_by just youtube for now! i'll probably fix up my twitter soon, but i mostly just like to make videos haha
I was actually thinking the same thing with the cooking trial. We had already seen plenty of interaction between Wuk Lamat and Koana and Bakool, I was expecting a chance to finally shed some light on how Zoraal Ja actually feels about his adoptive siblings and maybe foreshadow that he is cracking under the pressure of expectation. He was already talking about "I wanna start war to show why war is bad" like ok. But showing his desperation to become more than just his father's son. To show he was worthy to be himself, but instead we get that after he's done as a character and we've seen him do a series of heinous acts for seemingly no reason. Instead we get more of Koana agreeing with Wuk Lamat and like, that's nice n all buuuuut let's do something a little more interesting. Plus showing the history of the Mamoolja and Hrothgars (i forget the dawntrail tribe's name) and how their father was able to bring them together not through war but understanding might help him see the holes in his theory or might reinforce that his way will be better, I dunno.
Either way, I definitely think there were some missed opportunities for more interesting parts. Plus, just imagine how funny a scene of Koana and Bakool jaja having to try to cook together would be. They both quit after this challenge anyway.
I will say though: I certainly was NOT relieved to have to travel alone with Erenville. Fuck Erenville. He fuckin sucks.
And I haven't played any other FF game except 14. Never have, probably never will, don't care to. The references I never even knew were references until watching videos like this and every time I learn that something is a reference it kind of retroactively sours the experience for me. Like now looking at Golbez I don't really think he's as cool as I originally did. Same with Sphene, though Sphene was kinda just, whatever. I didn't really get attached to Sphene at all. She was just the new girl Wuk Lamat left me for YnY
WHY DOES EVERYBODY HATE STORMBLOOD?? I swear, every video I've watched lately talking about why Dawntrail sucks takes a chance to dog on Stormblood like it's the Eorzean pasttime! I'm not saying Stormblood was better than Shadowbringers or Endwalker, but like, is it not better than Heavensword or the SLOP that is ARR?? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
I didn’t hate the story, but there’s definitely a lot of problems, some of which can possibly be fixed by post content, some can’t. Gonna type up some of my major gripes so, prepare to read, lmao.
Wuk Lamat- I didn’t hate her character, and actually found her story pretty interesting. My biggest problem with her is that she doesn’t learn the lesson the final zone is trying to teach, and the lesson Zoraal Ja should have taught her before she even gets to that zone. That being: not everything can be resolved peacefully. The whole shtick for the first half was having her learn about different cultures and peoples and understanding how knowing these things can help you get along better and resolve your differences, which she learns. However, this cannot be done 100% of the time. Zoraal Ja is proof of this. She tried to reason with him and failed. She came to the conclusion that she needed to kill him if she wanted to save Tural from being wiped out, and that’s what she did. And then….unlearned this lesson with Sphene and tried so desperately to get her to change her mind, despite proclaiming up until the very end that she understands why Sphene is doing what she’s doing. But if she *really* understood, she should’ve come to the conclusion she came to with Zoraal Ja: we are fundamentally at odds and stuck in our convictions, thus only one of us can prevail. But she didn’t. And that personally pisses me off more than anything else about her character.
Electrope - depending on how they handle Alexandria in the post content, the writers really fucked themselves with this one. Electrope is supposed to be this super rare yet hyper powerful resource that basically started a world war due to how useful it is. Electrope clearly allows for modern day and near future style technology, which the tower of Everkeep clearly has in abundance. Electrope clearly has major capacity for military hardware, including guns, melee weapons, armor, automatons, airship carriers, armed drones, and the unnamed super weapon deployed in their reflection. We obviously did not destroy all, or likely even most of Alexandria’s army and weapons. Vanguard was not destroyed and I counted at least 5 grounded airships among the stores and stores of military hardware all about the base. Meaning whoever either controls or is allied with Alexandria is now a *massive* threat on a global scale.
Historically advancements in technology so large would kickstart an arms race, however not even Garlemald has a similar standard of technology. So the writers have just thrown a massive wrench in the world building unless we somehow sever Alexandria from the source entirely, or essentially occupy Alexandria and oversee the destruction of any and all electrope and electrope-based military hardware. Yes, Gulool Ja is king, and obviously the game will be covering how he shapes up to being a ruler, but there’s no way the rest of the world would accept that he just isn’t going to attack anybody, or that they’d accept that he’s simply a Turali puppet given he’d likely just listen to whatever Wuk Lamat and Koana tell him to do.
The tone/writing quality - I’ll mark this down as an umbrella gripe as the tone shifts so rapidly from the first half to the second that it feels like the story was handed over to a new writing team right in the middle of it. Additionally, the writing felt so surface level with all the characters, doing a lot of tell don’t show rather than the other way around. It also felt very forced at times, as you almost never get any time with any character other than Wuk Lamat. I honestly can’t think of a single time when the group splits up that you don’t get sectioned off with her. And yeah I get it it’s her story, but they missed out on so many opportunities to partner her with other characters and get tons of different perspectives on things from the scions. Plus this game is an ensemble cast, I don’t dislike Wuk Lamat but I *was* getting sick of her by the end of the story because you never get to interact with anybody else. I’m so disappointed our little journey in the Wild West with Erenville was cut short because that was probably the most fun I was having, just hanging out with him. I wanted to see his home and meet his mom, but they rip that from you, and him too. I think that’s the *only* thing that got me a little teary-eyed, was Erenville having to accept that his mother is gone, because he was *so close* to coming back to her having accomplished his goal, only for him to never actually be able to see his real, living mother again. That part broke my heart honestly, and I wasn’t even a huge Erenville fan before Dawntrail.
Dawntrail wasn’t the worst expansion they’ve ever done, I really like a lot of it. I just kinda wish we actually got our beach episode where we could just hang out with our favorite characters, and meet some new ones, do some Indiana Jones stuff with the city of gold, rather than discover a new sinister plot for the 15th time. It should’ve been a more light hearted expansion with a mostly new cast of characters joining our old cast, and we sorta got that….for the first half. But I guess they thought that would be boring so they had Jeff Bezos launch his Amazon drone army at Brazil and only you can stop him. Which was such a let down, it doesn’t feel like this is the start of a new saga, just felt like its own thing with no real connector between this and whatever 8.0 is gonna be.
haha, i did read all of it! thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
just going to say that i totally agree with you on the issue of electrope lol... that's a crazy thing to introduce into the story and they're definitely not going to address the kind of ramifications that would have on the world.
@@virtual_iska thank you for taking the time! I know it was a lot, lol.
I truly do hope they handle the lingering threads well, but time will tell! There’s plenty of potential in either direction, including stuff like electrope. I personally will hope for a Stormblood moment delving into its ramifications even if people weren’t a huge fan of all the political stuff back then. Not gonna doom and gloom juuust yet though!
I agree that future worldbuilding is screwed. It's not only the Electrope, which is a super rare ore that started wars, yet common enough to be given out as kindling to the citizens of old Alexandria and used to line cups to keep drinks warm in Solution 9. (Can the writers please make up their minds) The regulators too are a huge problem! Why haven't we shut them down? We erased the Endless, because Alexandria needed to harvest living people to keep the simulation running, yet we allow the soul harvesting for the regulators to continue? There are a lot more plotholes in the story, that recovery is almost impossible, unless we yeet Solution 9 back to whence it came at the end of the post DT MSQ.
Yeah, I don't see the military or economic ramifications of electrope being even mentioned let alone explored in any detail. We'd also have to deal with the fact there is no known source of the stuff in the Source and the complications that come with that. They didn't even suggest that Alexandrians might have to live without replacement souls, no idea how that's gonna work since I'm pretty sure every other nation would object violently to having their souls harvested for Alexandrian insurance. Though I guess we shouldn't worry overmuch about the Alexandrian military, such as it is, we've yet to see any nation in this game being good at war. The Garleans took over a decent part of the world through sheer numbers and technological superiority with no apparent strategy in mind and no sensible efforts made to keep the conquered territories in line.
I would like to see some exploration of things that have already happened, but then you see the events of Endwalker the literal end of the world, is a minor affair, there is no lasting damage, people in Tural don't even seem to know it happened. The main cast just moves on to the next shiny thing and nothing has consequences. I really need to stop thinking about this game in even this much depth I always find myself so disappointed.
Yess this is almost exactly my opinion as well. Dawntrail is fun, nor would I ever say at any point is it TERRIBLE, but it did fumble in a lot of places.
My gripe with Dawntrail is how their writing felt rushed overall. To be frank the pacing I think was the biggest issue because they could've pushed back Solution 9 and the entire Sphene arc as Post MSQ ala Zero. Because the thing is. The entire 7 feats storyline being only exclusively Yok Tural exclusive was pretty much a slap in the face.
The reason for that is Tural was meant to be a country bound by unity and culture. And what they did? Make a literal boarder to the north.
They had so much missed potential narrative wise. One example being how literally there were tribes that had internal strife but they did nothing with it and just made Wuk Lamat do Talk no Jutsu instead of her actually looking for a solution like her father did.
It would've made sense if the Mamool Ja are proactively sabotaging the claimants and causing strife within all the tribes.
The mere fact that the ENTIRE party of Gulool Ja comprised of people from the north, south AND Eorzea but only for us to have 0 exploration or way to be exposed to Xuk Tural and its culture just made it feel all the more like they played check box simulator.
And don't get me started with how Wuk Lamat just felt like the second coming of Alphisae with how Wuk Lamat had ARR Alphinaud's naivite and Alisae's heart but none of the reward/proper buildup.
it really did feel like two completely different stories mashed into the same expansion, didn't it? :/
@@virtual_iska Exactly. It just felt like they had to cram a world ending threat despite the fact that we have a PERFECTLY adequate domestic threat or a few right there.
21:25 Daisuke Ono was too expensive for more cutscenes it seems
The story was... disappointing. It had some good moments, but overall just boring. And I was super mixed on Wuk Lamat the entire story. I was relieved I could go one zone without her. The Wild West zone was a breath of fresh air, even though it really felt like filler.
same, and I was thinking, how bad the story is, when I am so excited about filler zone/arch, it remains the only part of the whole dawntrail MSQ where I felt happy playing the game
There was so much non-committal and stupidity in this expansion to the point that nothing felt like it really mattered at all. We weren't really on a vacation, we weren't really involved with the struggle, we weren't really a mentor, and because it wasn't even our story where we were the protagonist, the last area didn't really matter at all because we only spoke to the person in question for a handful of lines. I didn't expect high stakes or anything, but god damn.
The #1 thing Dawntrail failed to do was hit the reset button. Getting into the game is completely insane at this point, it has been for quite awhile. If you don't buy the skip potion you're looking at like solid month of pretty serious playing to get caught up. A month of super exciting fetch quests and no threat from anything ever. I got a good number of people into ffxiv over the years, the only one that stayed was the one that bought the skip potion. They needed to just fork it and hit the reset button on the story so that new players could start in Dawntrail.
Personally, I think they should've made DT much shorter so that when they go to make later expansions building off of it, they don't have to compare the work they're producing with a super long starter for the next arc, plus it would leave less room for scrutiny if it was at least concise and people didn't have more to nitpick apart regarding the story. More pressingly, they didn't need to set up a rejoining-esque ending because it really diminished the rest of the expansion, we could've really benefited from Sphene getting more screentime and development in patches and just having Zoraal Ja being the final trial and focusing more on him in general.
Now onto DT itself and some thoughts of mine!
My best friend absolutely loves Wuk Lamat so it was pretty natural that he would go on to say to me that DT is his favourite expansion. He loved spending time with her and going on the journey with her, and he's a HUGE fan of the found family trope which was very prevalent in DT especially in parts where Wuk Lamat basically asks your WoL to stick around. He liked the chilled out, low stakes vibes of not having to be the main character and just thoroughly enjoyed following someone else's journey for a while, and all power and love to him for it because I'm glad he really enjoyed the expansion!
Meanwhile for me, I have a bit more of a complicated relationship with DT. Gameplay aside, which was great especially in dungeons, trials, and raids, I also really loved Wuk Lamat when she was initially introduced in the EW patches, but for me going through DT just wasn't as enjoyable because it's like you said, I was getting fatigued with her. I do still think there are great parts of her and times that she was interesting as a character; for one, I like that she immediately didn't forgive Bakool Ja Ja just because of what happened to him, instead admitting that she feels empathy for his circumstances and tells him to use what he has to make good change going forward. That said, I'm not a fan of how Bakool Ja Ja's lack of repercussions played out around that time in the MSQ, especially after releasing Valigarmanda because come on how was he not disqualified AND worse for that.
For another example, I found it endearing that she would act like nothing was wrong, had to stop putting on a brave face about relying on her own strength and acting like she had no weaknesses - I just wish they went harder into it or give her genuinely challenging things to act tough about (not just petty stuff like acting as if boats don't make her seasick) because it doesn't feel earned when she tells us her backstory and says that she's going to trust in her allies. We get what, one campfire/picnic/whatever scene before we're even level 94-95ish, and for the whole rest of the expansion she just trusts us entirely...? She doesn't/isn't made to revert to that, which you'd think she'd do after some Gulool Ja Ja related circumstances given that she's literally only known the WoL and their squad for a tiny amount of time.
She really isn't punished for her naivete outside of said Gulool Ja Ja related circumstances, which could also arguably be because she's taken the message of "trust the people around you" much too seriously and the consequences play out as they do from lack of intervention on Wuk Lamat's part (and I guess the WoL too, but we're kind of her lackey at that point).
I could go on about analysing why Wuk Lamat falls flat as a character and all the other things you've discussed (which I totally agree with!) but I've yapped long enough now.
Tbh, I feel like this expansion got cut down for some reason. Like the scions were either supposed to have more dialog and play a bigger role, or they weren't really supposed to be around at all, this expansion doesn't scream 'start of new arc' it screams filler arc.
I expected the Taco Tuesday trial to turn out that all 4 participants have to work together cause the 2 person teams represent one of the factions and have THE ACTUAL PARTICIPANTS make the food instead of us flexing our CUL skills off screen...
...Is it too late to go back to the edge of the Universe and resurect our combat-sexual friend? Bet he'd love to be a Viper...
hahah i do miss him!!
Sphene could have worked if they had used her as a post msq story line.
Like make her slowly show her true intensions over time and make Alexandria the final dungeon and her the last trial of the expansion.
Instead we've gotten some McGuffins in the shape of a futureristic key and a child who's mother we dont know? (unless their race can reproduce without a 2nd parent?)
Or they could atleast have made Wuk stay in the capital with Koana and let the 'saving the world' to the proffesionals. This way Krille and Erenville could take over as the main plot chars.
Yes, Sphene feels like a wasted character. She should have been built up for one expansion and her story resolved in another. Or she should have appeared in the EW patches instead of Zero so we could get to know her (and sympathize with her)
14:45 holy shit thank you. the amount of accusations i've gotten along the lines of "the zone didn't hit for you because you've probably never lost anyone" has been dizzying & just incorrect lol. the entire time i just felt like i was being yelled at to just cry already!! this is usually the part of the expac where we need our tears quota so please cry here!! and it just felt cheap and emotionally manipulative. i do love dawntrail, but this has been such a cathartic watch
It also feels like a cheap version of amaurot, and the end of the expansion really reminded me of shadowbringers, but in a bad way :c
Think about it from a more pragmatic perspective. You are here and on a timer to prevent a calamity level event. There is no good reason to meander around to do what you need to to prevent it.
Also, risking sounding just like Emet Selch, these aren't even real people anymore. Their entire existence is parasitical now and it's not even to sustain any real life, only an echo of one. Essentially aether vampires and it's them or us at this point in the story.
If anything, I felt upset on Erenville's behalf for having his mother still tormenting him for a second zone straight. She took forever to tell him she's endless and then even longer to address ANY feelings he might have, because writers put her memories at the last part of the Living Memory.
I feel like Otis is a prime example of how Dawntrail and the last zone specifically failed. They give us this character that seems super interesting, but give us little to no time with him to develop an attachment to the character. And then, literally 2 quests later they kill him off with this noble sacrifice (that was completely unnecessary btw because Sphene can just transfer bodies) and expect us to feel sad for him. Then in the next zone they present him to us again like we're supposed to care. If they had given us a zone or more to spend with him it could have been great, but instead his arc felt rushed and ultimately unimportant.
yeah, it was a weirdly unnecessary sacrifice and i really liked otis. but you're right, it was rushed and felt like it had no weight, unfortunately.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that was scratching my head at Otis' sacrifice. I was just like "Why did he die? Sphene can just transfer bodies. What? Why? Why did this have to happen?" That was the theme of this expansion though. Literally every few quests in the MSQ I was always asking "why?".
I liked Otis but mostly because it reminded me of Steiner and Princess Dagger from 9. Steiner would have done the very same Otis did to protect her. Not just because she's his Princess and he's sworn but because he loved her as family. Otis loved Sphene the same way.
Otis, Sphene, and the entirety of Alexandria were honestly something that could've just been saved for patch quests
Sphene literally say, that Otis in old model and cant transfer back. Otis in Living Memory - just memory of other , old Otis (i hope, because i literally sleep in LM cutscenes)
My hope is they have the balls to *keep* Living Memory dead. Double down on the very obvious choice they made.
To my understanding, the writers for Sorrow of Welyt did the story for DT; in many ways, that's quite obvious and makes some of the choices more understandable. Even though I did enjoy the story (yeah, I enjoyed Stormblood too), I can tell the Werlyt writers were definitely not ready for MSQ scale writing.
Sphene's crown apparently has the same symbol the emblem of Pashtarot (I didn't know who that was until it was pointed out to me, but it's another position on the Convocation who was working on a memory preservation/reconfiguration system in Elpis and was in charge of order and discipline), between that and the masks in the volcano (that somehow none of the npcs with us noticed???) we're 100% seeing another ascian at some point, probably in the post-MSQ. I think the Sphene we met was simply a recreation of her based on a specific selection of her memories that the folks who did it considered to be her ideal version, but since their proccess separates the soul from the memories it's possible that her soul is hanging out in a soul tube or whatever. So we might be seeing her (or another version of her, at least) come back pretty soon. Maybe now that her memories have been released back into the aethereal sea and if her soul is able to do the same, that'll allow Pashtarot to attempt a comeback tour or something.
There were definitely parts toward the end of this storyline that had me absolutely bawling at my computer though. For me it was all the stuff to do with family, especially between Cahciua and Erenville, though that's possibly more about my own personal losses than the writing itself.
I do *really* wish we'd been working against Koana longer, I so badly wanted the opportunity to absolutely mop the floor with Thancred and Urianger at least once. If we'd been paired with Zoraal Ja during the Great Turali Bake Off maybe we could've fought over one of the ingredients or something. Ah well, maybe next time.
Hm....so that's why they showed her crown at the very end in a cutscene. I was wondering why her crown was so special and why they did that. Interesting.
@@Gofr5 Yeah I didn't catch the reference either, it was explained to me in a chat with friends afterward lol.
i'm really curious about this!! i also predicted sphene would be pashtarot since the symbolism seems so obvious, but there was zero mention of it. i have bets going with a few people regarding sphene being pashtarot still so... we'll see haha
I feel like the reason the scions showed up as they did is for the same reason that a lot of ancillary characters show up in shows and films: they need to provide the actors with work to be able to keep them under contract. Otherwise, if they decide they want Ysh'tola to show up two expansions down the road, they need to keep the voice actor around, so she needs to have at least SOME dialogue within the project.
i hate that you're right and this is probably a lot of the reason why they kept the scions around :/
The German VA for Sthola changed between 6.0 and 6.1 .. now it feels kind of awkward to hear her new voice, like its an entirely new character
U can still use same VAs for other characters in the expansion, they did it before, so im not sure its a good scion explanation tbh
You made such a really good point on the wuk lamat section. One good reason why Shadowbringers and Endwalker had such a good story was because, those stories revolved around you, the player character. Almost every scene in those expansions made sure that you know, you are the most important character that brings the entire story together. And that's what made them great because they made you feel.. special
Agreed. If I want to be nobody I don't have to play a video game I can just live my life irl
Like we don't have to be the god slayer etc. But like in shadowbringer we start as "someone" once we arrive in the first and are basically just an esteemed guest but that's it. We built rapport.
Here we mostly don't even have a name anymore and are just wuks entourage
what really ruined it for me was the surprise pity party we were meant to feel for Bakool Ja Ja. and everyone was just ok with it. it went downhill after
I think my biggest gripe with DT was that we met Erinvilles mom once she's already became and Endless.
I think there would have been some emotional stakes to things if we met her for a short quest chain before starting to head to Erinvilles hometown, just a
"Oh!!! Ran into my fussy lil bnuy as I was visiting my friend!! Oh we just *have* to get this train running again so we can get home as soon as possible. Y'know Eleny' theres this cute girl back at the village, you remember (girl) right? right?"
and him getting his hmms and hawhs out of the way back then.
If after that a "i'll go on ahead sweetie~" and then the barrier appears?
Now, its not just a wonder of his mom, he definetly *knows* his mom is possibly in danger, and is likely going to pressure us to work harder, then we move into how the msq went.
Just a bit more time of us experiencing their interactions with each other. Thats all it would have took to be able to form a bond with erinville over finding his mother and making sure shes safe. Along with the heavy realization of how quickly you can lose someone tragically.
So this is my only point I might make in regards to the final zone which honestly might make it work. And that being if we are beginning some sort of WoL villain arc. Cause that is what I felt like going around Living Memory, I didn't feel like the hero, what I did was question if we were really doing the right thing. Like we were erasing the last vestige of an old civilization, isn't that a pretty accepted evil act? I mean sure we had our reason for doing so, but the other ending zones never really made me feel like that.
Edit: I just wanted to add, I think this expansion felt much more of a development on the technical/mechanical side of ff14 than a development on the story. I think you are absolutely right when you say that this feel like filler while they work on boss design, class design, and graphics, which all got a visible improvement this expansion. Like Viper's fantasy and play style instantly made me fall in love with it and every boss and dungeon so far has been a ton of fun to play through. It just kinda sucks that the story took a hit at the same time we got all these technical improvements.
i love this idea!!
I do think Dawntrail was fine, not great/not bad - But damm so many of your points are just spot on, like the final zone is so boring after you are done with the story
I believe the point of living memory as a zone and really the 97 and onward arc was to make us accept we arent saving everyone, and that sometimes regardless of intentions conflict is inevitable. And it wouldve hit a ton harder if that was the focus out of the gate. But the tonal whiplash from beach episode to effectively carrying on the story from the endwalker patches was too much.
I am a failed actor from Namibia and one of my first lessons was "show don't tell". If someone like me knows this but the DT writer did not... Who the fuck did they get to write this!? A pre-school teacher?
I'll take your opinion and make it my own
It's not bad writing, it's impossible writing.
A lot of this boils down to all of the scion's character arcs just being done. We used to be able to ignore that because the story was more about the antagonists that we followed since 2.0. I wouldn't trust even the best writer to make anything at all with the Scions now because narratively they have all outstayed their welcome one expansion ago.
But as you said they're forced to use them due to reasons outside of the story (fanservice, marketing).