Enjoy the show folks! I tried time-stamping the video but there's so many micro topics that it became a bit of a mess. Jesse was a delight to chat with. Appreciate all the love & support, as always. EDIT: Just a reminder that the purpose of this video wasn't to critique Dawntrail or it's MSQ, rather to look forwards. There's already a million and one videos out there doing a great job going into the nitty-gritty of why this expansion was viewed so poorly by many. Yes, we touch upon it, but the purpose of this chat was to offer something different.
@@deanospimoniful He didn't make a mistake, he left several situations messed up behind him in order to troll Azem in repayment for all the frustration we evidently caused him 10,000 years ago. Emet got all his memories back and became a troll.
I could listen to you two go off for hours and hours, and I hope you are able to get together and do this again in the future. Fair critiques and a shared appreciation for the new foundation. I'm stoked to see where we go from here! Invest in cork!
If you think about it, that was done for a brief moment in HW with Ardbert back when he was still an enemy. Of course that's also more of a retcon since back then there was no Azem and Ardbert was just some guy from the First.
I feel like the biggest thing that could have helped Dawntrail is simple, make the ENTIRE Alexandria arc its own expac or patch content. They just tried to do way too much in the base expansion.
Imagine if the immediate start of 7.1 was the dome appearing. Yyasulani has an entirely different look, it's "complete," then 7.1 drops and now that area we did side quests and FATEs is gone. And then 7.1-7.3 is the end. Could've given a lot more breathing room for the team to flesh some things out. And they made all of Troia an instanced Zone, they could've done the same for Living Memory. Hardest thing to shift there is the Arcadian storyline, and maybe pushing it to 8.0 would've been the right move, but the important idea to me is make us hate what happened to Heritage Found because we had characters there we liked. Hell, maybe have a political marriage for Zoraal Ja, his mate, live in the north to try and branch the two halves together more and make her a character that we knew about, she mourns Zoraal Ja, then boom, dome happens and they reunite and have a kid, but something happened and she's not around or on his side anymore. I like Dawntrail, but its pacing tripped over the turbo button and suffered for it. I hope they clean up some bits in the 7.x series because I want Bakool Ja Ja to earn his redemption. Being part of one fight on our side is not enough.
I may now view the biggest missed opportunity of the Dawntrail MSQ that we didn't use Azem's Crystal to call the Scions that weren't there in when the dome popped up LOL. Thanks for planting that image :D
I have been dogged in streams and other posts trying to just have a discussion that brings up these kinds of point to the point that I've just shut up and felt so dejected for my thoughts on DT. Thank you both for this collab video! ❤
I think post EW did the “mentor” thing WAY better than Dawntrail. I didn’t feel like we were ever really a mentor to Wuk Lamat; we were kind of just trailing along, even the Scions barely interacted with her compared to Zero. And then there were just so many situations where it felt like the WoL would have DONE something because the stakes were too high, or because their reflexes should have kicked in. Instead, we might as well have not been there for 98% of the MSQ, and it really took me out of the story and detached me from my character because they were acting like a cardboard cutout rather than my WoL.
I'm not trying to write off your opinion by any means, but I've seen a lot of similar takes and I think a lot of it is recency bias, and this expac will age better than you feel about it now with the details fresh in your mind. Cause I've seen a lot of people say stuff like "the storyline with Lyse ascending to the throne was better than Wuk Lamat's" when I've been defending Stormblood from those same folks over the story and Lyse's character growth for years and years now lol. I think some folks need time to let this one mellow a bit and come back to it
@@lethargicwizard I promise you (at the very least for me at least personally) this is not a recency issue; although I do appreciate you taking the time to say you're not trying to write me off. :) I played the entirety of FFXIV within the last 2-3 years because I was late to the party, and I had my issues with Lyse too (very different than my issues with Wuk), but for me Zero is a much better comparator, as she was new to our party and had a lot of growing to do. I absolutely adored the post-EW story, even though it seems like the community maybe didn't. Throughout that storyline, I felt like the WoL acted how I was expecting them to, and the whole team actually did act as a point of growth for Zero as she looked at what "friendship" could truly accomplish. I actually LIKE Wuk Lamat as a character, a lot! I was so hopeful for her after the last pre-expansion questline! But I do think she was so mishandled, for so many reasons. To me, she was too childish, and her naivete was never given real challenges to grow from. The WoL and Scions barely gave her anything to bounce off of and grow, she already had it all figured out with the power of Peace and Papa. And then the true glaring issue for me, the WoL just does NOT act like themselves. Why would we not step in to stop Gulool Ja Ja's death when Zoraal Ja reincarnates? Why would we not be the one to step in and immediately protect Nostalgia's twin when she's running away from Zoraal? Why would we not REACT in so many of these situations? We just stand there, nodding like a wet noodle. I'm fine with Wuk having the growth arc and being the one to take the actions, but there needs to be a reason the WoL holds back, especially in dire situations where lives are on the line. Edit: oh, one last note, I stayed away from all public opinion throughout the whole DT MSQ, and even mentally had so many moments where I was feeling dissatisfied but was like "I'll give it more time! I trust this team!" and at the end of all of that, I STILL walked away just feeling sad and disappointed about a large majority of the MSQ. I do NOT want to feel this way about my favorite story. :(
@@VorpalVixenEveryone's entitled to their opinion, but I will say that the WoL has a long history of standing around and watching bad things happen. Most recently, standing there and watching a certain character in EW get actually devoured. It's been a frustration point for me personally for many expansions
*_"I didn’t feel like we were ever really a mentor to Wuk Lamat"_* And why not? People can learn simply by observing. How the WoL carries themselves, how they approach certain situations, Wuk Lamat can pick up on these things. This is an intuitive sense. Understandably, this natural sense can be dulled when we come to rely upon the internet to give us all the "right" answers. Let's not forget the lesson taught in the Alpaca trial. In order to lead, you need to know how to do things alone. If you need help, you can rely upon those in which you lead. *_"Why would we not step in to stop Gulool Ja Ja's death when Zoraal Ja reincarnates?"_* They explained why. *_"Why would we not be the one to step in and immediately protect Nostalgia's twin when she's running away from Zoraal?"_* I would advise learning about situations where hostages are involved. Why do you think they involve negotiators? You'll come to understand that blindly reacting to a situation can make things much worse than if you had figured out how best to proceed.
@@Hawkenwhacker No need to be so pretentious. This is a pretty casual internet conversation lol, neither of our words are gospel, just opinions. You can't be a mentor by just showing alone, and there was very little interacting. But even if you can, that's a pretty boring way to tell a mentor/mentee relationship. Honor only goes so far for non-intervention. Gulool Ja Ja won the fight, then the opponent cheated--we are allowed to step in honor or not, and the Warrior of Light would have unless actually physically incapable. They had already let her go, she was running across the field, and Zoraal, once again, broke the rules. WoL should have been the one to hop in and intercept, not Wuk. I wasn't talking about the situation as a whole (that was fine), I was talking about that moment specifically. Us deflecting the blow and giving Zoraal a little shake of the head/finger in a cheeky "bad Zoraal, I could slap you down in an instant, don't try me" would have been a really much needed moment for the WoL to actually have some interaction with the plot. I'm not really sure why I'm bothering to respond since clearly you have a very high opinion of your own intellect and I'm sure won't hear a word of this, but whatever. I'm glad you enjoyed the story. I didn't, and it's quite clear I am not in the minority, so there's obviously something wrong here when compared with the generally well received story telling of the past in FF.
42:00 Honestly, I'm a firm believer that if the writing is good and interesting, you will not feel the need to go out and slap something just to feel less bored. That's on the story/execution. Yoshi-P mentioned something similar as you in one of his recent interviews and I felt that this was actually just dodging the real issue.
Something to add about the Yok Huy getting visions from other reflections... I just did the last Pictomancer quest, and doesn't the Lala mention that her master had a vision of the Grand Cosmos and that's why he did that as a painting? You know, being something from the First JUST LIKE the Ronkan temples?
If you do the Crafting relic EW questline Grenoldt (in the first) talks about how he has dreams of another self that's a drunkard (re:Gerolt on the source)
I mean, if we go by ratio there's 70% of things that are bad versus 30% that are good in DT, so of course the content is going to reflect that. Contrast this to how 9 out of 10 videos about ShB and EW were about how awesome the story was.
Endy should be happy to know that Ishikawa will be in Australia next month for PAX Aus. A good opportunity for some Meracydia research for the next expansion!
33:00 i think its more than her ARR, i think they tried to give her a loose condensed version of our entire journey. ARR - start of journey / exploring the land and people HW - travel to isolationist city that was once fine but made inhospitable through nature (mamook) and learn its dark past / resolve their conflict so that they can open boarders again SB - invaded territory / looming military faction that needed the joining of forces to take down (kind of a stretch) ShB - travel to unkown world that is eeriely geographically the same via the dome but different in some way due to calamity / take down leader of society that is superior to you EW - entire last zone being a girl with different ideas about life wanting to end yours Not 1:1 but very loosely the same
I haven't written off a Void expansion. Imagine doing a reverse Shadowbringers where we arrive at a floating island of a zone and spread light, unlocking the full size of the zone.
I do wonder if it won't be an expansion, but a type of Ishgardian restoration effort story but with different mechanics. Maybe a kind of new field operation down the line. There's a good chance I'm wrong and it will be MSQ, instead of Void Invasion again, it will be something else, some new alien/extra dimensional corrupting force like Ultima the High Seraph that corrupts the Void to become their army in a way that takes advantage of the Void beings undying nature but juices them up with some new kind of power.
I liked many ideas of Dawntrail... ON PAPER, yes. In the execution though, I do not. There were so many plot contrivances and illogical moments throughout the story that I only could start wrapping my head around them after I was done. The writing was just sloppy, and the dialogue/script quality experienced a huuuge drop from previous expansions. And as someone who considers the writing a large part of my enjoyment, I am worried that this continues with their current writing team. I want to be excited about all these hints about Azem, the volcano and the key, but... oof.
@@FuyuYuki92 It is a rough start no doubt. The devs may have gambled with a newer writing team and they lost the bet. Frankly, I think the true testament to whether or not we should be really concerned about the story is in the patch MSQ. I'm personally willing to wait up to 8.0 to see if Dawntrail was a fumbling first step in the new story arc, or the new status quo, in which I would be fine dropping the game for a very long time.
I’m still entirely invested in the theory that we are going to get the real Ultima as a major villain, and that they were the one that introduced auracite to the world. The High Seraph from the Ivalice raids was a summon based on the memories of that entity.
Considering the possibility of the crystal inside the cup being an auracite, it'd make total sense for Zoraal Ja becoming obsessed with power, as Ultima's auracite has the power to twist desires and make obsessions stronger, enabling their users to become Lucavi, distorting their physical form, just like he did...
The execution with DT was my problem overall. It was very plot driven and seemed to severely lacking those real character moments that made ShB and EW stand out. There were some, but there were times it felt like we were being rushed from plot point to point, especially in the first half. Overall, enjoyable with some great themes marred by some poor writing decisions, imo.
The thing with Zoraal Ja to me is that he DIDNT change from the 30 year time skip (for him), he just changed which venue he'd apply his philosophy through (Tural at first if he became dawnservant.. Alexandria after that failed)
Fully agree, he did not change one bit, he was messed up even when we first met him. But, that still does not mean they failed to even remotely let us get a glimpse as to what happened with him to become this way other then even the vaguest hint on his death bed.
the moment zoraal ja comes back from the dead with a malicious aura should have been the same moment alisae acts like alisae and decides to intervene. tbh i love DT as a concept, its great, really. But the excecution was very clumsy and rushed. i was really excited for the vacation aspect, the rivalry between the scions and not having to save the world for one expansion. Gameplay side of things was amazing though, those bosses, holy shit.
That was one of those scenes where we should only have found out what happened due to the Echo, like us not being there and finding the Dawnservant there, breathing out his last just as we and Wuk enter the place.
the one thing about this expansion is that in Shadowbringers they did all the world building but still it felt paced right. We learned about the world, while dealing with a story. Comparing this to ARR makes sense, but they've done the world building so much better since then. Why did this one have to regress all the way back to ARR when ShB did it better? Granted we had states way more, but the point stands. You can weave a story and world building together without it feeling like a slog. All the elements were great for everything, but it was not placed or paced well. That's my frustration. In concept I liked it all. In reality, it was rough on me.
The world building in ShB was “edgy” flavored. The first was a desolate wasteland of people huddling together to avoid being picked by sin-eaters one by one. That’s a massively different experience from world building in a place where nothing is wrong (and can’t be massively wrong because it is a new beginning). For most people the love for ShB world building comes from it being wrapped in “edgy end of the world” flavor.
I disagree with the other responder that it’s about the edginess of the setting and I think Jesse touches on my own feelings a little bit. We get told all this cool stuff about Tural and the dreaming giants and all the cool stuff that happened to Gulool Ja Ja etc and not *shown.* In shb we are shown everything. The cave paintings in Rak’Tika, the sin eaters, Ahm Areng, Ranjiit and Vauthry are present from the beginning as is Emet. Hell, even when we’re told it’s freaking Emet Selch narrating it, not random Labyrinthos side character bunny with an Icelandic accent for no reason
It was nice to listen to a measured discussion about DT MSQ. There were so many problems with it but a lot of good stuff in there as well. I think the hardest part for me was that my WoL felt so inconsequential. I enjoyed being an older sibling to Wuk in the first half but from mid point on the WoL and Scions should have taken center stage. It really made me empathize with what it must have been like for Ardbert to just sit there as a ghost. I am excited for what comes next though because Azem's mcguffin chalice could lead us anywhere. Please lord and savior yoshiP, let me go back to the 13th to hang out with goth gf.
I finally finished through the video. Both of you did an amazing job and it was really fun listening to you. Hope you do something like this again. I remember going through the level 97 quest and wishing we would meet one of our reflections who would then turn out to be evil. Funny that Jesse's idea went into a similar direction. I was a little bit disappointed we didn't get more of that in dawntrail. Our existence wasn't acknowledged at all. I would have been happy with just a little bit more, you know. I appreciated you pointing out the stories flaws but still diving into its future potential. Helped me getting my mind off of the disappointing parts a bit even though I still remain worried about the future writing quality. Now I want to order the Encyclopaedia Eorzea.
1:00:00 I think Ultima was sundered along with worlds, Zodiark, etc. Ultima wants to be whole again and is now destroying reflections themselves. Just a theory....Super theory here though: I think the 9th and the 11th are the messed-up ones, and eleventh was messed up by Earth element, and the eleventh will be the reflection where we do the raids for this expansion.
It's weird cause I liked the EW patch content alot despite never playing FF4 and I hated Dawntrail while having played FF9. Yet both campaigns are stories where you aren't the main character. Truly a lot of the Wuk Lamat criticism could have been avoided if she wasn't written so annoying.
I watched this live on Twitch. Absolutely loved the discussion. As to what I hope the improvements are for the next expansion and patches. It's the dialogue writing, which is considerably worse than ShB/EW, and character prioritization. Give everyone proper time & role or rather don't include them, if you're just gonna make them leave as soon as they appear. Otherwise, I really liked the Living Memory, but think it could've been executed better. Anways, I'm really excited for the future and I hope Ishikawa will be there to offer them more guidance going forward.
@@PetarBladeStrok Honestly, if I had to make my big changes to the MSQ it would be to add like 2-3 new characters. Two of them would be Wuk Lamat's friends, one is a healer/mage an apprentice court mage or something like that, the other a DPS/Tank in the Landsguard. The idea is that the two of these new characters would give us more insight to what Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja is like. The Landsguard character would be a kinda Jullus type character, but instead of learning their head commander was bad (like Jullus learned of Zenos), they would actually join Wuk Lamat's entourage because they KNOW that Zoraal Ja was bad news. The court mage would give us more insight to whatever insidious things Sareel Ja has been up to, maybe learn that he was the one that orchestrated the whole attempted assassination of young Wuk Lamat. Also, so that Wuk Lamat actually has friends that isn't just Koana and Erenville. The third new character would join as part of Koana's entourage be his aid for the most part. Gameplay wise, it would give us new characters to play with while also allowing us to avoid those awkward Scion moments where 'they somehow managed to join us even though it's really odd that they did.' I feel like this would avoid the weird clunkiness the Scions' played because the devs would be forced to actually utilize them and build them up correctly. Also so we spread out the whole "Speak to Wuk Lamat" quest objective to the others as well.
Just to piggyback off of the ronkan connection around 1:23:00. Speaking of the Yok Huy connection, what is the armor set we get from Skydeep Cenote? The Location that Yok Huy miners and delvers were digging in, only to unveil the portal to Alexandria??? A RECOLORED RONKAN SET!!!
*I'll be honest. I get Jesse's point about being the hero; doesn't change the fact that I didn't feel like the hero. I felt like a cardboard cutout of the WoL Wuk Lamat carried around with herself. My WoL was ARR Minfilia but with less to do, less agency, less opinions and less screentime.* To put it short: Good ideas and intentions are worth nothing if you can't execute them - in this case - at all. To sell the inspiring hero more is needed than nods and fistpumps and that's if the WoL did even that much. DT could have happend without us and I wish it had. PS: I apologize that I only made it to the 40min mark, but that was my limit to be bothered to listen to anything DT, despite you two being really fun to listen to. Like everything pre DT is sweet sweet "nectar" to a vampire like me, anything DT is like if someone took a gigantic bucket full of holy water and filled it with bags of garlic. It doesn't kill me outright, but there comes a point when the suffering is just too much.
One aspect of the story I find fitting considering my role at work as of recently, mentoring someone and guiding them isn't easy, especially as you try to get them to grow and become independent. Its very easy to simply take over and do the task for them but by doing so, they can become dependent on you to fix their issues. That aspect of the story seems to follow the issues first brought up in the Dark Knight class quests where Frey finds it frustrating that people become too dependent on you to solve their problems for them. Fitting that Ishikawa wrote that class quest series.
These are my feelings as well. It needs a bit more gameplay mixed in with the cinematics. There's lots of opportunities, even if just for solo duties, as parts of the longer MSQ chains to incorporate some more gameplay. For a couple big examples, the Galool Ja Ja vs. Zoraal Ja fight, I think that would have been better handled with a solo duty and an echo flashback. For the initial invasion of Tuliolal we arrive and have a short solo duty (instead of just the cinematic), finding Wuk Lamat and the scions and helping where we can, fight a few skirmishes with the robots, all leading up to Bakool Ja Ja saying he'll hold the line here and we should head to the palace before it's overrun, "Duty Complete" and finishes with the cinematic of us running to the palace and noticing Sphene on the way. Then when we arrive, GJJ is already defeated and dying on the ground, Wuk Lamat yells and starts to charge at ZJ but Ketenraam stops her because he witnessed the fight and knows ZJ isn't playing fair and would kill her too. ZJ turns to say his spiel about his ambition remaining unchanged, cue the echo flashback where we get to watch the fight play out just like it does currently. After the flashback, ZJ says whatever about if Wuk is truly the successor then she must defeat him, blah blah blah and teleports away (because why do we let him just casually walk out? No.) Krile and Blue Alisaie rush over to GJJ to try and heal him, but it's too late. Also, the train sequence, would love to have had that be a solo duty using the gun/targeting mechanics from Gold Saucer. And even smaller moments throughout the MSQ, like there's several times we're going out to collect something and we're told how dangerous the area is or how perfect it is for an ambush and to be on our guard... and then just... nothing. Everything went perfectly fine. Overall I enjoyed Dawntrail but there's definitely room for improvement going forward. It's not the "worst thing ever", but it's definitely not the best expansion, either. Hopefully they are able to take some of the constructive criticism and implement some improvements. I know the voices screaming the loudest right now are just pure knee-jerk reactionary and negativity, so I greatly appreciate discussions like this that are more measured and constructive.
Honestly, if the devs really wanted to home in on the whole "The Scions and WoL are Wuk Lamat's mentor" we could've had two different solo duties where Alisae first spars with Wuk Lamat, then later on us the WoL spars Wuk Lamat. It would've actually been cool to show us building her confidence and all that by sparring her. I too am on the camp of "The MSQ wasn't the best, but it wasn't the absolute worst as well."
55:57 The cup is made of electrope in order to harness the power of the crystal that is inside The milalas only had the crystal when they traveled from source to Alexandria/9th shard
I want the president of the Arcadeon to be a Senator Armstrong like character and the reason Metem and Wicked Thunder are too scared to confront him, is because he is just so strong he could kill them all by himself
I just want to say, after I finished DT, all I wanted was a discussion like this. Instead, I see just people hating on the game non-stop, not thinking about the possibilities and the new lore we got which could be used in the future. Is DT flawed? Sure! It's riddled with pacing issues and missed opportunities. But there is also so much that was established to look forward to. And when we actually got to play the game mannnn were those dungeons and trials fun and challenging in a good way! Thanks for this discussion. Love it. Want to see more of it rather than another video complaining. I had fun for what its worth despite issues I had with parts of it (which mirror yours!)
@@psionickender I vibe with this so hard. I get that there are major issues in Dawntrail's writing and execution, but man some people aren't just throwing the baby with the bath water out, they're throwing the whole darn bathroom and everything out. Yes the story has issues, the character dialogue was rather weak, and the quality did dip, but because of what they've done prior to Dawntrail, I'm willing to give them the devs some leeway and take this as a fumbling first step into the new story arc.
If the majority are genuinely upset, that is a problem that SHOULD be adressed. Never feel shame for critisizing. If we are soft like usual for critique to this game, it only gets worse.
For all of Dawntrail's issues, Dinosaur Texas/Arizona with that beautiful day theme has to be the biggest vibes in a zone ever. That's like a child's badass imagination brought to life.
my wild theory: original Sphene was a reflection of Azem and was aetherically the only able person in that reflection to operate the dimension travel crystal. For this reason her soul/memory was preserved. It was stated that preservation was working on controlling the crystal, what better way than making a program/artifical human interface'?
@@Eucep the crown is at least named to be Sphenes own regulator, and a regulator backups memory data. So all that happened was probably broadcast to the preservation villains.
@@sadi5713 Even if it's a regulator, could still be a modified item like the cup that was built around the key. So, that is something we hopefully find out in the patches what is going on, along with if preservation are actual villains or already gonners.
I didn't get to bring it up in this podcast, but I did mention it during my playthrough! It's certainly interesting to speculate why the 9th reflection has 3 moons. Are the extra two man-made like Dalamud? I hope we get some info in the patch quests.
@@Tucarius I vaguely remember that Jesse too noticed it during his play. Though he did fail to notice the Azem summoning circle symbolysm in the vulcano.
18:00 I think another of the reflections is messed up too, which is why we have the weird gravity phase of the final MSQ boss, Queen Eternal. So maybe three viable reflections.....
I understand, and i like the concept of our character being a mentor figure for somebody else that said It's hard to accept being on sidelines without a good reason, a metaphorical WALL for us to stop from acting The low hanging fruit on that regard is Gulool Jaja vs. Zoraal Ja, if we had enemies to fight or a trap that incapacitated us or a LITERAL SCI FI SHIELD WALL stopping us from contributing Imagine if we fought hordes of androids and Zoraal Ja goes down, Gulool Jaja advises us to finish the rest of the androids and tend to the wonded when....the zoraal ja revival happens every thing goes as planned and while Wuk lamat goes away as adviced by her father, she hears the scream of pain from her father and then she says "...Papa?" This is a quick made up scenario inside my koala smooth brain and, in my opinion, way better than standing there and watching, WARRIOR OF FREAKING LIGHT STANDING THERE AND WARCHING
What disappointed me a lot about DT was about how short Krile's story arc was. And it wasn't even just about her and her parent's but the whole history of the milalafells too. I was really hoping they could've shown more about her because for me, she's more important than Erenville. Yes, I am one of those few who's not really attached to him that much. Krile has been with us since HW and she still have her own spotlight. I thought we were going to know her parents more because they had a huge role in bringin us to Living Memory. I was emotional during those short cutscene of her parents bringin her to the source.
It'd be hilarious if the people of Meracydia would be so akin to the people of Bevelle as they make the next expansion a love letter to FF X. However, an interview with Yoshi-P hinting about also the rest of Hingashi where we could take on the mantle of the next shogun is very tempting as well! So many possibilities so many things to cook in the kitchen for the next expansion for sure!
It is a typical RPG trope, that gives us the antagonist that is ourselves. Technically you could say it was Emet-Selch(Hero protecting his friends) and Elidibus(The warrior of light), but I catch your drift. (Hexen: Beyond Heretic). Did this. It is a dark fantasy spin of OG Doom. Towards the end of the game, if you played a fighter, you would face the fighter class.
I wish we got a name for Azem. I understand why we don't, they've got this connection to the character that people are going to be very personal about their connection to, but I feel that Azem is currently trying to represent two very different things. --The person of Azem, whose soul we happen to have. --the Seat of Azem, and its role in the Convocation of Fourteen Going forward I would love to see our exploration of inheriting the Seat of Azem. Emet-Selch gave it to us pretty much as "you're doing the job already", looking into that role and its relationship with the world, perhaps by looking at things person-Azem did and how our actions echo that, is interesting. On the other hand I don't want too much to be made of us just being a reincarnation of the person of Azem. Because I don't think there's any way to talk about that without using the word "just". In the very expansion in which our relationship to the person of Azem was established we had whole plotlines of "you are not your soul, you are the choices you make" both with Ryne and with Seto seeing our similarity to Ardbert. Azem laying breadcrumbs so that if they're needed "the right person" can find them and use them to help? Interesting, lays the groundwork for, for example, the Speaker of the Molala being "the right person" for their crisis. Foreseeing things and doing it so that "specifically the copy of me" can use them? That doesn't work for me. It feels like it's a trivial difference but it also feels like a big one. We just got out of Hydaelin doing that sort of gambit.
I very much get where you're coming from with it being important that the WoL is their own person and not "just" a shard of Azem. Like it's super important to me that the WoL never "recovers" memories of that time (they aren't OUR memories to begin with), or that they automatically feel the same way about the same people, etc. But I think it's very possible to execute this kind of story while still respecting that line? Fiction is full of protagonists inheriting legacies from their ancestors without those ancestors being treated as the same person as the protag.
Well, since the purpose here is to look forward...I have a theory. To use the key you must possess the Echo. That's why in ancient times the Milala leader(a spiritual leader btw) was successful opening a portal to escape the ice. She had the Echo. When they tried to do it to get away from the lightning...no one had the Echo, so they couldn't. But Sphene was successful using the key. So, I'm thinking one of the souls sitting in that nice big crown of hers possesses the Echo. Also, I believe the key was originally conceived by Azem, but in the possession of Emet-Selch so he could travel to Azem at a moment's notice for whatever reason. Since Emet-Selch escaped the sundering, perhaps the key was in his possession and also escaped the sundering (IOW...it's whole...and operational as a result). Carry on.😄
I made it to nearly the endgame of HW, Stormblood was coming up, and then I lost my life. Had to sell my PC. It was a painful period. Regardless, I came back about a year ago, and found my FC had died, and a far vaster, emptier, lonelier game awaited me. The benefit was, for several months, I had not commitment, or obligations, I just got to do whatever I wanted, with no negative side here. Very recently, I made it into a new FC, small and spunky, and I'm just playing the game at my own pace. Leveling healers, one DPS, and a lot of the crafter/gatherer classes. I'm not rushing. I just want to have fun. But I like listening to these opinions.
Im not desperate for a bigger bad, or upping the anti... I just miss the "WTF is going on?" of the patches (none of that with the contained story of Zero) and the "WTF is going on" of the Expansion X.0 ending... It's like they've stopped ALL intrigue and mystery.
I mean, the new relic had Azem's symbol that's a "wtf is that thing" also its unknown origins and how it ended up with Ice Calamity era Lalafells in the Source. We still have Gulool Ja's unknown origins, and we still have Preservation IF they weren't completely destroyed in the past, they could be some kind of Illuminati group in the present. There's still the angle of "So we still going to let the Alexandrians eat souls or are we going to stop that." I mean, compared to say Stormblood or Shadowbringers we got more storylines to follow in Dawntrail, but they aren't as big as the ones Shadowbringers posed which was "What was the Final Days and why did it occur" and "Is Hydaelyn actually bad?"
There should be 2 conflicts: Koana vs Wuklamat (different approaches to unite people) and Zooral Ja vs Bakool Ja Ja (is being child of the ruler more improtant than being the blessed siblings). Not Wuklamat vs everyone.
I love your idea of the Azem-gers, but more specifically of the "evil" shard of Azem. The kind who have had "I'll kill your god even if I don't have to" as the tamer dialogue options throughout their story, who would have been born in a Garlean/Allag like society, used as only a weapon against enemies, who would be exactly as Zenos saw the WoL, with their benevolence eroded over years and years of a life in these circumstances.
a little anecdote from me regarding differences in story between wow and ff14: do you remember in wows dragonflight where we fight against the forces of the magma dragon dude (forgot his name lol) and suddenly portals open everywhere and all your old friends come to aid you in the battle? i felt NOTHING at this moment because the expansions are so separated from one another that you havent seen some of the characters in some years or they played just minor parts... it did literally nothing for me and it was basically the big finale of the whole story arc... now imagine they did something similar in ff14 (im glad they didnt because it wouldnt have made any sense restrospect, but still), where all of a sudden hien, aymeric, raubahn, edmont, the garlond bros etc etc (maybe tataru in her world-devourer form) came all flying in airships to rescue the scions from near defeat and in a combined effort you slay the big evil. that would have been super epic because ff14's story is just thought through and most characters are important and were given time to grow in the story... a thing that wow has lost over the years, which makes me really sad...
Went into DT like this is a vacation. I just want to explore and stuff. Know some stuff is going to happen, but I didn't have any real expectations. Came out of the experience pretty happy.
I see jesse and endy really focus on sphene and her crown, if you remember sphene's crown is also a unique memory storage and we don't know the full function of it yet. However i think going forward the story is going to heavily deal with the concept of loss/reincarnation/souls. As Azem and many other of the convocation can reincarnate with what we seen of loghrif(gaia) and fandaniel, the concept of dealing with loss after we've dealt with despair because there needs to be a road to move on, and the fact are souls memories truly wiped after aetherial sea like solution 9's process that we've been painstakingly showed in minute detail, or is there memories etched onto the souls that cannot be dispelled like gaia's? what does that mean for the 13th where memories are gone even if you cannot die? These are very irl philosophical musings for thousands of years as ffxiv likes to tackle these grounded elements such as a fall of theocracy like ishgard. ultimately if sphene's memories are etched onto the crown but the soul has been reincarnated... imagine what they could do with an actual garnet that's reincarnation of sphene, and the crown acts like a memory restoration like mitron was for gaia. I think we are about to dive into some very deeply uncomfortable but meaningful territories in terms of story writing, and don't forget elidibus mysterious ending scene. side note living memory felt like the farplane of FFX, not the same but similar dynamic of the living being able to interact with the dead in a way, remember in side quests they said the living used to also lived with the living memories in the golden city.
I had one more thought overnight. Endy you kep calling the key an hourglass. I just don't see it personally. The outer shape very much appears to be a cup and the interior crystal looks to me like a single helix. Not only is that what it looks like to me, be the symbolism of the helix representing growth, resiliance and change seems very fitting to be connected to Azem.
I 100 percent agree that the next big bad in the story will be a reflection of Azem. Maybe the bad azem got stronger after every rejoining who knows. However once we win that fight against the other Azem it will be the end of FFXIV and the new ff mmo will be releasing in 2 years or so after.
Everyone always claims the story is bad in Realm Reborn but I loved it. The stylistic dialog is just fun to read. I can't think of any storyline from FFXIV that I dislike.
At the beginning of this conversation, I was a little worried that this would be almost all positive on Dawntrail, and/or that they would just talk about the things that angry people on the Internet like to be mad about (Wuk Lamat's voice actor, not living up to Endwalker because of course it didn't, etc.), but ultimately, this is the most accurate conversation I've heard yet relative to my own experience. In particular, they summed up my feelings on Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja perfectly. It feels to me like there were a bunch of things that they were more concerned about than carefully writing a story, like trying to establish rich history to a new zone, drawing parallels & connections to South American cultures, paying homage to FFIX--all good things, don't get me wrong, but whatever their priorities were, it resulted in a bunch of cool lead-ups with no payoff, and a bunch of poorly-executed plotlines. That said, while it didn't live up to my standards from several angles, it exceeded them in others, leaving me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth, and at the end of the day I did have fun.
I been thinking for awhile on how DT should be "fix". Of course not rewritten the whole thing, the story still need to largely hit the same beat. And I came to the conclusion that Wuk Lamat's and Zoraal Ja's personality should be switched and Almost anything else can stay the same. We still be helping Wuk to be Dawnservant, but not on her behest initially this time. Instead, Erenville will be the one to request us helping her to increase the odd of Zoraal Ja not taking the throne. The journey will be about self-discovery for Wuk to help her love herself and her nation. Erenville can also be her mouthpiece early on and increase his screen time with us. As for Zoraal Ja. If we give him Wuk's personality then he is pretty much Sphene, invading other lands for resources and all.
I seriously doubt that they will change the formula for dungeon and trail placement as it impacts directly the ilevel of gear and character development pacing for the expansion.
I'm just remembering now, Krile is originally from the 9th Reflection. So who is Source Krile? Have we met them? Do they exist? I feel like if Krile were to merge with her Source counterpart, the Source version might take precedent and we would lose the Krile we know. The only thing I can think of is that Source Krile died sometime in the 20 years that our Krile has been on the Source, and instead of reincarnating, Source Krile was just slowly over time pulled in by the Krile we know, and they merged unknowingly where the living person took precedent and became the primary personality.
To poke a hole in this idea: The Milala came from the Source, as such despite having been born on the reflection, Krile still most likely has a Source soul. It is as of yet unclear if there were any Lala type folk on that reflection before the Milala came there. Similarly, I do not recall seeing any Au'ra and Rougadyn there either.
@@Eucep Ohhh, I appreciate this actually. I did forget that the Milala's were from the Source. The only question about Krile's origins is if another Lala counterpart in the 9th exists, if they intermingled with the Lalafells of the Source, and if that somehow affects the soul density of the intermingled children born, and ultimately if Krile was affected by this if at all. But for now it is safe to assume as you said, Krile was born on the 9th, but more than likely has her Source soul density.
@@Eucep Wait, wouldn't Krile still be a few rejoinings short then? The Milala's we know hail from the Source Lalafells from the Ice Calamity, which was like 4th or 5th Calamity. Even if Krile was born from them, wouldn't she still be missing like 2-3 rejoinings?
@@Deode-d4h That would be assuming that those fragments, if they even happened for everyone, would only be able to go to the source and not directly to the 'core' if I may call it that way. The souls of those on the Source are denser because it is just that, the Source which gets mirrored in the reflections, they are not denser because of rejoinings, at least nothing directly states that as far as I know. Not every soul is a shard of an ancient.
So it is even possible that Krile has no reflection counterparts if her soul is not a shard of an ancient. Though I think with Krile it is more likely then several other scions.
Jesse I know you really like the Ardbert comparison but we were nothing like Ardbert in this expansion. Ardbert thought he was saving the world, but wasn't. As a consequence he was never able to truly help anyone again. It tore him apart inside. When he had to sit there watching someone die he almost gave up forever. The Warrior of Light in Dawntrail actively chose to never help. Kidnappings, killings, mass murders, we just stood around and let it all happen because god forbid the spotlight is taken off Wuk Lamat for 30 seconds. Ardbert would see Dawntrail's Warrior of Light as the worst possible kind of villain - someone with the power to fix injustice but no will to do so. Dawntrail was not just a fumble, it was a cruel rebuke of every ounce of character development we've undergone since A Realm Reborn.
The WoL has gone through just as much silent suffering as Ardbert has, if not more. Especially if you've done Eureka. "The WoL ends all suffering and conflict by winking at the camera" would have been a much more terrible version of Dawntrail. We walked so that Wuk Lamat could run. These are the messages and lessons of light and hope that have been with the FF franchise since the 80s, "I fix everything with a stern gaze" just completely misses the mark.
Ardbert wanted to help but couldn't, because he was INTANGIBLE. so his watching is actually suffering for him. We, ARE REAL AND STRONG. So for us to be hanging around not doing anything does not. Make. Any. Sense.
@@MagiRa-r4m I quit ARR twice before sticking with it on the third go around. Both times, I quit at the part of the MSQ where we are forced to deal with the Copperbell Mines Giants in a very unpalatable way. Nothing like that happened to me in DT's MSQ, however, and I would rather replay it despite repetition fatigue than to go through ARR again.
@@desdenova1 Yes... and? It's morally grotesque, but done in a time when beast tribes were considered the enemy. What does that have to do with DT? DT's problem is nonsensical writing and poor minute to minute dialogue. If you like how it was written, there's really nothing I can do to convince you why many people find how the story was written borderline eye-gouging at times. There was no tangible reason for us to just be sitting around and let big dad die, there was no good explanation on why Zoraal Ja wanted war so badly especially as a kid born in PEACETIME, Bakool Ja Ja being so easily forgiven after what Fordola had to go through was almost insulting, why did Gulool Ja Ja do nothing about the two-head Mamool Ja experimental program? Whats the deal with Sareel Ja? The hell is Ketenramn still doing being around? This isn't even touching about the problems with Wuk Lamat. If people say, oh the patch content will tackle that! ITS TOO LATE. The problem's have ALL BEEN RESOLVED ALREADY.
Loved the overall story, but there are glaring flaws in how it's told which feel terribly out of place with what we had before. It felt in some spots like they changed up things last minute. In particular the story we got with Bakool Ja Ja was like, something here does not feel like it fits. And Zoraal Ja felt even worse. Sphene however I fully understood and worked for me.
in regards to patches being "too predictable" or "too formulaic", i don't find knowing that a certain type of content is coming, detracts from it. I see it the same way as watching a hero's journey film, yea i know there are certain scenario's that'll be ticked, such as betrayal, defeat, etc, but for me the fun is the "how" they hit those check boxes.
31:54 see I get that there are probably SOME people that expected that but I think it's disingenuous to anchor an argument that "people" as a collective expected that. I believe the grand majority of people who are invested in 14's story expected the stakes (and even wanted it, myself included) to be very very low as this is the start of a new journey. People's problems with the MSQ structure, pacing, storytelling, and lore implications go well beyond "well just don't expect a world ending threat everytime". Even with the Zero patch quests I don't think you can argue people didn't like it because the stakes were low. Stakes can be low and still provide an engaging story, they are not mutually exclusive
I think there's a misunderstanding about Wuk Lamatt in S9, the reason why she's always friendly with Sphene isn't because she trusts her, in fact she says as much, but it's a way to not show her hand yet, aka the alliance with Thavnair thanks to Koana's deals. In a way Wuk Lamatt in heritage found is showing her growth compared to her early scenes in the story where her eagerness to divulge informations got her in alot of troubles. We can agree that it's not well divulged though
I'm glad I only watched the launched trailer once at launch and forgot what was in it by the time the expansion came out. I feel it left more suprised for the moment in game. For the next expansion I totally intend to skip the launch trailer completely. I might even try to avoid zone screenshots and the other stuff as well to try and go into it as blind as possible.
It's nice hearing a conversation about Dawntrail that isn't so negatively tinted. Really appreciate this, because I had a grand old time and I'm honestly lookin' forward to a new game plus run of Dawntrail to pick apart more details.
I've largely tuned out of FFXIV content creation the last month because it's just exhausting, but this was a great talk. Hope y'all get a chance to do it again!
Bruh, ardbert giving you his strength, is the first time one of azems power has returned to you, him being in all the custscenes is a reflection of you in those situations 😮😮😮😮
I was not a fan of the story overall (I think the high level was good, the details didn't get filled in well), but at the end I was super excited with where it could go due to the various threads that had been left. Between the relic, the great serpent, possibly exploring more of the 9th(it seems), non-allagan style scifi environments being more on the table, knowing Meracydia is still out there, first and 13th stuff clearly being prepped in EW.... There's a lot of cool stuff they could do.
On the topic of "showing not telling" there's a lot of Zoraal Ja's characterization that IS shown to us but not told. Of the 3 promised siblings, he is the most immature, the one who grows the least. He tries too hard to fill the giant 2-headed shoes his own fathers left him, and resents himself whenever he cannot fill them on his own. And when we meet him, that self resentment is already at boiling point. There's are clues throughout but some of the biggest ones are his insistence on doing everything alone. Even with Sareel Ja accompanying him, he insists on everything being done according to his design. I believe betraying Sareel Ja was always his intention, because of all his talk about "seizing/earning etc etc" by his own hand. He resents and pushes away his child because he hasn't accomplished a legacy for himself that would live up to his own standards, and the sees too much of himself in Gulool Ja. He finally accepts his son only on his deathbed, giving him to keys to his own "kingdom", the remains of the legacy he tried to build. A huge hint as to the inner workings of his mind is his final transformed form in combat, when he takes on a body like a blessed sibling but only a stump where the head of reason should be. He always wanted to be like his own father, but instead he's a thing that should never have been possible. His own existence is essentially an impossibility, and that's a weight he's always carried with him, even after 30 years. There's a FF14 style tragic villain there if you're willing to look for the signs.
While I agree the signs are there, there should've been more different kinds of showing. What we're shown a lot of is the near end of Zoraal Ja's story. We aren't shown or told why he wants to do the things he does, why does he think the way he does, how does Sareel Ja fit into it if his involvement was necessary, etc etc. We know he has an obsession with his birth, we know he resents his dad (but we're never shown why, Gulool Ja Ja seems like a chill dad why did Zoraal Ja never consult him if ever), and we don't really know why he hates his siblings. There's just too much obfuscated that even if we have an accurate reading of why he functions the way he does from the hints given, his character still suffers because we just don't understand how he got from A to B to C to D. How does his obsession with his birth lead to thinking "Let's do world war X to let everyone understand and appreciate peace."
@@Deode-d4h And I'd like to add, tackling any of that in the patch content is too late. Zoraal Ja is dead. Players don't want hints. They want to seeeeeeeeeee what happeneeeed. At this point people are building up the story in their heads rather than whats on screen. It's really pathetic.
I don't get what Jesse is saying about the portal and the Nier portal. The portal looked like a voidgate, Sphene uses the cup not to open another portal it closes it... I don't know what he is talking about it looking the same as the orange portal from Nier.
I'm looking forward to whatever they bring in the patches and 8.0 and was great to listen to this cooking session. However, the main issue with DT for me was the moment to moment writing, rather than what we got in the grand schemes. We just standing around when Gulool Ja Ja died or Otis sacrificing himself for his queen who can't be killed, were moments that take me out of the experience. On the character side, we don't need Wuk Lamat declaring that she wants peace and loves her people again and again. I expect more from FF14. I hope they get better at it during the patch content, as if we get Meracydia or a new reflection with this writing, that will be a waste.
Enjoy the show folks! I tried time-stamping the video but there's so many micro topics that it became a bit of a mess. Jesse was a delight to chat with. Appreciate all the love & support, as always.
EDIT: Just a reminder that the purpose of this video wasn't to critique Dawntrail or it's MSQ, rather to look forwards. There's already a million and one videos out there doing a great job going into the nitty-gritty of why this expansion was viewed so poorly by many. Yes, we touch upon it, but the purpose of this chat was to offer something different.
16:18 - I call it Emet's Bucket list and I'm starting to wonder if it is also "Emet's list of things the Ascians screwed up that he needs us to fix"
And he's cagey about it because he refuses to admit that he ever made a mistake.
@@deanospimoniful He didn't make a mistake, he left several situations messed up behind him in order to troll Azem in repayment for all the frustration we evidently caused him 10,000 years ago.
Emet got all his memories back and became a troll.
He got his memories after he died
Emet's list of fun oopsies
@@katnerd-Glen Well, that or set ups for future rejoinings.. Woops.
I could listen to you two go off for hours and hours, and I hope you are able to get together and do this again in the future. Fair critiques and a shared appreciation for the new foundation. I'm stoked to see where we go from here! Invest in cork!
"I think I can hear the black mages in the background" *the sound of impending Flare*
Alright, the possibility of Azem’s other reflections being a villain is a good freaking idea.
If you think about it, that was done for a brief moment in HW with Ardbert back when he was still an enemy. Of course that's also more of a retcon since back then there was no Azem and Ardbert was just some guy from the First.
I was honestly super convinced that Golbez during the Endwalker patches was gonna be revealed as a fallen Azem lol
I feel like the biggest thing that could have helped Dawntrail is simple, make the ENTIRE Alexandria arc its own expac or patch content. They just tried to do way too much in the base expansion.
Imagine if the immediate start of 7.1 was the dome appearing. Yyasulani has an entirely different look, it's "complete," then 7.1 drops and now that area we did side quests and FATEs is gone. And then 7.1-7.3 is the end. Could've given a lot more breathing room for the team to flesh some things out. And they made all of Troia an instanced Zone, they could've done the same for Living Memory. Hardest thing to shift there is the Arcadian storyline, and maybe pushing it to 8.0 would've been the right move, but the important idea to me is make us hate what happened to Heritage Found because we had characters there we liked. Hell, maybe have a political marriage for Zoraal Ja, his mate, live in the north to try and branch the two halves together more and make her a character that we knew about, she mourns Zoraal Ja, then boom, dome happens and they reunite and have a kid, but something happened and she's not around or on his side anymore.
I like Dawntrail, but its pacing tripped over the turbo button and suffered for it. I hope they clean up some bits in the 7.x series because I want Bakool Ja Ja to earn his redemption. Being part of one fight on our side is not enough.
I may now view the biggest missed opportunity of the Dawntrail MSQ that we didn't use Azem's Crystal to call the Scions that weren't there in when the dome popped up LOL. Thanks for planting that image :D
I have been dogged in streams and other posts trying to just have a discussion that brings up these kinds of point to the point that I've just shut up and felt so dejected for my thoughts on DT. Thank you both for this collab video! ❤
I love the chemistry you two have with each other. It's a great time, glad I caught this in my recommends.
Zoraal Ja got defeated because he didn't lvl up his Culinarian job.
Moral: always do crafting while doing msq.
Lol, nice.
I think post EW did the “mentor” thing WAY better than Dawntrail. I didn’t feel like we were ever really a mentor to Wuk Lamat; we were kind of just trailing along, even the Scions barely interacted with her compared to Zero.
And then there were just so many situations where it felt like the WoL would have DONE something because the stakes were too high, or because their reflexes should have kicked in.
Instead, we might as well have not been there for 98% of the MSQ, and it really took me out of the story and detached me from my character because they were acting like a cardboard cutout rather than my WoL.
I'm not trying to write off your opinion by any means, but I've seen a lot of similar takes and I think a lot of it is recency bias, and this expac will age better than you feel about it now with the details fresh in your mind.
Cause I've seen a lot of people say stuff like "the storyline with Lyse ascending to the throne was better than Wuk Lamat's" when I've been defending Stormblood from those same folks over the story and Lyse's character growth for years and years now lol. I think some folks need time to let this one mellow a bit and come back to it
@@lethargicwizard I promise you (at the very least for me at least personally) this is not a recency issue; although I do appreciate you taking the time to say you're not trying to write me off. :)
I played the entirety of FFXIV within the last 2-3 years because I was late to the party, and I had my issues with Lyse too (very different than my issues with Wuk), but for me Zero is a much better comparator, as she was new to our party and had a lot of growing to do.
I absolutely adored the post-EW story, even though it seems like the community maybe didn't. Throughout that storyline, I felt like the WoL acted how I was expecting them to, and the whole team actually did act as a point of growth for Zero as she looked at what "friendship" could truly accomplish.
I actually LIKE Wuk Lamat as a character, a lot! I was so hopeful for her after the last pre-expansion questline! But I do think she was so mishandled, for so many reasons. To me, she was too childish, and her naivete was never given real challenges to grow from. The WoL and Scions barely gave her anything to bounce off of and grow, she already had it all figured out with the power of Peace and Papa.
And then the true glaring issue for me, the WoL just does NOT act like themselves. Why would we not step in to stop Gulool Ja Ja's death when Zoraal Ja reincarnates? Why would we not be the one to step in and immediately protect Nostalgia's twin when she's running away from Zoraal? Why would we not REACT in so many of these situations? We just stand there, nodding like a wet noodle.
I'm fine with Wuk having the growth arc and being the one to take the actions, but there needs to be a reason the WoL holds back, especially in dire situations where lives are on the line.
Edit: oh, one last note, I stayed away from all public opinion throughout the whole DT MSQ, and even mentally had so many moments where I was feeling dissatisfied but was like "I'll give it more time! I trust this team!" and at the end of all of that, I STILL walked away just feeling sad and disappointed about a large majority of the MSQ. I do NOT want to feel this way about my favorite story. :(
@@VorpalVixenEveryone's entitled to their opinion, but I will say that the WoL has a long history of standing around and watching bad things happen. Most recently, standing there and watching a certain character in EW get actually devoured. It's been a frustration point for me personally for many expansions
*_"I didn’t feel like we were ever really a mentor to Wuk Lamat"_*
And why not? People can learn simply by observing. How the WoL carries themselves, how they approach certain situations, Wuk Lamat can pick up on these things. This is an intuitive sense. Understandably, this natural sense can be dulled when we come to rely upon the internet to give us all the "right" answers.
Let's not forget the lesson taught in the Alpaca trial. In order to lead, you need to know how to do things alone. If you need help, you can rely upon those in which you lead.
*_"Why would we not step in to stop Gulool Ja Ja's death when Zoraal Ja reincarnates?"_*
They explained why.
*_"Why would we not be the one to step in and immediately protect Nostalgia's twin when she's running away from Zoraal?"_*
I would advise learning about situations where hostages are involved. Why do you think they involve negotiators? You'll come to understand that blindly reacting to a situation can make things much worse than if you had figured out how best to proceed.
@@Hawkenwhacker No need to be so pretentious. This is a pretty casual internet conversation lol, neither of our words are gospel, just opinions.
You can't be a mentor by just showing alone, and there was very little interacting. But even if you can, that's a pretty boring way to tell a mentor/mentee relationship.
Honor only goes so far for non-intervention. Gulool Ja Ja won the fight, then the opponent cheated--we are allowed to step in honor or not, and the Warrior of Light would have unless actually physically incapable.
They had already let her go, she was running across the field, and Zoraal, once again, broke the rules. WoL should have been the one to hop in and intercept, not Wuk. I wasn't talking about the situation as a whole (that was fine), I was talking about that moment specifically.
Us deflecting the blow and giving Zoraal a little shake of the head/finger in a cheeky "bad Zoraal, I could slap you down in an instant, don't try me" would have been a really much needed moment for the WoL to actually have some interaction with the plot.
I'm not really sure why I'm bothering to respond since clearly you have a very high opinion of your own intellect and I'm sure won't hear a word of this, but whatever. I'm glad you enjoyed the story. I didn't, and it's quite clear I am not in the minority, so there's obviously something wrong here when compared with the generally well received story telling of the past in FF.
42:00 Honestly, I'm a firm believer that if the writing is good and interesting, you will not feel the need to go out and slap something just to feel less bored. That's on the story/execution. Yoshi-P mentioned something similar as you in one of his recent interviews and I felt that this was actually just dodging the real issue.
I'm eating a feast with what you both are cooking up. Hopefully we see more Endy and Jesse collabs in the future
@@MeSharkk I genuinely love this podcast because it was one of the most fun cooking sessions I've seen.
Something to add about the Yok Huy getting visions from other reflections... I just did the last Pictomancer quest, and doesn't the Lala mention that her master had a vision of the Grand Cosmos and that's why he did that as a painting? You know, being something from the First JUST LIKE the Ronkan temples?
If you do the Crafting relic EW questline Grenoldt (in the first) talks about how he has dreams of another self that's a drunkard (re:Gerolt on the source)
the Knights of the Azembly are here!
Great discussion! Both of you have such nice chemistry it was really exciting to watch you two theory craft the future of the story.
The best post Dawntrail Story-Talk so far. I hope we get to see more of this instead of "top 5 things I didn't like about Dawntrail". Cheers Endy
It's nice hearing from people who actually get it.
I mean, if we go by ratio there's 70% of things that are bad versus 30% that are good in DT, so of course the content is going to reflect that. Contrast this to how 9 out of 10 videos about ShB and EW were about how awesome the story was.
The vibes of this podcast are so immaculate compared to every other Dawntrail story discussion video.
@@givemeabreak432yes, because the only people who "get it" are the ones that shower it in praise.
@@Dogan_TM did you watch the video or what? They spent the whole second half of the video criticizing it.
Endy should be happy to know that Ishikawa will be in Australia next month for PAX Aus. A good opportunity for some Meracydia research for the next expansion!
33:00 i think its more than her ARR, i think they tried to give her a loose condensed version of our entire journey.
ARR - start of journey / exploring the land and people
HW - travel to isolationist city that was once fine but made inhospitable through nature (mamook) and learn its dark past / resolve their conflict so that they can open boarders again
SB - invaded territory / looming military faction that needed the joining of forces to take down (kind of a stretch)
ShB - travel to unkown world that is eeriely geographically the same via the dome but different in some way due to calamity / take down leader of society that is superior to you
EW - entire last zone being a girl with different ideas about life wanting to end yours
Not 1:1 but very loosely the same
Oh, Jesse is going into it at 49:00
6:55 Grinding Gear Vampirism 🤪
Peak FF14 past time, watching sprouts crumble to the story.
I haven't written off a Void expansion. Imagine doing a reverse Shadowbringers where we arrive at a floating island of a zone and spread light, unlocking the full size of the zone.
I do wonder if it won't be an expansion, but a type of Ishgardian restoration effort story but with different mechanics. Maybe a kind of new field operation down the line. There's a good chance I'm wrong and it will be MSQ, instead of Void Invasion again, it will be something else, some new alien/extra dimensional corrupting force like Ultima the High Seraph that corrupts the Void to become their army in a way that takes advantage of the Void beings undying nature but juices them up with some new kind of power.
I love this discussion and you both have amazing ideas for the future of the msq.
I liked many ideas of Dawntrail... ON PAPER, yes. In the execution though, I do not. There were so many plot contrivances and illogical moments throughout the story that I only could start wrapping my head around them after I was done. The writing was just sloppy, and the dialogue/script quality experienced a huuuge drop from previous expansions. And as someone who considers the writing a large part of my enjoyment, I am worried that this continues with their current writing team. I want to be excited about all these hints about Azem, the volcano and the key, but... oof.
@@FuyuYuki92 It is a rough start no doubt. The devs may have gambled with a newer writing team and they lost the bet. Frankly, I think the true testament to whether or not we should be really concerned about the story is in the patch MSQ. I'm personally willing to wait up to 8.0 to see if Dawntrail was a fumbling first step in the new story arc, or the new status quo, in which I would be fine dropping the game for a very long time.
I’m still entirely invested in the theory that we are going to get the real Ultima as a major villain, and that they were the one that introduced auracite to the world. The High Seraph from the Ivalice raids was a summon based on the memories of that entity.
Two of my fav content creator on a two hours podcast about FF14, this is amazing
This was so entertaining and I love how it made suggestions on how things could have been handled differently!
Considering the possibility of the crystal inside the cup being an auracite, it'd make total sense for Zoraal Ja becoming obsessed with power, as Ultima's auracite has the power to twist desires and make obsessions stronger, enabling their users to become Lucavi, distorting their physical form, just like he did...
That would also explain the Preservation and Sphene behavior
There is an interesting video floating about by LoreLines who theorycrafts about that. A very intriguing theory.
@@BlahMage ooh I'll check it
The execution with DT was my problem overall. It was very plot driven and seemed to severely lacking those real character moments that made ShB and EW stand out. There were some, but there were times it felt like we were being rushed from plot point to point, especially in the first half.
Overall, enjoyable with some great themes marred by some poor writing decisions, imo.
Chat was spamming the drinking emote everytime we heard meracydia 😂😂
The thing with Zoraal Ja to me is that he DIDNT change from the 30 year time skip (for him), he just changed which venue he'd apply his philosophy through (Tural at first if he became dawnservant.. Alexandria after that failed)
I agree. I didn’t see him change. Krile has an echo at the beginning about him that scared her with how dark he was.
Fully agree, he did not change one bit, he was messed up even when we first met him. But, that still does not mean they failed to even remotely let us get a glimpse as to what happened with him to become this way other then even the vaguest hint on his death bed.
the moment zoraal ja comes back from the dead with a malicious aura should have been the same moment alisae acts like alisae and decides to intervene.
tbh i love DT as a concept, its great, really. But the excecution was very clumsy and rushed.
i was really excited for the vacation aspect, the rivalry between the scions and not having to save the world for one expansion.
Gameplay side of things was amazing though, those bosses, holy shit.
That was one of those scenes where we should only have found out what happened due to the Echo, like us not being there and finding the Dawnservant there, breathing out his last just as we and Wuk enter the place.
the one thing about this expansion is that in Shadowbringers they did all the world building but still it felt paced right. We learned about the world, while dealing with a story. Comparing this to ARR makes sense, but they've done the world building so much better since then. Why did this one have to regress all the way back to ARR when ShB did it better? Granted we had states way more, but the point stands. You can weave a story and world building together without it feeling like a slog. All the elements were great for everything, but it was not placed or paced well. That's my frustration. In concept I liked it all. In reality, it was rough on me.
The world building in ShB was “edgy” flavored. The first was a desolate wasteland of people huddling together to avoid being picked by sin-eaters one by one. That’s a massively different experience from world building in a place where nothing is wrong (and can’t be massively wrong because it is a new beginning). For most people the love for ShB world building comes from it being wrapped in “edgy end of the world” flavor.
I disagree with the other responder that it’s about the edginess of the setting and I think Jesse touches on my own feelings a little bit. We get told all this cool stuff about Tural and the dreaming giants and all the cool stuff that happened to Gulool Ja Ja etc and not *shown.* In shb we are shown everything. The cave paintings in Rak’Tika, the sin eaters, Ahm Areng, Ranjiit and Vauthry are present from the beginning as is Emet. Hell, even when we’re told it’s freaking Emet Selch narrating it, not random Labyrinthos side character bunny with an Icelandic accent for no reason
Fantasy Texas was my favorite zone, but there wasn't enough of it.
It was nice to listen to a measured discussion about DT MSQ. There were so many problems with it but a lot of good stuff in there as well. I think the hardest part for me was that my WoL felt so inconsequential. I enjoyed being an older sibling to Wuk in the first half but from mid point on the WoL and Scions should have taken center stage. It really made me empathize with what it must have been like for Ardbert to just sit there as a ghost. I am excited for what comes next though because Azem's mcguffin chalice could lead us anywhere. Please lord and savior yoshiP, let me go back to the 13th to hang out with goth gf.
I finally finished through the video. Both of you did an amazing job and it was really fun listening to you. Hope you do something like this again.
I remember going through the level 97 quest and wishing we would meet one of our reflections who would then turn out to be evil. Funny that Jesse's idea went into a similar direction. I was a little bit disappointed we didn't get more of that in dawntrail. Our existence wasn't acknowledged at all. I would have been happy with just a little bit more, you know.
I appreciated you pointing out the stories flaws but still diving into its future potential. Helped me getting my mind off of the disappointing parts a bit even though I still remain worried about the future writing quality.
Now I want to order the Encyclopaedia Eorzea.
1:00:00 I think Ultima was sundered along with worlds, Zodiark, etc. Ultima wants to be whole again and is now destroying reflections themselves. Just a theory....Super theory here though: I think the 9th and the 11th are the messed-up ones, and eleventh was messed up by Earth element, and the eleventh will be the reflection where we do the raids for this expansion.
It's weird cause I liked the EW patch content alot despite never playing FF4 and I hated Dawntrail while having played FF9. Yet both campaigns are stories where you aren't the main character.
Truly a lot of the Wuk Lamat criticism could have been avoided if she wasn't written so annoying.
I watched this live on Twitch. Absolutely loved the discussion. As to what I hope the improvements are for the next expansion and patches. It's the dialogue writing, which is considerably worse than ShB/EW, and character prioritization. Give everyone proper time & role or rather don't include them, if you're just gonna make them leave as soon as they appear. Otherwise, I really liked the Living Memory, but think it could've been executed better. Anways, I'm really excited for the future and I hope Ishikawa will be there to offer them more guidance going forward.
@@PetarBladeStrok Honestly, if I had to make my big changes to the MSQ it would be to add like 2-3 new characters. Two of them would be Wuk Lamat's friends, one is a healer/mage an apprentice court mage or something like that, the other a DPS/Tank in the Landsguard. The idea is that the two of these new characters would give us more insight to what Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja is like. The Landsguard character would be a kinda Jullus type character, but instead of learning their head commander was bad (like Jullus learned of Zenos), they would actually join Wuk Lamat's entourage because they KNOW that Zoraal Ja was bad news. The court mage would give us more insight to whatever insidious things Sareel Ja has been up to, maybe learn that he was the one that orchestrated the whole attempted assassination of young Wuk Lamat. Also, so that Wuk Lamat actually has friends that isn't just Koana and Erenville. The third new character would join as part of Koana's entourage be his aid for the most part.
Gameplay wise, it would give us new characters to play with while also allowing us to avoid those awkward Scion moments where 'they somehow managed to join us even though it's really odd that they did.'
I feel like this would avoid the weird clunkiness the Scions' played because the devs would be forced to actually utilize them and build them up correctly. Also so we spread out the whole "Speak to Wuk Lamat" quest objective to the others as well.
1:21:40 You can also flip it upside down and it kinda looks like the crown, even with the little diamond on the bottom.
Estinien: SAME FEELS BRO, best part of DT
Just to piggyback off of the ronkan connection around 1:23:00. Speaking of the Yok Huy connection, what is the armor set we get from Skydeep Cenote? The Location that Yok Huy miners and delvers were digging in, only to unveil the portal to Alexandria??? A RECOLORED RONKAN SET!!!
*I'll be honest. I get Jesse's point about being the hero; doesn't change the fact that I didn't feel like the hero. I felt like a cardboard cutout of the WoL Wuk Lamat carried around with herself. My WoL was ARR Minfilia but with less to do, less agency, less opinions and less screentime.*
To put it short: Good ideas and intentions are worth nothing if you can't execute them - in this case - at all. To sell the inspiring hero more is needed than nods and fistpumps and that's if the WoL did even that much. DT could have happend without us and I wish it had.
PS: I apologize that I only made it to the 40min mark, but that was my limit to be bothered to listen to anything DT, despite you two being really fun to listen to. Like everything pre DT is sweet sweet "nectar" to a vampire like me, anything DT is like if someone took a gigantic bucket full of holy water and filled it with bags of garlic. It doesn't kill me outright, but there comes a point when the suffering is just too much.
Holy crap!! I've been saying we're going to meet our reflections for ages, ever since ardbert really.
We did meet one already. Her name was Zero. ;-)
One aspect of the story I find fitting considering my role at work as of recently, mentoring someone and guiding them isn't easy, especially as you try to get them to grow and become independent. Its very easy to simply take over and do the task for them but by doing so, they can become dependent on you to fix their issues. That aspect of the story seems to follow the issues first brought up in the Dark Knight class quests where Frey finds it frustrating that people become too dependent on you to solve their problems for them. Fitting that Ishikawa wrote that class quest series.
These are my feelings as well. It needs a bit more gameplay mixed in with the cinematics. There's lots of opportunities, even if just for solo duties, as parts of the longer MSQ chains to incorporate some more gameplay.
For a couple big examples, the Galool Ja Ja vs. Zoraal Ja fight, I think that would have been better handled with a solo duty and an echo flashback. For the initial invasion of Tuliolal we arrive and have a short solo duty (instead of just the cinematic), finding Wuk Lamat and the scions and helping where we can, fight a few skirmishes with the robots, all leading up to Bakool Ja Ja saying he'll hold the line here and we should head to the palace before it's overrun, "Duty Complete" and finishes with the cinematic of us running to the palace and noticing Sphene on the way.
Then when we arrive, GJJ is already defeated and dying on the ground, Wuk Lamat yells and starts to charge at ZJ but Ketenraam stops her because he witnessed the fight and knows ZJ isn't playing fair and would kill her too. ZJ turns to say his spiel about his ambition remaining unchanged, cue the echo flashback where we get to watch the fight play out just like it does currently. After the flashback, ZJ says whatever about if Wuk is truly the successor then she must defeat him, blah blah blah and teleports away (because why do we let him just casually walk out? No.) Krile and Blue Alisaie rush over to GJJ to try and heal him, but it's too late.
Also, the train sequence, would love to have had that be a solo duty using the gun/targeting mechanics from Gold Saucer.
And even smaller moments throughout the MSQ, like there's several times we're going out to collect something and we're told how dangerous the area is or how perfect it is for an ambush and to be on our guard... and then just... nothing. Everything went perfectly fine.
Overall I enjoyed Dawntrail but there's definitely room for improvement going forward. It's not the "worst thing ever", but it's definitely not the best expansion, either. Hopefully they are able to take some of the constructive criticism and implement some improvements. I know the voices screaming the loudest right now are just pure knee-jerk reactionary and negativity, so I greatly appreciate discussions like this that are more measured and constructive.
Honestly, if the devs really wanted to home in on the whole "The Scions and WoL are Wuk Lamat's mentor" we could've had two different solo duties where Alisae first spars with Wuk Lamat, then later on us the WoL spars Wuk Lamat. It would've actually been cool to show us building her confidence and all that by sparring her.
I too am on the camp of "The MSQ wasn't the best, but it wasn't the absolute worst as well."
55:57 The cup is made of electrope in order to harness the power of the crystal that is inside
The milalas only had the crystal when they traveled from source to Alexandria/9th shard
I want the president of the Arcadeon to be a Senator Armstrong like character and the reason Metem and Wicked Thunder are too scared to confront him, is because he is just so strong he could kill them all by himself
58:23, let's not forget that Azem instructed Themis/Elidibus to wait for WoL's arrival
This was great, thank you!
I just want to say, after I finished DT, all I wanted was a discussion like this. Instead, I see just people hating on the game non-stop, not thinking about the possibilities and the new lore we got which could be used in the future. Is DT flawed? Sure! It's riddled with pacing issues and missed opportunities. But there is also so much that was established to look forward to. And when we actually got to play the game mannnn were those dungeons and trials fun and challenging in a good way! Thanks for this discussion. Love it. Want to see more of it rather than another video complaining. I had fun for what its worth despite issues I had with parts of it (which mirror yours!)
Ngl the story had me checked out so badly that I don't care at all where the story goes, all I hope is for the writing and/or quest design to improve.
@@psionickender I vibe with this so hard. I get that there are major issues in Dawntrail's writing and execution, but man some people aren't just throwing the baby with the bath water out, they're throwing the whole darn bathroom and everything out. Yes the story has issues, the character dialogue was rather weak, and the quality did dip, but because of what they've done prior to Dawntrail, I'm willing to give them the devs some leeway and take this as a fumbling first step into the new story arc.
If the majority are genuinely upset, that is a problem that SHOULD be adressed. Never feel shame for critisizing. If we are soft like usual for critique to this game, it only gets worse.
For all of Dawntrail's issues, Dinosaur Texas/Arizona with that beautiful day theme has to be the biggest vibes in a zone ever. That's like a child's badass imagination brought to life.
my wild theory:
original Sphene was a reflection of Azem and was aetherically the only able person in that reflection to operate the dimension travel crystal. For this reason her soul/memory was preserved. It was stated that preservation was working on controlling the crystal, what better way than making a program/artifical human interface'?
Either a shard of Azem, or her crown which I think may be the one the real Sphene wore, is an Azem made artifact.
@@Eucep the crown is at least named to be Sphenes own regulator, and a regulator backups memory data. So all that happened was probably broadcast to the preservation villains.
@@sadi5713 Even if it's a regulator, could still be a modified item like the cup that was built around the key. So, that is something we hopefully find out in the patches what is going on, along with if preservation are actual villains or already gonners.
The planetariums in the volcano have three moons. I have yet to hear any streamer actually acknowledge this.
I didn't get to bring it up in this podcast, but I did mention it during my playthrough! It's certainly interesting to speculate why the 9th reflection has 3 moons. Are the extra two man-made like Dalamud? I hope we get some info in the patch quests.
@@EndyD20 I greatly appreciate this comment. It was driving me crazy that nobody seemed to have noticed!
@@EndyD20 Or, we lost our original one on the Source... or is it still out there, hidden?
@@Tucarius I vaguely remember that Jesse too noticed it during his play. Though he did fail to notice the Azem summoning circle symbolysm in the vulcano.
great talk a lot of insights
18:00 I think another of the reflections is messed up too, which is why we have the weird gravity phase of the final MSQ boss, Queen Eternal. So maybe three viable reflections.....
I understand, and i like the concept of our character being a mentor figure for somebody else
that said
It's hard to accept being on sidelines without a good reason, a metaphorical WALL for us to stop from acting
The low hanging fruit on that regard is Gulool Jaja vs. Zoraal Ja, if we had enemies to fight or a trap that incapacitated us or a LITERAL SCI FI SHIELD WALL stopping us from contributing
Imagine if we fought hordes of androids and Zoraal Ja goes down, Gulool Jaja advises us to finish the rest of the androids and tend to the wonded when....the zoraal ja revival happens every thing goes as planned and while Wuk lamat goes away as adviced by her father, she hears the scream of pain from her father and then she says "...Papa?"
This is a quick made up scenario inside my koala smooth brain and, in my opinion, way better than standing there and watching, WARRIOR OF FREAKING LIGHT STANDING THERE AND WARCHING
What disappointed me a lot about DT was about how short Krile's story arc was. And it wasn't even just about her and her parent's but the whole history of the milalafells too. I was really hoping they could've shown more about her because for me, she's more important than Erenville. Yes, I am one of those few who's not really attached to him that much. Krile has been with us since HW and she still have her own spotlight. I thought we were going to know her parents more because they had a huge role in bringin us to Living Memory. I was emotional during those short cutscene of her parents bringin her to the source.
It'd be hilarious if the people of Meracydia would be so akin to the people of Bevelle as they make the next expansion a love letter to FF X. However, an interview with Yoshi-P hinting about also the rest of Hingashi where we could take on the mantle of the next shogun is very tempting as well! So many possibilities so many things to cook in the kitchen for the next expansion for sure!
@37:22 Jesse, are you saying we're Merlin in Sword and the Stone?
It is a typical RPG trope, that gives us the antagonist that is ourselves.
Technically you could say it was Emet-Selch(Hero protecting his friends) and Elidibus(The warrior of light), but I catch your drift.
(Hexen: Beyond Heretic). Did this. It is a dark fantasy spin of OG Doom.
Towards the end of the game, if you played a fighter, you would face the fighter class.
1:01:32 this reminds me of Elidibus’ scene post Pandaemonium where he foreshadows the future of the star. PLEASE MAKE IT TRUE YOSHI P PLSSS
I wish we got a name for Azem. I understand why we don't, they've got this connection to the character that people are going to be very personal about their connection to, but I feel that Azem is currently trying to represent two very different things.
--The person of Azem, whose soul we happen to have.
--the Seat of Azem, and its role in the Convocation of Fourteen
Going forward I would love to see our exploration of inheriting the Seat of Azem. Emet-Selch gave it to us pretty much as "you're doing the job already", looking into that role and its relationship with the world, perhaps by looking at things person-Azem did and how our actions echo that, is interesting. On the other hand I don't want too much to be made of us just being a reincarnation of the person of Azem. Because I don't think there's any way to talk about that without using the word "just". In the very expansion in which our relationship to the person of Azem was established we had whole plotlines of "you are not your soul, you are the choices you make" both with Ryne and with Seto seeing our similarity to Ardbert.
Azem laying breadcrumbs so that if they're needed "the right person" can find them and use them to help? Interesting, lays the groundwork for, for example, the Speaker of the Molala being "the right person" for their crisis. Foreseeing things and doing it so that "specifically the copy of me" can use them? That doesn't work for me. It feels like it's a trivial difference but it also feels like a big one. We just got out of Hydaelin doing that sort of gambit.
I very much get where you're coming from with it being important that the WoL is their own person and not "just" a shard of Azem. Like it's super important to me that the WoL never "recovers" memories of that time (they aren't OUR memories to begin with), or that they automatically feel the same way about the same people, etc.
But I think it's very possible to execute this kind of story while still respecting that line? Fiction is full of protagonists inheriting legacies from their ancestors without those ancestors being treated as the same person as the protag.
Yeah! Let's go to Norstralia!
16:20
"Menu for the next ten years"
Nope, we visited each of them aside from two and they were basically all just one-off dungeons.
Lame.
Well, since the purpose here is to look forward...I have a theory. To use the key you must possess the Echo. That's why in ancient times the Milala leader(a spiritual leader btw) was successful opening a portal to escape the ice. She had the Echo. When they tried to do it to get away from the lightning...no one had the Echo, so they couldn't. But Sphene was successful using the key. So, I'm thinking one of the souls sitting in that nice big crown of hers possesses the Echo. Also, I believe the key was originally conceived by Azem, but in the possession of Emet-Selch so he could travel to Azem at a moment's notice for whatever reason. Since Emet-Selch escaped the sundering, perhaps the key was in his possession and also escaped the sundering (IOW...it's whole...and operational as a result). Carry on.😄
I've heard a theory where preservation could have been garland ironworks from the timeline where the 8th umbral calamity happens
I made it to nearly the endgame of HW, Stormblood was coming up, and then I lost my life. Had to sell my PC. It was a painful period. Regardless, I came back about a year ago, and found my FC had died, and a far vaster, emptier, lonelier game awaited me. The benefit was, for several months, I had not commitment, or obligations, I just got to do whatever I wanted, with no negative side here.
Very recently, I made it into a new FC, small and spunky, and I'm just playing the game at my own pace. Leveling healers, one DPS, and a lot of the crafter/gatherer classes. I'm not rushing. I just want to have fun. But I like listening to these opinions.
Im not desperate for a bigger bad, or upping the anti... I just miss the "WTF is going on?" of the patches (none of that with the contained story of Zero) and the "WTF is going on" of the Expansion X.0 ending...
It's like they've stopped ALL intrigue and mystery.
I mean, the new relic had Azem's symbol that's a "wtf is that thing" also its unknown origins and how it ended up with Ice Calamity era Lalafells in the Source. We still have Gulool Ja's unknown origins, and we still have Preservation IF they weren't completely destroyed in the past, they could be some kind of Illuminati group in the present. There's still the angle of "So we still going to let the Alexandrians eat souls or are we going to stop that." I mean, compared to say Stormblood or Shadowbringers we got more storylines to follow in Dawntrail, but they aren't as big as the ones Shadowbringers posed which was "What was the Final Days and why did it occur" and "Is Hydaelyn actually bad?"
There should be 2 conflicts: Koana vs Wuklamat (different approaches to unite people) and Zooral Ja vs Bakool Ja Ja (is being child of the ruler more improtant than being the blessed siblings). Not Wuklamat vs everyone.
I love your idea of the Azem-gers, but more specifically of the "evil" shard of Azem. The kind who have had "I'll kill your god even if I don't have to" as the tamer dialogue options throughout their story, who would have been born in a Garlean/Allag like society, used as only a weapon against enemies, who would be exactly as Zenos saw the WoL, with their benevolence eroded over years and years of a life in these circumstances.
a little anecdote from me regarding differences in story between wow and ff14:
do you remember in wows dragonflight where we fight against the forces of the magma dragon dude (forgot his name lol) and suddenly portals open everywhere and all your old friends come to aid you in the battle? i felt NOTHING at this moment because the expansions are so separated from one another that you havent seen some of the characters in some years or they played just minor parts... it did literally nothing for me and it was basically the big finale of the whole story arc...
now imagine they did something similar in ff14 (im glad they didnt because it wouldnt have made any sense restrospect, but still), where all of a sudden hien, aymeric, raubahn, edmont, the garlond bros etc etc (maybe tataru in her world-devourer form) came all flying in airships to rescue the scions from near defeat and in a combined effort you slay the big evil.
that would have been super epic because ff14's story is just thought through and most characters are important and were given time to grow in the story... a thing that wow has lost over the years, which makes me really sad...
Went into DT like this is a vacation. I just want to explore and stuff. Know some stuff is going to happen, but I didn't have any real expectations. Came out of the experience pretty happy.
I see jesse and endy really focus on sphene and her crown, if you remember sphene's crown is also a unique memory storage and we don't know the full function of it yet. However i think going forward the story is going to heavily deal with the concept of loss/reincarnation/souls. As Azem and many other of the convocation can reincarnate with what we seen of loghrif(gaia) and fandaniel, the concept of dealing with loss after we've dealt with despair because there needs to be a road to move on, and the fact are souls memories truly wiped after aetherial sea like solution 9's process that we've been painstakingly showed in minute detail, or is there memories etched onto the souls that cannot be dispelled like gaia's? what does that mean for the 13th where memories are gone even if you cannot die? These are very irl philosophical musings for thousands of years as ffxiv likes to tackle these grounded elements such as a fall of theocracy like ishgard.
ultimately if sphene's memories are etched onto the crown but the soul has been reincarnated... imagine what they could do with an actual garnet that's reincarnation of sphene, and the crown acts like a memory restoration like mitron was for gaia. I think we are about to dive into some very deeply uncomfortable but meaningful territories in terms of story writing, and don't forget elidibus mysterious ending scene.
side note living memory felt like the farplane of FFX, not the same but similar dynamic of the living being able to interact with the dead in a way, remember in side quests they said the living used to also lived with the living memories in the golden city.
I had one more thought overnight. Endy you kep calling the key an hourglass. I just don't see it personally. The outer shape very much appears to be a cup and the interior crystal looks to me like a single helix. Not only is that what it looks like to me, be the symbolism of the helix representing growth, resiliance and change seems very fitting to be connected to Azem.
I 100 percent agree that the next big bad in the story will be a reflection of Azem. Maybe the bad azem got stronger after every rejoining who knows. However once we win that fight against the other Azem it will be the end of FFXIV and the new ff mmo will be releasing in 2 years or so after.
We're the ones who've become evil Azem, did you forget the MSQ made us commit genocide?
Oh Jesse's comment of the Azem avengers... there are only three reflections left right? 3 + us equals enough for dungeons!
Everyone always claims the story is bad in Realm Reborn but I loved it. The stylistic dialog is just fun to read. I can't think of any storyline from FFXIV that I dislike.
At the beginning of this conversation, I was a little worried that this would be almost all positive on Dawntrail, and/or that they would just talk about the things that angry people on the Internet like to be mad about (Wuk Lamat's voice actor, not living up to Endwalker because of course it didn't, etc.), but ultimately, this is the most accurate conversation I've heard yet relative to my own experience. In particular, they summed up my feelings on Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja perfectly.
It feels to me like there were a bunch of things that they were more concerned about than carefully writing a story, like trying to establish rich history to a new zone, drawing parallels & connections to South American cultures, paying homage to FFIX--all good things, don't get me wrong, but whatever their priorities were, it resulted in a bunch of cool lead-ups with no payoff, and a bunch of poorly-executed plotlines.
That said, while it didn't live up to my standards from several angles, it exceeded them in others, leaving me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth, and at the end of the day I did have fun.
Hey... you think that cup is maybe just a cross section of a staff made up of 14 parts?.... :3
I been thinking for awhile on how DT should be "fix". Of course not rewritten the whole thing, the story still need to largely hit the same beat. And I came to the conclusion that Wuk Lamat's and Zoraal Ja's personality should be switched and Almost anything else can stay the same.
We still be helping Wuk to be Dawnservant, but not on her behest initially this time. Instead, Erenville will be the one to request us helping her to increase the odd of Zoraal Ja not taking the throne. The journey will be about self-discovery for Wuk to help her love herself and her nation. Erenville can also be her mouthpiece early on and increase his screen time with us.
As for Zoraal Ja. If we give him Wuk's personality then he is pretty much Sphene, invading other lands for resources and all.
I seriously doubt that they will change the formula for dungeon and trail placement as it impacts directly the ilevel of gear and character development pacing for the expansion.
I'm just remembering now, Krile is originally from the 9th Reflection. So who is Source Krile? Have we met them? Do they exist? I feel like if Krile were to merge with her Source counterpart, the Source version might take precedent and we would lose the Krile we know. The only thing I can think of is that Source Krile died sometime in the 20 years that our Krile has been on the Source, and instead of reincarnating, Source Krile was just slowly over time pulled in by the Krile we know, and they merged unknowingly where the living person took precedent and became the primary personality.
To poke a hole in this idea: The Milala came from the Source, as such despite having been born on the reflection, Krile still most likely has a Source soul. It is as of yet unclear if there were any Lala type folk on that reflection before the Milala came there. Similarly, I do not recall seeing any Au'ra and Rougadyn there either.
@@Eucep Ohhh, I appreciate this actually. I did forget that the Milala's were from the Source. The only question about Krile's origins is if another Lala counterpart in the 9th exists, if they intermingled with the Lalafells of the Source, and if that somehow affects the soul density of the intermingled children born, and ultimately if Krile was affected by this if at all. But for now it is safe to assume as you said, Krile was born on the 9th, but more than likely has her Source soul density.
@@Eucep Wait, wouldn't Krile still be a few rejoinings short then? The Milala's we know hail from the Source Lalafells from the Ice Calamity, which was like 4th or 5th Calamity. Even if Krile was born from them, wouldn't she still be missing like 2-3 rejoinings?
@@Deode-d4h That would be assuming that those fragments, if they even happened for everyone, would only be able to go to the source and not directly to the 'core' if I may call it that way. The souls of those on the Source are denser because it is just that, the Source which gets mirrored in the reflections, they are not denser because of rejoinings, at least nothing directly states that as far as I know. Not every soul is a shard of an ancient.
So it is even possible that Krile has no reflection counterparts if her soul is not a shard of an ancient. Though I think with Krile it is more likely then several other scions.
Jesse I know you really like the Ardbert comparison but we were nothing like Ardbert in this expansion. Ardbert thought he was saving the world, but wasn't. As a consequence he was never able to truly help anyone again. It tore him apart inside. When he had to sit there watching someone die he almost gave up forever. The Warrior of Light in Dawntrail actively chose to never help. Kidnappings, killings, mass murders, we just stood around and let it all happen because god forbid the spotlight is taken off Wuk Lamat for 30 seconds. Ardbert would see Dawntrail's Warrior of Light as the worst possible kind of villain - someone with the power to fix injustice but no will to do so. Dawntrail was not just a fumble, it was a cruel rebuke of every ounce of character development we've undergone since A Realm Reborn.
I disagree :) Love ya.
The WoL has gone through just as much silent suffering as Ardbert has, if not more. Especially if you've done Eureka. "The WoL ends all suffering and conflict by winking at the camera" would have been a much more terrible version of Dawntrail. We walked so that Wuk Lamat could run. These are the messages and lessons of light and hope that have been with the FF franchise since the 80s, "I fix everything with a stern gaze" just completely misses the mark.
Ardbert wanted to help but couldn't, because he was INTANGIBLE. so his watching is actually suffering for him. We, ARE REAL AND STRONG. So for us to be hanging around not doing anything does not. Make. Any. Sense.
@@MagiRa-r4m I quit ARR twice before sticking with it on the third go around. Both times, I quit at the part of the MSQ where we are forced to deal with the Copperbell Mines Giants in a very unpalatable way. Nothing like that happened to me in DT's MSQ, however, and I would rather replay it despite repetition fatigue than to go through ARR again.
@@desdenova1 Yes... and? It's morally grotesque, but done in a time when beast tribes were considered the enemy. What does that have to do with DT? DT's problem is nonsensical writing and poor minute to minute dialogue. If you like how it was written, there's really nothing I can do to convince you why many people find how the story was written borderline eye-gouging at times. There was no tangible reason for us to just be sitting around and let big dad die, there was no good explanation on why Zoraal Ja wanted war so badly especially as a kid born in PEACETIME, Bakool Ja Ja being so easily forgiven after what Fordola had to go through was almost insulting, why did Gulool Ja Ja do nothing about the two-head Mamool Ja experimental program? Whats the deal with Sareel Ja? The hell is Ketenramn still doing being around? This isn't even touching about the problems with Wuk Lamat. If people say, oh the patch content will tackle that! ITS TOO LATE. The problem's have ALL BEEN RESOLVED ALREADY.
Loved the overall story, but there are glaring flaws in how it's told which feel terribly out of place with what we had before. It felt in some spots like they changed up things last minute. In particular the story we got with Bakool Ja Ja was like, something here does not feel like it fits. And Zoraal Ja felt even worse. Sphene however I fully understood and worked for me.
im so glad I wasn't the only one who thought sareel ja was gonna be manipulating zoraal ja....rip in pieces dude you were the cooler villain
in regards to patches being "too predictable" or "too formulaic", i don't find knowing that a certain type of content is coming, detracts from it. I see it the same way as watching a hero's journey film, yea i know there are certain scenario's that'll be ticked, such as betrayal, defeat, etc, but for me the fun is the "how" they hit those check boxes.
Honestly, I prefer the predictably these days. I'm old without much time to play, so I like to know what I'm getting into. 😅
But what if our other reflections have already joined together?
31:54 see I get that there are probably SOME people that expected that but I think it's disingenuous to anchor an argument that "people" as a collective expected that. I believe the grand majority of people who are invested in 14's story expected the stakes (and even wanted it, myself included) to be very very low as this is the start of a new journey. People's problems with the MSQ structure, pacing, storytelling, and lore implications go well beyond "well just don't expect a world ending threat everytime". Even with the Zero patch quests I don't think you can argue people didn't like it because the stakes were low. Stakes can be low and still provide an engaging story, they are not mutually exclusive
I think there's a misunderstanding about Wuk Lamatt in S9, the reason why she's always friendly with Sphene isn't because she trusts her, in fact she says as much, but it's a way to not show her hand yet, aka the alliance with Thavnair thanks to Koana's deals. In a way Wuk Lamatt in heritage found is showing her growth compared to her early scenes in the story where her eagerness to divulge informations got her in alot of troubles. We can agree that it's not well divulged though
I'm glad I only watched the launched trailer once at launch and forgot what was in it by the time the expansion came out. I feel it left more suprised for the moment in game. For the next expansion I totally intend to skip the launch trailer completely. I might even try to avoid zone screenshots and the other stuff as well to try and go into it as blind as possible.
It's nice hearing a conversation about Dawntrail that isn't so negatively tinted. Really appreciate this, because I had a grand old time and I'm honestly lookin' forward to a new game plus run of Dawntrail to pick apart more details.
Azemger Reporting for duty!
Love you guys!!!!!
YOU NEVER EAT THE TACOS!!!!!
I've largely tuned out of FFXIV content creation the last month because it's just exhausting, but this was a great talk. Hope y'all get a chance to do it again!
Bruh, ardbert giving you his strength, is the first time one of azems power has returned to you, him being in all the custscenes is a reflection of you in those situations 😮😮😮😮
I was not a fan of the story overall (I think the high level was good, the details didn't get filled in well), but at the end I was super excited with where it could go due to the various threads that had been left. Between the relic, the great serpent, possibly exploring more of the 9th(it seems), non-allagan style scifi environments being more on the table, knowing Meracydia is still out there, first and 13th stuff clearly being prepped in EW.... There's a lot of cool stuff they could do.
On the topic of "showing not telling" there's a lot of Zoraal Ja's characterization that IS shown to us but not told. Of the 3 promised siblings, he is the most immature, the one who grows the least. He tries too hard to fill the giant 2-headed shoes his own fathers left him, and resents himself whenever he cannot fill them on his own. And when we meet him, that self resentment is already at boiling point.
There's are clues throughout but some of the biggest ones are his insistence on doing everything alone. Even with Sareel Ja accompanying him, he insists on everything being done according to his design. I believe betraying Sareel Ja was always his intention, because of all his talk about "seizing/earning etc etc" by his own hand.
He resents and pushes away his child because he hasn't accomplished a legacy for himself that would live up to his own standards, and the sees too much of himself in Gulool Ja. He finally accepts his son only on his deathbed, giving him to keys to his own "kingdom", the remains of the legacy he tried to build.
A huge hint as to the inner workings of his mind is his final transformed form in combat, when he takes on a body like a blessed sibling but only a stump where the head of reason should be. He always wanted to be like his own father, but instead he's a thing that should never have been possible. His own existence is essentially an impossibility, and that's a weight he's always carried with him, even after 30 years.
There's a FF14 style tragic villain there if you're willing to look for the signs.
While I agree the signs are there, there should've been more different kinds of showing. What we're shown a lot of is the near end of Zoraal Ja's story. We aren't shown or told why he wants to do the things he does, why does he think the way he does, how does Sareel Ja fit into it if his involvement was necessary, etc etc. We know he has an obsession with his birth, we know he resents his dad (but we're never shown why, Gulool Ja Ja seems like a chill dad why did Zoraal Ja never consult him if ever), and we don't really know why he hates his siblings. There's just too much obfuscated that even if we have an accurate reading of why he functions the way he does from the hints given, his character still suffers because we just don't understand how he got from A to B to C to D. How does his obsession with his birth lead to thinking "Let's do world war X to let everyone understand and appreciate peace."
@@Deode-d4h And I'd like to add, tackling any of that in the patch content is too late. Zoraal Ja is dead. Players don't want hints. They want to seeeeeeeeeee what happeneeeed. At this point people are building up the story in their heads rather than whats on screen. It's really pathetic.
I don't get what Jesse is saying about the portal and the Nier portal.
The portal looked like a voidgate, Sphene uses the cup not to open another portal it closes it... I don't know what he is talking about it looking the same as the orange portal from Nier.
I'm looking forward to whatever they bring in the patches and 8.0 and was great to listen to this cooking session.
However, the main issue with DT for me was the moment to moment writing, rather than what we got in the grand schemes. We just standing around when Gulool Ja Ja died or Otis sacrificing himself for his queen who can't be killed, were moments that take me out of the experience. On the character side, we don't need Wuk Lamat declaring that she wants peace and loves her people again and again. I expect more from FF14. I hope they get better at it during the patch content, as if we get Meracydia or a new reflection with this writing, that will be a waste.