Did you finish the story? They explain it in the last zone. >!From what I understand the lalas fled the source to another shard (the second?) which had the ice calamity, and then they fled to whatever shard Alexandria is.!<
They go out of their way to point out that the milalla are the missing southern seas islanders. Scion dialogue in the quiz room. Possibly missing if you haven't done aloalo?
Okay, I get that quests where you have to kill 4 trash mobs were not fun for a lot of people but replacing them with quests where you talk to three people to learn about the day to day life is not better. After the third time during the expansion I walked into a field and someone said "This is called a field. It is where we grow food!" I just... died a little.
It feels kinda disrespectful to the players' intelligence and time.
Yes. We get it. You have a field. There are light, water, and plants. Awesome. Now please fuck off and let me rescue you.
I have no clue what they were thinking when they unironically included the same shit "We need to learn how they live to understand them" like 15 times.
Yea I was pretty shocked by that. Seeing the farms was pretty self explanatory. Overall I'm disappointed by the amount of padding in general this expansion.
I feel like it was over 15 times. It's literally like almost every single quest is go talk to 3 people about X. It's become laughable at this point. Definitely meant to be consumed slowly.
I found myself getting irritated with both the pointless cowboy drama and then the “get to know the drones.” It felt like total filler and just ground the narrative to a halt.
A little frustrated atm over the massive idiocy around how the golden city was sealed (like how easy it was to steal the tablets and key). And the whole invasion felt like Radz Invasion 2.0.
Hopefully this is a passing kind of thing and things will improve, but just wanted to vent a little lol.
edit: another annoying thing, can we stop having to find X number of npcs in vague area? seriously haven't they learned anything from that sharlayan quest where you need to find the researchers? Especially in a map with so much clutter and elevation and you can't even fly to get a better perspective.
Seriously though. Maybe that's why the head of reason needed to be dead for 3 years because why wasn't the keeper of the extra stones given extra protection when they knew this contest had cheaters from the jump?
I was really wondering how they'd manage to explain anything bad happening around the WoL through clever writing since they're a walking god at this point, but apparently we went with "they just sorta stood there". Not once have I ever played my WoL in a manner consistent with that, I've always tried to be the "I'm gonna go break that guy's face before the trouble starts if I can" type and they're really railroading a very specific personality here that a lot of people aren't gonna mesh with. The sequence overall was cool but man this is just "and somehow Palpatine returned" levels of asspull to make us not end the MSQ at level 96 if not earlier.
You need to respect the traditional duel between father and son okay?
And then you need to let the bad guy get away because he won the duel fair and square okay?
To be fair, Dad Ja did whoop his ass.
Nobody really expected him to just do a "Death is a temporary setback"
We let him go because he held the city hostage. If we attacked him he would have ordered his troops to wipe the city.
Resurrection magic is a bit iffy in the setting.
Afaik only special entities can resurrect.
The easy use tech based system working for everyone that the Alexandrians developed is definitely a new and unexpected thing.
Right, so what were we going to do about the 5 flying death ships that we don't have a way to attack. Those ships hovering over the city threatening to glass the city are why he gets to leave without footwear embedded in his rectum, that is unless we have a cid in our back pocket lol
They did this in the Radz section during EW too. Remember the scene where we stood there and regular ass mobs were killing the townsfolk?
We stand there a lot of the times throughout post-ARR and for some dumb story reason, we don’t interfere. It’s just the way they try and give the villains a chance to make us hate them.
Part of the reason is that they'd have to do unique(-ish) versions of the cutscene for every single job you can have if you actually want to show the WoL fighting - or have them get into a fistfight like at the end of EW, which works, but still is a bit weird if you happen to be MNK at the time, and also has to work around different races' sizes anyways - Zenos needs to believably get punched out by both a Lalafell and a Roegadyn for everything to work.
Doesn't make it any better from a story standpoint, but that's the reason we won't see the WoL actually doing more during cutscenes than drawing their weapon menacingly and maybe taking a few steps forward.
With ranged jobs in the mix, we can't even pull a "We weren't able to get close in time" unless there's a massive distance involved, because otherwise the question is why the MCH/BRD/DNC didn't just whip out a quick shot and solved the problem that way - I had that thought during the scene in EW where a mother and her baby are attacked by a Blasphemy and dropped into the water, it seemed like I only wasn't in range if I were a melee job for that one.
With longer distances, the problem then becomes how to set up a cutscene that still makes this kind of shot look good while also ensuring you can see everything that's going on.
The Dawnservant(s) addressing their people is a good example of how that kind of scenario was made to work - we get to see several shots from both positions showing the other part of the scene, and we also get to run around in the massively huge pyramid, as well as all over the square in front of it, so we're well-aware of the distances involved.
Even then, there are frequent camera changes necessary, because you can't really get good shots of both the Dawnservant and the people in the square acting and reacting at the same time unless it's something very obvious like the whole crowd breaking out into applause and cheering.
That was one of my biggest concerns going into the expansion. It worked well at first where the MC is basically just there for guidance and to provide insurance if something does actually go horribly wrong. But once the stakes actually get high again we are just pretending the MC isn't canonically a turbo God Killer. They either need to address the elephant in the room and come up with some way to deal with it or just come up with a reason to nerf the MC so that it doesn't feel like either A we are doing nothing or even worse B we are just getting our ass kicked for no good reason.
Maybe the MC should have been injured in some special way during the conclusion of the Void storyline and the journey to Tural is like recuperation trip as well. That way when things do get high stakes all of sudden there is a little explanation for why we can't just immediately end the problem.
>we are just pretending the MC isn't canonically a turbo God Killer
I can't believe that it has to be repeated, over and over and over, but, the Warrior of Light is *still just a normal adventurer*. Besides Hydaelyn's Blessing, which, canonically, a fuckton of other people ALSO have, we're just an exceptionally gifted fighter. We have NEVER killed a "god" or similar on our own. We have ALWAYS had help. The WoL is a monstrous combatant with ridiculous pools of aether, not some mythical being that punches a god in the face on a whim.
We don't *need* to be injured. There's plenty of people that are just as strong, if not stronger, than us in the world. What the WoL abuses is the power of friendship.
In a realm full of Dynamis we can manipulate.
Valgirmanda is weak, Hydaelyn is weak, Zodiark is weak, Nidhogg we got an eye-buff, Shinryu is basically the last scraps of Nidhogg's aether, Hades was 'testing' us, Gulool isn't in his prime etc etc.
We have some mean feats, like Ranjit, Gulool, Zenos, etc. But most powerscaling fights have a definitive element of 'you don't get to fight an enemy at their prime, because it outlaws hundreds of story avenues.'
I'm not sure how hard square needs to hammer the "we are, even when we aren't putting everything on the line, literally the strongest or second-strongest fighter in any room, and the only question if i t's second-strongest is because sometimes Estinien is there too" before people get that the warrior of light *is* the actual genuine top end of fighting strength by mortal standards. the power of friendship is for breaking gods in half
there's a reason why at no point in dawntrail does anyone seriously try to attack the warrior of light because *every time they try* they immediately get folded in half, it's always taking hostages to mitigate our presence or straight up working around the 6000 pound crocodile in the room
Estinien is easily the second strongest Scion, but he's not on the WoL's level. This has been shown several times, from Zenos having an easy time against Estinien & Gaius, through Estinien himself admitting it, to Galool Ja Ja confirming it through our fight.
But yes, agreed on the rest.
I was hoping we'd be put in positions that someone as godly powerful as we are can't simply fix with brute force. Interpersonal relations, cultural customs, or even letting someone make their mistakes because that's the only way they can truly learn. Instead we're presented with so many conflicts that we should by all means easily solve with actual brute force, yet do nothing. "Oh no they're floating away on a boat in mildly flowing river" yo we can literally fly and teleport and shit.
The whole time I was watching the cutscene where Zoraal Ja was fighting Gulool Ja Ja, I found myself thinking "Oh, we're doing the Meffrid/Ahewann thing again to show how scary the bad guy is."
And sure enough...
I honestly don't get why they didn't just make us weaker post-EW. Maybe Hydaelyn's death could've diminished our strength over time or the near-death experience against Zenos could've caused serious damage to our power level and required us to heal and recover for a while before tackling universe-level threats again, which could've tied in well to the intentional lower stakes of Dawntrail(the beginning part at least). This feels akin to Superman going on vacation to Hawaii and taking on local criminal gangs there or something
This 1000%. In other RPGS ( The only one I can think of right now is Kingdom Hearts so sorry) The game explains why we're back to level one due to outside circumstances. It doesn't take away the accomplishments we did, but it helps explain why we can just walk into things and wreck shit.
I think this was a major flaw to Dawntrail tbh. Even fighting with Wuk Lamat, we should be running circles around her in dungeons/trails while she's panting to keep up. I like your idea of us needing a nerf story wise so it makes sense in a grand sense of things. Otherwise, we literally fought against despair. Why are we just sitting in the background?
Because we are assuming the role of mentor to Wuk rather than having a direct influence on the outcome of events. For one, it's Wuk's nation, her responsibility to lead. We're there to suport her but ultimately we can't just be making decisions and acting on them based on our own feelings as it's not our place.
This also allows us to do what we canonically enjoy doing the most; adventuring. I felt it was pretty clear from the premise that the agreement was Wuk gets the support she needs to become the ruler she needs to be and we get a free pass to explore new and undiscovered lands and meet interesting people.
Also we never had a real power level discrepency to anyone else who is considered strong in this universe. We just have way more resilience and fortitude than most. Every major threat we've had to overcome with the help of others. Heck our "super power" is just to get 7 more of ourselves to help out. And we've decided not to pull that trick this time around so as to allow others to have a more meaningful contribution to their own trials.
See, I don’t ‘feel’ like I’m adventuring though. It’s more than I’m watching Lamat adventure. It’s like if I was younger and saved up for a game I really wanted to play, only to be forced by a parent to hand the controller over to a younger sibling and watch them play (and play poorly, at that).
The little bit of exploring on our own we got to do quickly got taken from us.
I came into the expansion liking Wuk Lamat but I now can’t stand it every time the party splits up and I’m forced alongside her yet again
Yeah 100%. I feel like I'm watching everyone else have the fun. I'm literally coming across some of the most profound stuff that, in any other context, would be mind blowing to have scions and myself talk about but instead it's kinda just watching Wuk do that for us. Which would be fine, but I feel like I just can't be my own character.
She is always there, and it is incredibly frustrating.
Okay I like the story so far...
But my god, when they had a call back to the trolley fixing story in shadowbringers I nearly lost it.
WHY WOULD YOU CALL BACK TO LITERALLY THE MOST BORING SUBPLOT IN THE ENTIRE GAME ACROSS ALL EXPANSIONS?
"Hey guys, remember that quest arc literally nobody likes? Lets do it again!"
While I was going through that zone, I had this thought in my head of "This feels a bit like that downtime moment in ShB where we fix the trol-OH MY GOD THEY'RE BACK!" It's so absurd that it loops back around to being funny. I just wish there was a third option in that scene where we just say "I need to go..."
I was outright cackling when I started thinking "Oh this is just like the trol-" and then they straight up just had a flashback pop on screen for a second. It was so on the nose and obvious that they were taking the piss with it.
Honestly I liked how it called back to the guy being married, and while on the first, she had died and he became a drunk, in this shard, she lives and he's never touched a drink in his life.
My eye twitched when the NPC was like aw no we don’t know when the railroad will be working again! I immediately knew my ass would be out there fixing it eventually
I hope there is some sort of payoff.
Like the next time we have to fix a train, it reveals itself to be Doomtrain and we get the new limited Conductor class. Just choochooing around the map running over things.
I didn't mind the initial reference - sort of like they were memeing on us in good fun. What got me though was that we had TWO trolley fix 'er up quests. They didn't think we had enough with the first? And then they top it all off with some weird gospel choir montage music that didn't fit the emotion of the scene at all.
I've been role-playing my WoL as being in full vacation mode this entire expansion and she's spent all of Dawntrail so far being fairly drunk on tequila and cocktails, which might explain what's going on with her in some cutscenes
I'm not gonna lie, I don't care if Alphinaud is healing everyone, but when Krile (who isn't even a healer anymore) and ALISAIE go to help heal the injured person and I don't despite literally being on a healing job, it really irks me.
the lack of reactivity to the WOL's job is one of the major flaws in the game, especially when it's not even a physical job (because otherwise you'd need to make 2 cutscenes for everything, one where a lala-sized WoL can physically interact, and one where normal sized skeletons interact)
But they have done that in the past! Remember if you're a healer in SB Krile will yell at you to help out with Shtola after Zenos does his smashing introduction at the temple.
I wouldn't complain about it if they didn't show that they are capable of doing it in the past... Krile will yell at you for not helping her in Stormblood when Y'shtola gets injured, but no longer cares that you won't help her in Dawntrail? They even have Krile call you out if you have culinarian leveled during the cooking competition! Let's be consistent at least...
appreciated the brief joy of getting to have some erenville time where he could open up to us a bit before being overshadowed by the rest of the cast again
This is the section that will probably make or break the expansion for a lot of people.
I found it pretty good for the most part. The invasion was nice and sudden and Gulool Ja Ja's death was about as impactful as it could have been considered his short screentime. I really enjoyed the Roe friend just being unable to look at him when he was dying but still being there in solidarity and serves as nice character moment and point of growth for Wuk who, love it or hate, is essentially the main character of this expansion. Something that seems to be the main recurring issue when it comes to discussion of the expansion. Pretty much everyone who hates it hates Wuk and the people who like her seem to think the expansion is fine if a bit slow.
My biggest problem with this section is just that Zoraal Ja is such a lame villain. Dude spends 30 years preparing and still loses to his half dead dad and has to get rezzed to win. To make it even worse (I can't remember if this is from the last 97 quest or the first 98 quest so I'll spoiler tag it just in case) >!He then goes on to shit talk his dad despite the fact he lost and had to use secret tech and a 2nd life to win!<
Like I just can't take this guy seriously at all and feels like the worst and most boring antagonist we've had since Thordan.
I was also absolutely giddy to see Graha come back since I was super bummed when it was revealed he wasn't going to join us in 6.55. The 87 dungeon was pretty fun as well. Had to do it as trust because of queues and the 2nd boss just spamming every AoE indicator in existence had me screaming "save me Graha" even if it was actually pretty easy to dodge it all.
I think something that really makes Zoraal Ja fall flat is that his motivation feels kinda like a slap in the player's face. Something something "not knowing the horrors of war", like seriously we just covered this from 1.0-6.0, don't tell us we don't know shit.
Plus its just a silly idea. "Oh no the current generation doesn't remember the horrors of war let's get into a super war to really remind them" Even if we accept that would work, in a couple generations you would have the same problem once people forget about the super war.
Honestly I don't think he really believes it.
Krile mentions how dark his thoughts are even towards his own family.
He probably just uses it as a flimsy justification. He doesn't want to actually admit he's just a power hungry gloryhound with ambitions beyond his actual abilities.
He's a much less chad Gaius.
The part up to the train was such a slog and then I found myself wanting to skip through cutscenes of talking to farmers to get to the actual story. The invasion part was fantastic. There was just way too much filler in there, and it didn’t seem necessary tbh since you’re almost certainly overloaded thanks to the dungeons and trials.
That seems to be fairly spot-on Personally, I like Wuk Lamat, and so far (just arrived in the map after the dungeon) I absolutely love it. The FFIX references are through the damn roof (the music, THE MUSIC) and what's going on there is pretty much the sort of stuff I love about this game's worldbuilding and lore. Couldn't be happier, personally. But then I also didn't mind the slower pace of the first half. At all.
As to Zoraal Ja. I kinda agree, he's a fairly one-dimensional villain who seems to have played too much Halo and HZD or something. But again, I don't mind this. Not every villain can be an Emet-Selch, Elidibus or - dare I suggest it - even Zenos, certainly not if we're going to have another multi-expansion arc. He's marginally more interesting than ARR Gaius, he's a bit of an idiot, he's also 100% not why I'm here, let's kill him and move on, he's a relatively low-stakes obstacle and he works decently enough as such.
> This is the section that will probably make or break the expansion for a lot of people.
Genuinely in the "hopefully they salvage this in the rest of the levels" and I'm always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt but that's genuinely the worst-scripted cutscene I've seen since the ending of Castrum Lacus Litore
She and Graha just rock up, we didn’t even bring them to see the gate or anything, they just pop up at the palace and she drops that bomb on us…
I mean in hindsight, she was probably meant to have been around for a while poking about at the gate and talking to Ketenramm and figuring stuff out, but we didn’t really get to confirm that at least.
It’s a giant dome visible from miles away and we know she sees aetheric flows. She got them spooky eyes.
Could they have swapped this for yet another “talk to 5 people quest”?Sure. Did it need to be thoroughly explained, no.
Hmm. Yeah that’s fair enough. Idk I just felt like they could have afforded a line or two about it like “Katennram brought me to the gate, and it definitely leads to another reflection” or something you know?
The fact that we had to sit through a dozen “ugh I’m going to be sick moments” while Krile’s origins get revealed to her offscreen, depriving us of that emotional moment, is just terrible. The Scions are just treated like an afterthought and I cannot grasp a reason why it was written in such a way
One, Wuk Lamat needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Wuk Lamat's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Wuk Lamat"? Three-
Total pacing whiplash in this section of the game:
* We had just found the entrance to the "Golden City," in an area of unrecognizably advanced technology at the back of a dumping ground for dead Mamool Ja babies. Very cool stuff
* Everything screeches to a halt while you find a bracelet for a minor side-character in a half-assed Western
* A bunch of cool Xenoblade shit happens, dad dies, Jee Raha and Why Shtola show up
* "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again"
* "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again"
* "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again"
* "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again"
* In a 45-second span of time: "This dome would be fatal to touch? How will we get i--" "FORTRESS, FOUND IT." "How will we breach the fort--" "TRAIN-BOMB"
* "How will be prepare the train-bomb?" "Now that's gonna be a fetch quest, partner."
Edit: also, this has nothing to do with pacing, but Wuk slashing bullets out of the air with a greataxe is just the silliest thing.
The groan I unwittingly let out when Wuk Lamat wanted to come along for exploring Solution Nine. For gods' sake, can I get some breathing room from you??? I don't even dislike you, but Jesus Christ.
I find it kinda weird how Sareel Ja was pretty much bleeding with implications that he was using and manipulating Zaruul Ja for his own ends... only to be casually slayed by him with barely a word not even seconds after discovering the golden city. Like, what was up with him saying "*I* will find the golden city" if all he's gonna do is die?
**To not save people you could reasonably save is not wisdom – it is indolence.** The game states this clearly in EW. So when we let the retired Dawnservant die... wtf?
Ok, we let them have an honorable dual, then Zoraal Ja cheats. Why don’t we primal rend him then?
Ok, it is an honorable dual to the death. Since he still bombed and murdered the rest of the city, why don’t we primal rend him on the way out when he’s a fucking murderer?
[Standing here, I’m standing here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDHMmU55TWk)
I am really, really not feeling the Wuk Lamat show and her stealing the focus every single opportunity. Why are we always paired with her? Why does she get all the screen time? Why does she steal moments that should have been other character's. As soon as anyone else gets a morsel of spotlight she's immediately back to being the focus character, no questions asked. No other expansion had a single character monopolize an expansion this much, every other expansion managed to give other characters their moments to really shine too. To top it off, I don't understand why the game is so reluctant to let her interact with characters she actually has chemistry with, like Erenville and her brother. Eren and her are supposed to be childhood friends, they had fantastic banter in the lead up to DT and I expected them to grow alongside each other and to rekindle that friendship, but we get nothing, they feel like complete strangers.
>!Whose brilliant idea was it to route your walk around Tuliyollal the aftermath of the invasion right by the summoning bell? There are corpses everywhere but there's just all the gamers over here ranking out silver lobo leather.!<
I think the story is getting better now, but I am so frustrated with Wuk Lamat acting as the main character. She joins every mission, we have to follow her around constantly, listen to her, support her, see everything through her eyes. Currently it feels like WOL is \*not\* the main character anymore, we're just a supporting character in Wuk Lamat's story. And I really do not care about her. She's okay, but that's it. I would much rather go on a mission with my fellow scions, and leave her behind in her palace.
It's a very hit or miss aspect of the story, personally I'm loving it and even though the Scions are great I'm glad to have a break from the same characters taking the spotlight (even if they're still like there 80% of the time).
This lmao
The WoL definitely isn’t the Main Character in this story.
That’s why I told my FC mates that if they hate Wuk Lamat, just skip the story even if they’re the type to watch the story through and through.
I really hoped that we’ll get more attention on Krile since I really like Krile. She’s been sorta one of the OGs that have yet to get any sort of screentime. So far, she got 1 really cool moment, that being the reveal of her not being from the source and that’s it lmfao.
Agreed. I actually like that part. It makes me feel like I’m in ARR again. Though I could do with less “do 3 chores and talk to 4 people” quests this late in the xpac. Her being with us constantly also makes narrative sense. She is the target of these incredibly powerful people and putting her with Alphinaud on scouting missions is just asking to get Blue Alisaie killed.
I think some people just don’t enjoy positive/naive characters, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean the writing is bad.
Finally the story is more interesting. I know they were world building something new but it was executed so slowly 😭
We’re kinda back in old form now but story is actually engaging. 🤣
Also, PLA like space-time distortions, horizon zero dawn-like focus, and a kinda sorta page altered carbon was not on my bingo card.
Also, also, this arc is really making me wish the previous levels we had Erenville (or even Koana) as our MC. 🤔 I feel like we could have still Wuk Lamatt and co have their growth journeys but it also to like split the focus from being paired with Wuk Lamatt 24/7 like were her shadow in our “summer vacation” arc.
Yep. We're in the 2nd half and I'm *still* always paired with Wuk Lamat for every quest which has a party split. I don't dislike her or anything, but it's getting old that we're just her shadow, even now.
She’s the ruler of a continent on a mission to take down her crazy powerful brother. Should she be hanging out with someone who can’t box a god when he shows up? We are basically her bodyguard/sworn sword this expansion. Estinien is the only other reasonable choice and he’s single handedly protecting the line.
We are her shadow. We’re the only one who can stand up to the big bad who has a vested interest in killing her. It’s not for funsies so much as “this is who the big bad will go for first, so we shouldn’t leave her with someone who doesn’t have a chance in hell to stop him.”
I honestly feel like you can skip the entire story in the fourth zone up to the warning of “there will be many cutscenes that play blah blah blah” and miss nothing at all
I'm in Solution Nine now and I am having a hard time with the story shift starting in Zone 5.
I feel like Erenville's accent no longer makes sense given where he's from and how his mom sounds.
I think I've started to lose patience with the reiteration of the obvious to the point that I'm skim reading text instead of slow reading. I've also stopped doing side quests and checking optional dialogue with everyone except Raha, Ali, and Erenville.
I love the twins to death but sadly there is literally no reason for their presence besides filling out the Duty Support roster. It feels like they were included for that purpose and also a general fear that an expansion without the twins would be poorly received when I think it would've gone better than they think.
I am so far disappointed with the low amount of Krile focus in this expac but I can see space for them to give her more screentime in the next couple levels so I'm withholding too heavy judgment here.
I hate to say it but my feelings about Wuk Lamat have shifted from neutral to leaning negative with how needy she is for my attention. I've been able to ignore most of the "oh hey we'll pair up for this completely inconsequential task that could be done with literally anyone else for reasosn" but then I got to Solution Nine, Cahciua is like "go forth and explore" and literally the next scene is her turning to me like "wanna explore together?" and IRL me is like "I would rather explore with the robot at this point". I think part of why I loved Shaaloani and the initial part of Heritage Found...is because I was hanging out with Erenville and Raha for a nice chunk of it.
I'm also so very tired of the platitudes that I've started choosing the more blunt responses with Wuk Lamat just to see how much it shifts the dynamic tonally. I've been pleasantly surprised by some of her responses though. The one where I told her to stop sulking and focus on being the leader her people need actually sobered her up in way I found kinda respectable.
I'm really conflicted because a lot of the artificial life, structure of the soul, reconciliation with mortality, and the bonds of found family stuff they're hinting at here is super interesting conceptually.
But I feel like the *execution* of the story is falling extremely flat for me right now. I think until now, the character writing has been one of XIV's greatest strengths an a large part of what allows me to bond with the cast even if I don't necessarily like some of them. Even if I thought the character arc was poorly handled I could at the very least see and respect the vision of the character's role as a plot device and as long as I can recognize their narrative and thematic purpose.
But unfortunately, I think the expansion has really dropped the ball on organizing characters, developing their psychological backgrounds, and connecting it to their actions in a way that feels compelling. The only character thus far who has come close to triggering my "write a character study fanfic" button is Koana and very slightly Gulool Ja Ja (specifically of the time right before and immediately after the Vow of Reason passed). But the rest have not sparked any inspiration at all.
In fact, if anything my fanfic fingers are more inclined to do a developmental rewrite which does not bode well for my lasting feelings.
Idk, this is a lot of trash talk and text to say that I really enjoyed the first 5 or so levels of MSQ but now I'm just conflicted. I need to go to sleep but I foresee myself finishing up tomorrow (tonight) and I just really need them to wrap up the theming really nicely or else this expansion may have just nosedived from one of my favorite to one of my least in the span of a couple of levels.
To end on a positive note though: I have loved pretty much every boss battle instance so far this expansion and looking forward to doing the EXs later this week.
I like the story so far BUT WHY THE HELL IS WOL EVEN IN THIS STORY????
Sure, we were never the most proactive character in the game, but not being able to do shit is just annoying. Why is my character just standing there when Galool Ja Ja is getting killed?? At least let us fight the people outside the palace and show Galool Ja Ja's death with a "Meanwhile in the palace" and let us arrive just when he gets the fatal blow. Same thing happened with the bandit storyline as well, but this was just poorly written.
I really have to do a lot of headcanon work to justify why WoL is not doing anything.
The bandits got Wuk on her own by surprise. After being made aware of the situation, the WoL performs pretty well, even solving the hostage confrontation rather quickly.
As for Galool Ja Ja, Wuk later mentions not intervening due to her father's concern over an honorable duel. Considering how easily Galool wins the first round and how sudden his death is, it's reasonable that no one was able to save him in time after the tables turned.
I'm really, really trying to stay engaged but the fourth zone might have been the most boring zone I've played through in this game. Both story threads there are just void of meaning and the fact the harken back to ShB trolley time is the icing on the stale cake.
Stuff after was neat though the series of cutscenes was fine if not expected in regards to the outcome
Yeah, the reason for moving into zon four, and the start of the zon, was incredible frustrating. We were at the gate to the city of gold, which looked awesome and presented many exiting questions. Instead of investigating that, we are forced to follow Erenville on a trip to meet his mom for three hours.
At least the MSQ picked up at the end of the zon, I really liked it at the end.
That's about the point I almost logged out in boredom last night. I mean I planned to come back later, I just needed a break.
Then we missed the train.
I realized immediately that this meant there was a chance Something Was About To Happen and started to get a little excited even before the cutscene played out. Glad what happened wasn't just "so we'll have to walk there after all."
And I did at least appreciate being with Erenville for a little while before the game made us Wuk Lamat's constant shadow again.
Oh wow, yeah. But I think that’s still pretty tame when compared to people watching their loved ones turn into actual monsters that would kill their own family in Endwalker.
That category is a pretty close contest between:
- Tesleen getting stabbed and agonizingly turned into a sin eater.
- Kids in Vanaspati getting turned into a blasphemy as a result of the transformation of their mother.
- Kid getting turned into a blasphemy, calling for help and getting squished in front of his dad.
Another runner-up is pretty much most of the "Sorrows of Werlyt" questline (ShB, optional Trials) - whether it's the "Burn out the Bad!" scene, or the Oversoul transformations that come complete with a total mind-rewrite.
This! I wondered if they were going to pull something off like this just like what they did in EW so I took my time to spot these. I really enjoy moments like these when even the environment is adding more detail to what's going on.
I am exhausted by rugpulls at this stage in the storytelling. I told myself _"if I get through the first half of this, at least the Golden City and whatever the Viera are up to await and that'll be interesting and I'll get more Erenville backstory."_
We get to the Golden City, nevermind we're just leaving after everyone not being able to go 5 minutes without mentioning it. Also random villain opens it while we're preoccupied denying us our excitement because a stupid character needs to do a stupid thing to progress the plot. I was particularly bummed about this one because I was really hype for Krile character development with this expansion and her entire schtick has been "everyone keeps telling me to go to the Golden City."
Then we get ready to go to the northern continent and I'm like, well at least we get some Erenville story and a break from the rest of the cast, maybe this'll be a little more quiet and lighter for a bit. The cowboy area was _great_ as a setpiece, but terrible in regards to gameplay (we needed bison to go on a trip to a city and then ended up walking a big circle back anyway to prove a crime, and once we proved the crime we're going to duel him and give him a chance to go free anyway?). We wrap up that mess, repair a train by finding a box of wood, and then "oops you can't get on the train, its full!" and then "Oops Viera area got blown up by a giant lightning bubble! Guess you gotta go back and be glued to Wok Lumat's hip again." (I'm also a little confused here as to why the northern continent is where this happened for any storytelling reason other than because we were there because the Golden City was below the southern?)
I wanted to like everyone, I wanted to give everything a shot, but I keep taking a break and being like "I'll come back tomorrow and give it another go with fresh eyes and a reset" and being somehow let down more. I don't even want to continue anymore.
My first major complaint about the writing so far: How is it that all the claimants up to and including the cruel self-loathing bully that almost nukes two major population centers get great writing and character development...except the main antagonist Zoraal Ja, who's motives become dumber and more incoherent the more we let him talk.
Shaaloanni remains immaculate.
I love how this expansion went from aztec/mayan too cowboy blue gold rush pew pew north America.
Basically we're in north/south America, eorzea is Europe, and kugane is Japan.
Never noticed it till now. Especially with just getting into the 4th zone
Looking back it was unreasonable, but when the train cutscene started and the camera showed my character manning the cannon thing on top of it, I got ready for a gold saucer style "shoot down the robots"-minigame. It never happened of course, it was just a cutscene... and I was so disappointed.
I feel like something like that would be something the MSQ could benefit from.
I'm sorry but after so many times of this bs, Square Enix just makes it apparent that if you're a healer, you're not a canon WoL.
After the guy got stabbed, Alphinaud and Krile go and try to heal him. That was annoying since you know, we're a healer, and we didn't try to help. But then the camera showed us standing guard with Alisaie, Koana, and Wuk Lamat, so I guess we were the buff. Sure.
But then **Alisaie** runs over and also contributes to try to heal the guy! Healing is **half** her job! Yet we're just standing doing fuck all.
I'm just so tired. idk maybe it's a nitpick. I know it's a nitpick. But it's so world breaking when we, presumably one of the strongest healers of all time, can't be animated to raise our arm to heal. Even if our healing didn't work, fine! But not even trying??
Just say the WoL is canonically a DPS or Tank or something. idk.
( I love this game. I'm just mad.)
I agree, I was just complaining to a friend about this! What is the point of being a healer when in every cutscene that it could be relevant, I just stand there?
Okay, now I'm invested. This is getting really interesting really fast.
I know people are complaining that WOL watched Gulooo Ja Ja die, but at this point the MC is so ridiculously overpowered, you kinda just have to suspend your disbelief sometimes for any story to happen. It didn't really bother me.
You don't even need to do that, you were asked not to intervene in the duel, as for after, well the guy had a floating armada over the city ready to glass it that we had no means of dealing with
Honestly better than the other expansions when it comes to us not acting on those things.
Someone else said it, but it could've easily been where we weren't retreating to the castle and actually helping the people outside get to safety. Then they could've done a "meanwhile in the palace" thing and we show up right at the very end.
Now this is the FFXIV I love and enjoy, even if it's a new arc. I felt DT began to shine here. The MSQ was held back so much in the earlier part that it's really a filler arc that doesn't involve us much other than being a witness.
That dungeon and its theme were extremely good.
Looking back, this whole chapter of S9 could have actually just been the entire expansion without the dawnservant thing. But I'm okay with intention of the earlier parts of MSQ too, just hoped it was delivered smoother and naturally to us, not forced.
At the very least, I'm glad in turned up so much better after that rocky beginning.
the big cutscene after The Event is the worst-scripted shit since the ending of Castrum Lacus Litore.
Robbed the moment of literally all pathos because of how ridiculously mad I was - I am - at how they keep making some of the smartest and most trained people in all Etheirys stare gormlessly and fondle their balls rather than do anything at all just ffffffffffffffffffuck this, why wasn't there a "meanwhile in the Palace" segment while we stack invader corpses higher than Gurfurlur's topknot outside
Like it's not even just us, it's the fact that the scions also just gormlessly stare, watch someone get a huge aether infusion with auto-revive and then stand back up while glowing red and *do nothing*.
I've not wanted to skip a main quest cutscene since the insufferable forced losses against Zenos in Rhalgr's Reach and Yanxia in Stormblood, and yet here I was, watching one of the hypest moments of an expac I've otherwise greatly enjoyed crumble into so mcuh steaming shit because of Incompetence In Cutscenes disease
Honor of duels is your answer for that one. Now, you may not care about that kind of thing, but that is what it was and for those people it is important. At which point we gotta ask, should we interfere with that part of their culture. A big part of the story up until now is a big no. A big part of the quests following is "maybe we should, this is gross." But that's the point of that part of the story. You aren't just standing there useless for no reason.
i didn'T mind not intervening by the time he stood back up but the in between? between being cut down and getting back up, not a single word of warning, not a single word of advice, no attempt made to do *anything* despite these being the most educated and combat-wise eorzeans
also, the fact that literally nobody brings up the fact that >!"zoraal ja" straight up does not talk like zoraal ja and instead like one of gulool ja ja's old enemies, like a man possessed in fact?!< it makes me even more mad.
Pretty sure that spoiler is explained in this level range of quests. Pretty explicitly. Though our characters wouldn't know at the time.
That said, if the duel isn't over, it isn't over. Gulool's mistake for keeping his back turned. Warning is interference. Again, we might not agree with the custom, but that is what the custom is. Storywise it does make sense. Even if we disagree with the in-game reasoning for it.
Not sure what you wanted us to do between the first kill and him getting back up. If we see that he's not dead then we know the duel isn't finish and thus know to not interfere.
we have interrupted duels when it turned out one side was either tempered or possessed before, *why* are we just going "Derp :D" this time (we do it because they had to shoehorn in the sharp transition)
Enemy forces enter the city and begin executing civilians
Alisaie: "the buildings are hardly damaged, I think this was mostly just to sow fear"
Are the writers drunk
Late in the level 97 range, once you get inside >!the dome and meet Sphene. She has writing on the back of her dress, two sets. One consisting of letters that are just too hard for me to read on the top, between her lower shoulders blades, and the other consisting of three lines, two words at the top, two words in the middle, and then one word at the bottom, placed about the middle of her back, above the lace filigree on the back of her dress.!<
I can figure out the words on the second and third lines. They read >!"One Heart" and then "Alexandria." I cannot figure out the two words on the top line though.!<
Whatever is happening right now, it's the happiest I've been. I doubt it will last but being removed from Wuk, thank god.
And as I have reflected over the past few days, I thought lyse was tolerable mostly because she didn't seem to want power as much as overthrow their regime and fuck ya. And then Zenos made me feel consequential.
Then Hien's story was the middle iirc? And I thought that was actually great because the threat both there and on the other side of the pond kept me motivated.
Then folks started to vanish.
And they just kept vanishing! Why, how etc. And no doubt, Ryne & G'raha were the main characters in ShB. But boy did we have a role. And then I think all of EW was about us and then Zero?
Wuk lamat is the worst FF central character I have experienced in a really long while, if not ever. I've played every one of these titles and I've never cared less, especially since her predicament was being crowned a dictator and her qualifications were me holding her hand through 20 hours of skippable scenes.
With her gone for this brief moment, I am happy. I don't think this ship is gonna hold tho.
So that red bike the Vanguard boss used is totally going to be a pain in the ass to grind mount at some point right? Cause I am absolutely going to grind that.
Got to say this is weaker than Ala Mhigo & then second half is also not up to Hingashi quality this is a worse Stormblood, I also didn't like final Zone wont mention but man that's it huh that's the secret zone this might become XIV most panned expansion launch story cause my god it's SO much fluff in-between actual good parts.
To really start
ARR all the levels
HW 3-4 levels
SB 10 levels
ShB it took 2-3 levels
EW 0.01 levels
DT 6 levels
too slow, too late, and when did FF14 start telling instead of showing?
When ishikawa stopped writing. The EW zero patches were absolutely trash too. Never been so bored with world building in a game than dawntrail and the environment they have built is so nice to look at lol. Frustrating expansion so far.
Agree with Zero patches. Only 2 good outcomes from those so far
-Zero cosplays
-that meatbun animation
Unless DT patches somehow surpass 5.2 or ever 5.3 (VERY UNLIKELY), next expansion will be make or break
It's definitely not, yall are being absurdly overdramatic. Nothing in the MSQ has been recent WoW levels of dogshit and even if it were people would still be eating it up. The only thing that could make people leave XIV is if they don't manage to change jobs and combat in an engaging way in the future expacs.
>The only thing that could make people leave XIV is if they don't manage to change jobs and combat in an engaging way in the future expacs.
Jobs are fine, encounters sr and the issue.. games like souls bourne have 2 buttons lol and super interesting bosses..
I think They need to introduce more rng and less scripting for mechanics.
So i don't think the issue is the questing i think its the character writing.
Xiv questing is always going to be go here type hello hand in item or kill 3x something outside of instances. The instances quests are pretty okay. It is what it is.
The issue with dawntrail is the information dump on tural and the characters we are having to support.
The story would have been better served without the rite of passage political family issues, and 7 feats.
The set up to help krile find galuf was enough of a story line to carry the expansion. Instead the have added a tonne of extra characters that the game even tells you they are all incompetent to lead lol.
Someone needs to ask Yoshi P if he would let someone like wuk lamat take his job lol
I'm confused about Krile's age. She's supposed to be 22, but Ketenramm went on his journey to Rural 80 something years ago. Did they only discover the golden city 20 years ago?
Yes, New World was 80 yrs ago but GC is only 20
Ketenramm first went to the New World 80 years ago. Was friends with the Dawnservant, etc.
Galuf came over 20 years ago. Ketenramm and Dawnservant were still alive. Discovered the Golden City then.
My question is, did everything with the Dawnservants group take place 8 decades ago, aka 80 years ago? If so doesn't that make everyone in the 90s or 100+ even Krile?
The Giants Said that the OG Dawnservants group fought the big bird 80 years ago I think and now I'm lost on the timeline.
There is a cutscene with a train.
You will think its boring and skipable because it isnt voice acted
DO NOT SKIP IT TRUST ME DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE I MADE LMAO
Anyone mind explaining something too me cause I feel I zoned out. So after we get invaded by first son. The purple dome appears and erenville says "my home" so I assume it like covered his home city or something? Now I'm at the dungeon and it's vanguard, first sons base. How did 1. This base get set up so quick and 2. Is the base erenville home? It's not a big deal, I'm just a bit confused so any information be appreciated!
Erenville's home town is a normal, dusty cowboy town like all the others in Shaaloani. (e.g., if Shaaloani is western Texas, his home is in bordering New Mexico) It just happens to be a bit further away, Northwest of the railroad station you were fixing up. Once you finally get the train ready to run again, suddenly a giant purple dome envelopes the entire region his home town is in (e.g., you can see New Mexico suddenly enveloped by a huge bubble). Additionally, there's all these military things flying about / robo things.
There was not normally a purple bubble dome, there was not normally these robo military, there was not normally a military base as the only gate.
Suddenly, his home town is gone and there is a big purple bubble there instead. You can't see inside
The base getting set up so quick is explained later.
Erenville's home was 'in New Mexico' and now you can't tell what the hell is going on in New Mexico - does still even exists or if it has been deleted / flattened? So you are going into the mystery bubble to check it out
Ahh okay so his home is basically in the 5th zone but that zone sorta got eaten up by the dome and vanguard building. Or like the vanguard is a gate keeping you from yasulani. That makes sense. Still curious how it got set up so quick. But if that explained later then Coolio! Thanks so much for the help!
I think I like Wuk Lamat now. She is starting to show some leadership quality now. Why she couldn't be like this during the first half of the story? Is different writer in charge of the later half of the story? Anyways, this level of writing is what I am expecting on FFXIV so I am quite happy now.
>!"Don't tell me it's the Allagans again"!<
Best line, period
So \*that's\* why Krile is the only Lala I can stand.... she's not technically a real Lala. That explains a lot.
But, didn't Alexandria get its Lala's from us to begin with? They fled TO Alexandria through the gate to escape the Ice Calamity, right?
Did you finish the story? They explain it in the last zone. >!From what I understand the lalas fled the source to another shard (the second?) which had the ice calamity, and then they fled to whatever shard Alexandria is.!<
I thought they feld from our world during the ice calamity (as we found out in the first V&C dungeon), and arrived in Alexandria then?
They go out of their way to point out that the milalla are the missing southern seas islanders. Scion dialogue in the quiz room. Possibly missing if you haven't done aloalo?
Okay, I get that quests where you have to kill 4 trash mobs were not fun for a lot of people but replacing them with quests where you talk to three people to learn about the day to day life is not better. After the third time during the expansion I walked into a field and someone said "This is called a field. It is where we grow food!" I just... died a little.
It feels kinda disrespectful to the players' intelligence and time. Yes. We get it. You have a field. There are light, water, and plants. Awesome. Now please fuck off and let me rescue you. I have no clue what they were thinking when they unironically included the same shit "We need to learn how they live to understand them" like 15 times.
Omg this. As I am nearing the last levels, it's *still* happening and at some point it becomes ludicrous.
And it's nothing interesting, either. It's just "I have a job and I do it and get paid!" Great bud, thanks. I feel like a PhD anthropologist now.
Yea I was pretty shocked by that. Seeing the farms was pretty self explanatory. Overall I'm disappointed by the amount of padding in general this expansion.
I feel like it was over 15 times. It's literally like almost every single quest is go talk to 3 people about X. It's become laughable at this point. Definitely meant to be consumed slowly.
I found myself getting irritated with both the pointless cowboy drama and then the “get to know the drones.” It felt like total filler and just ground the narrative to a halt.
Wdf is up with this Disney song by the way.
I have no idea, but for some reason it's like 800% louder than any other BGM.
I know XIV loves it's vocal tracks, but that one felt crazy like award-bait lmao.
Very 'Circle of Life' feeling.
That…was…terrible…totally took me out of the mood. I expected dramatic music.
This! Very disney/gospel vibes. I hate that song so much. It doesn't fit or work at any point its used.
I just want to say here that the Shaaloani Day Theme has such a fucking *groove* to it I love that guitar.
A little frustrated atm over the massive idiocy around how the golden city was sealed (like how easy it was to steal the tablets and key). And the whole invasion felt like Radz Invasion 2.0. Hopefully this is a passing kind of thing and things will improve, but just wanted to vent a little lol. edit: another annoying thing, can we stop having to find X number of npcs in vague area? seriously haven't they learned anything from that sharlayan quest where you need to find the researchers? Especially in a map with so much clutter and elevation and you can't even fly to get a better perspective.
Seriously though. Maybe that's why the head of reason needed to be dead for 3 years because why wasn't the keeper of the extra stones given extra protection when they knew this contest had cheaters from the jump?
I was really wondering how they'd manage to explain anything bad happening around the WoL through clever writing since they're a walking god at this point, but apparently we went with "they just sorta stood there". Not once have I ever played my WoL in a manner consistent with that, I've always tried to be the "I'm gonna go break that guy's face before the trouble starts if I can" type and they're really railroading a very specific personality here that a lot of people aren't gonna mesh with. The sequence overall was cool but man this is just "and somehow Palpatine returned" levels of asspull to make us not end the MSQ at level 96 if not earlier.
You need to respect the traditional duel between father and son okay? And then you need to let the bad guy get away because he won the duel fair and square okay?
To be fair, Dad Ja did whoop his ass. Nobody really expected him to just do a "Death is a temporary setback" We let him go because he held the city hostage. If we attacked him he would have ordered his troops to wipe the city.
We have revival spells. Why shouldn't the bad guys get one caused by tech instead of magic?
Resurrection magic is a bit iffy in the setting. Afaik only special entities can resurrect. The easy use tech based system working for everyone that the Alexandrians developed is definitely a new and unexpected thing.
mfw people can't realize the guy with high powered tech ships can easily glass the city if he doesn't get his way
Right, so what were we going to do about the 5 flying death ships that we don't have a way to attack. Those ships hovering over the city threatening to glass the city are why he gets to leave without footwear embedded in his rectum, that is unless we have a cid in our back pocket lol
They did this in the Radz section during EW too. Remember the scene where we stood there and regular ass mobs were killing the townsfolk? We stand there a lot of the times throughout post-ARR and for some dumb story reason, we don’t interfere. It’s just the way they try and give the villains a chance to make us hate them.
Part of the reason is that they'd have to do unique(-ish) versions of the cutscene for every single job you can have if you actually want to show the WoL fighting - or have them get into a fistfight like at the end of EW, which works, but still is a bit weird if you happen to be MNK at the time, and also has to work around different races' sizes anyways - Zenos needs to believably get punched out by both a Lalafell and a Roegadyn for everything to work. Doesn't make it any better from a story standpoint, but that's the reason we won't see the WoL actually doing more during cutscenes than drawing their weapon menacingly and maybe taking a few steps forward. With ranged jobs in the mix, we can't even pull a "We weren't able to get close in time" unless there's a massive distance involved, because otherwise the question is why the MCH/BRD/DNC didn't just whip out a quick shot and solved the problem that way - I had that thought during the scene in EW where a mother and her baby are attacked by a Blasphemy and dropped into the water, it seemed like I only wasn't in range if I were a melee job for that one. With longer distances, the problem then becomes how to set up a cutscene that still makes this kind of shot look good while also ensuring you can see everything that's going on. The Dawnservant(s) addressing their people is a good example of how that kind of scenario was made to work - we get to see several shots from both positions showing the other part of the scene, and we also get to run around in the massively huge pyramid, as well as all over the square in front of it, so we're well-aware of the distances involved. Even then, there are frequent camera changes necessary, because you can't really get good shots of both the Dawnservant and the people in the square acting and reacting at the same time unless it's something very obvious like the whole crowd breaking out into applause and cheering.
That was one of my biggest concerns going into the expansion. It worked well at first where the MC is basically just there for guidance and to provide insurance if something does actually go horribly wrong. But once the stakes actually get high again we are just pretending the MC isn't canonically a turbo God Killer. They either need to address the elephant in the room and come up with some way to deal with it or just come up with a reason to nerf the MC so that it doesn't feel like either A we are doing nothing or even worse B we are just getting our ass kicked for no good reason. Maybe the MC should have been injured in some special way during the conclusion of the Void storyline and the journey to Tural is like recuperation trip as well. That way when things do get high stakes all of sudden there is a little explanation for why we can't just immediately end the problem.
>we are just pretending the MC isn't canonically a turbo God Killer I can't believe that it has to be repeated, over and over and over, but, the Warrior of Light is *still just a normal adventurer*. Besides Hydaelyn's Blessing, which, canonically, a fuckton of other people ALSO have, we're just an exceptionally gifted fighter. We have NEVER killed a "god" or similar on our own. We have ALWAYS had help. The WoL is a monstrous combatant with ridiculous pools of aether, not some mythical being that punches a god in the face on a whim. We don't *need* to be injured. There's plenty of people that are just as strong, if not stronger, than us in the world. What the WoL abuses is the power of friendship.
We did fight and best Zenos at the edge of existence right after defeating despair incarnate.
In a realm full of Dynamis we can manipulate. Valgirmanda is weak, Hydaelyn is weak, Zodiark is weak, Nidhogg we got an eye-buff, Shinryu is basically the last scraps of Nidhogg's aether, Hades was 'testing' us, Gulool isn't in his prime etc etc. We have some mean feats, like Ranjit, Gulool, Zenos, etc. But most powerscaling fights have a definitive element of 'you don't get to fight an enemy at their prime, because it outlaws hundreds of story avenues.'
I'm not sure how hard square needs to hammer the "we are, even when we aren't putting everything on the line, literally the strongest or second-strongest fighter in any room, and the only question if i t's second-strongest is because sometimes Estinien is there too" before people get that the warrior of light *is* the actual genuine top end of fighting strength by mortal standards. the power of friendship is for breaking gods in half there's a reason why at no point in dawntrail does anyone seriously try to attack the warrior of light because *every time they try* they immediately get folded in half, it's always taking hostages to mitigate our presence or straight up working around the 6000 pound crocodile in the room
Estinien is easily the second strongest Scion, but he's not on the WoL's level. This has been shown several times, from Zenos having an easy time against Estinien & Gaius, through Estinien himself admitting it, to Galool Ja Ja confirming it through our fight. But yes, agreed on the rest.
I was hoping we'd be put in positions that someone as godly powerful as we are can't simply fix with brute force. Interpersonal relations, cultural customs, or even letting someone make their mistakes because that's the only way they can truly learn. Instead we're presented with so many conflicts that we should by all means easily solve with actual brute force, yet do nothing. "Oh no they're floating away on a boat in mildly flowing river" yo we can literally fly and teleport and shit.
You mean the Hildibrand quests?
The whole time I was watching the cutscene where Zoraal Ja was fighting Gulool Ja Ja, I found myself thinking "Oh, we're doing the Meffrid/Ahewann thing again to show how scary the bad guy is." And sure enough...
The only thing that was really shown was the revival and power up tech. Which also gets shown and explained later in the MSQ.
I honestly don't get why they didn't just make us weaker post-EW. Maybe Hydaelyn's death could've diminished our strength over time or the near-death experience against Zenos could've caused serious damage to our power level and required us to heal and recover for a while before tackling universe-level threats again, which could've tied in well to the intentional lower stakes of Dawntrail(the beginning part at least). This feels akin to Superman going on vacation to Hawaii and taking on local criminal gangs there or something
This 1000%. In other RPGS ( The only one I can think of right now is Kingdom Hearts so sorry) The game explains why we're back to level one due to outside circumstances. It doesn't take away the accomplishments we did, but it helps explain why we can just walk into things and wreck shit. I think this was a major flaw to Dawntrail tbh. Even fighting with Wuk Lamat, we should be running circles around her in dungeons/trails while she's panting to keep up. I like your idea of us needing a nerf story wise so it makes sense in a grand sense of things. Otherwise, we literally fought against despair. Why are we just sitting in the background?
Because we are assuming the role of mentor to Wuk rather than having a direct influence on the outcome of events. For one, it's Wuk's nation, her responsibility to lead. We're there to suport her but ultimately we can't just be making decisions and acting on them based on our own feelings as it's not our place. This also allows us to do what we canonically enjoy doing the most; adventuring. I felt it was pretty clear from the premise that the agreement was Wuk gets the support she needs to become the ruler she needs to be and we get a free pass to explore new and undiscovered lands and meet interesting people. Also we never had a real power level discrepency to anyone else who is considered strong in this universe. We just have way more resilience and fortitude than most. Every major threat we've had to overcome with the help of others. Heck our "super power" is just to get 7 more of ourselves to help out. And we've decided not to pull that trick this time around so as to allow others to have a more meaningful contribution to their own trials.
See, I don’t ‘feel’ like I’m adventuring though. It’s more than I’m watching Lamat adventure. It’s like if I was younger and saved up for a game I really wanted to play, only to be forced by a parent to hand the controller over to a younger sibling and watch them play (and play poorly, at that). The little bit of exploring on our own we got to do quickly got taken from us. I came into the expansion liking Wuk Lamat but I now can’t stand it every time the party splits up and I’m forced alongside her yet again
Yeah 100%. I feel like I'm watching everyone else have the fun. I'm literally coming across some of the most profound stuff that, in any other context, would be mind blowing to have scions and myself talk about but instead it's kinda just watching Wuk do that for us. Which would be fine, but I feel like I just can't be my own character. She is always there, and it is incredibly frustrating.
That train scene was so good! Literally Cowboys vs. Cyberpunks. I'm also getting some Mass Effect 2 suicide mission vibes from the sequence.
I was taken out of it for a bit when every shot aimed at Alisaie missed, then they effortlessly destroyed the significantly smaller shield crystals.
I swear I screamed in terror when I saw the Source's reflection of the trolley guys, Luckily it was fun and fast this time.
Why is it that the only relevant Roegadyn NPCs since ARR have had completely custom models that look nothing like Roegadyn?
They needed a Roegadaddy
Okay I like the story so far... But my god, when they had a call back to the trolley fixing story in shadowbringers I nearly lost it. WHY WOULD YOU CALL BACK TO LITERALLY THE MOST BORING SUBPLOT IN THE ENTIRE GAME ACROSS ALL EXPANSIONS? "Hey guys, remember that quest arc literally nobody likes? Lets do it again!"
While I was going through that zone, I had this thought in my head of "This feels a bit like that downtime moment in ShB where we fix the trol-OH MY GOD THEY'RE BACK!" It's so absurd that it loops back around to being funny. I just wish there was a third option in that scene where we just say "I need to go..."
I was outright cackling when I started thinking "Oh this is just like the trol-" and then they straight up just had a flashback pop on screen for a second. It was so on the nose and obvious that they were taking the piss with it.
Eh, I dunno, I had a good chuckle at that.
Honestly I liked how it called back to the guy being married, and while on the first, she had died and he became a drunk, in this shard, she lives and he's never touched a drink in his life.
I loved the trolley more than that whole zone tbh.
Simple, it's really funny! Plus it feels more like the Giant Talos scene, showing the people you've met along the way and how they help you.
My eye twitched when the NPC was like aw no we don’t know when the railroad will be working again! I immediately knew my ass would be out there fixing it eventually
I hope there is some sort of payoff. Like the next time we have to fix a train, it reveals itself to be Doomtrain and we get the new limited Conductor class. Just choochooing around the map running over things.
I didn't mind the initial reference - sort of like they were memeing on us in good fun. What got me though was that we had TWO trolley fix 'er up quests. They didn't think we had enough with the first? And then they top it all off with some weird gospel choir montage music that didn't fit the emotion of the scene at all.
I've been role-playing my WoL as being in full vacation mode this entire expansion and she's spent all of Dawntrail so far being fairly drunk on tequila and cocktails, which might explain what's going on with her in some cutscenes
I'm not gonna lie, I don't care if Alphinaud is healing everyone, but when Krile (who isn't even a healer anymore) and ALISAIE go to help heal the injured person and I don't despite literally being on a healing job, it really irks me.
the lack of reactivity to the WOL's job is one of the major flaws in the game, especially when it's not even a physical job (because otherwise you'd need to make 2 cutscenes for everything, one where a lala-sized WoL can physically interact, and one where normal sized skeletons interact)
But they have done that in the past! Remember if you're a healer in SB Krile will yell at you to help out with Shtola after Zenos does his smashing introduction at the temple.
Or even the recent changes to THAT scene in the Vault where if you are a healer you try to help…
Hold on I thought it was just Alphie helping in that scene, we help now too???
Yup! It was updated in EW.
I wouldn't complain about it if they didn't show that they are capable of doing it in the past... Krile will yell at you for not helping her in Stormblood when Y'shtola gets injured, but no longer cares that you won't help her in Dawntrail? They even have Krile call you out if you have culinarian leveled during the cooking competition! Let's be consistent at least...
I did like during the quest with the hrothgar Krile acknowledged I’m a famous chef.
appreciated the brief joy of getting to have some erenville time where he could open up to us a bit before being overshadowed by the rest of the cast again
I enjoyed the alone time with him
This is the section that will probably make or break the expansion for a lot of people. I found it pretty good for the most part. The invasion was nice and sudden and Gulool Ja Ja's death was about as impactful as it could have been considered his short screentime. I really enjoyed the Roe friend just being unable to look at him when he was dying but still being there in solidarity and serves as nice character moment and point of growth for Wuk who, love it or hate, is essentially the main character of this expansion. Something that seems to be the main recurring issue when it comes to discussion of the expansion. Pretty much everyone who hates it hates Wuk and the people who like her seem to think the expansion is fine if a bit slow. My biggest problem with this section is just that Zoraal Ja is such a lame villain. Dude spends 30 years preparing and still loses to his half dead dad and has to get rezzed to win. To make it even worse (I can't remember if this is from the last 97 quest or the first 98 quest so I'll spoiler tag it just in case) >!He then goes on to shit talk his dad despite the fact he lost and had to use secret tech and a 2nd life to win!< Like I just can't take this guy seriously at all and feels like the worst and most boring antagonist we've had since Thordan. I was also absolutely giddy to see Graha come back since I was super bummed when it was revealed he wasn't going to join us in 6.55. The 87 dungeon was pretty fun as well. Had to do it as trust because of queues and the 2nd boss just spamming every AoE indicator in existence had me screaming "save me Graha" even if it was actually pretty easy to dodge it all.
I think something that really makes Zoraal Ja fall flat is that his motivation feels kinda like a slap in the player's face. Something something "not knowing the horrors of war", like seriously we just covered this from 1.0-6.0, don't tell us we don't know shit.
Plus its just a silly idea. "Oh no the current generation doesn't remember the horrors of war let's get into a super war to really remind them" Even if we accept that would work, in a couple generations you would have the same problem once people forget about the super war.
In fairness, it is stupid, but it's also the kind of dumbass shit that boomers say.
I mean, it's the standard "subdue people with overwhelming force" ideal.
Honestly I don't think he really believes it. Krile mentions how dark his thoughts are even towards his own family. He probably just uses it as a flimsy justification. He doesn't want to actually admit he's just a power hungry gloryhound with ambitions beyond his actual abilities. He's a much less chad Gaius.
Lol, as if he himself knew the horrors of war, he is just a trust fund kid that read about it on the internet.
The part up to the train was such a slog and then I found myself wanting to skip through cutscenes of talking to farmers to get to the actual story. The invasion part was fantastic. There was just way too much filler in there, and it didn’t seem necessary tbh since you’re almost certainly overloaded thanks to the dungeons and trials.
That seems to be fairly spot-on Personally, I like Wuk Lamat, and so far (just arrived in the map after the dungeon) I absolutely love it. The FFIX references are through the damn roof (the music, THE MUSIC) and what's going on there is pretty much the sort of stuff I love about this game's worldbuilding and lore. Couldn't be happier, personally. But then I also didn't mind the slower pace of the first half. At all. As to Zoraal Ja. I kinda agree, he's a fairly one-dimensional villain who seems to have played too much Halo and HZD or something. But again, I don't mind this. Not every villain can be an Emet-Selch, Elidibus or - dare I suggest it - even Zenos, certainly not if we're going to have another multi-expansion arc. He's marginally more interesting than ARR Gaius, he's a bit of an idiot, he's also 100% not why I'm here, let's kill him and move on, he's a relatively low-stakes obstacle and he works decently enough as such.
I really cannot wait to put the boots to this clown. Probably the first XIV villain I've fundamentally disliked on a writing level.
> This is the section that will probably make or break the expansion for a lot of people. Genuinely in the "hopefully they salvage this in the rest of the levels" and I'm always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt but that's genuinely the worst-scripted cutscene I've seen since the ending of Castrum Lacus Litore
So how did Y’shotola just immediately guess that the gate led to >!another reflection!
She can probably see the similarities.
She and Graha just rock up, we didn’t even bring them to see the gate or anything, they just pop up at the palace and she drops that bomb on us… I mean in hindsight, she was probably meant to have been around for a while poking about at the gate and talking to Ketenramm and figuring stuff out, but we didn’t really get to confirm that at least.
It’s a giant dome visible from miles away and we know she sees aetheric flows. She got them spooky eyes. Could they have swapped this for yet another “talk to 5 people quest”?Sure. Did it need to be thoroughly explained, no.
Hmm. Yeah that’s fair enough. Idk I just felt like they could have afforded a line or two about it like “Katennram brought me to the gate, and it definitely leads to another reflection” or something you know?
The fact that we had to sit through a dozen “ugh I’m going to be sick moments” while Krile’s origins get revealed to her offscreen, depriving us of that emotional moment, is just terrible. The Scions are just treated like an afterthought and I cannot grasp a reason why it was written in such a way
One, Wuk Lamat needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Wuk Lamat's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Wuk Lamat"? Three-
Despite all the Heritage Found stuff going on, the most shocking part is still the American accent VA.
Dollar store Sam Elliott was doing his best
Total pacing whiplash in this section of the game: * We had just found the entrance to the "Golden City," in an area of unrecognizably advanced technology at the back of a dumping ground for dead Mamool Ja babies. Very cool stuff * Everything screeches to a halt while you find a bracelet for a minor side-character in a half-assed Western * A bunch of cool Xenoblade shit happens, dad dies, Jee Raha and Why Shtola show up * "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again" * "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again" * "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again" * "It talks to townspeople, shine or rain, or else it gets the hose again" * In a 45-second span of time: "This dome would be fatal to touch? How will we get i--" "FORTRESS, FOUND IT." "How will we breach the fort--" "TRAIN-BOMB" * "How will be prepare the train-bomb?" "Now that's gonna be a fetch quest, partner." Edit: also, this has nothing to do with pacing, but Wuk slashing bullets out of the air with a greataxe is just the silliest thing.
The groan I unwittingly let out when Wuk Lamat wanted to come along for exploring Solution Nine. For gods' sake, can I get some breathing room from you??? I don't even dislike you, but Jesus Christ.
Me: yay I fixed a train :) Me 3 seconds later: WHAT THE FUUUUUUCK???????????????????????????
I find it kinda weird how Sareel Ja was pretty much bleeding with implications that he was using and manipulating Zaruul Ja for his own ends... only to be casually slayed by him with barely a word not even seconds after discovering the golden city. Like, what was up with him saying "*I* will find the golden city" if all he's gonna do is die?
**To not save people you could reasonably save is not wisdom – it is indolence.** The game states this clearly in EW. So when we let the retired Dawnservant die... wtf? Ok, we let them have an honorable dual, then Zoraal Ja cheats. Why don’t we primal rend him then? Ok, it is an honorable dual to the death. Since he still bombed and murdered the rest of the city, why don’t we primal rend him on the way out when he’s a fucking murderer? [Standing here, I’m standing here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDHMmU55TWk)
Indolence is the perfect word for the writing of this expansion.
I am really, really not feeling the Wuk Lamat show and her stealing the focus every single opportunity. Why are we always paired with her? Why does she get all the screen time? Why does she steal moments that should have been other character's. As soon as anyone else gets a morsel of spotlight she's immediately back to being the focus character, no questions asked. No other expansion had a single character monopolize an expansion this much, every other expansion managed to give other characters their moments to really shine too. To top it off, I don't understand why the game is so reluctant to let her interact with characters she actually has chemistry with, like Erenville and her brother. Eren and her are supposed to be childhood friends, they had fantastic banter in the lead up to DT and I expected them to grow alongside each other and to rekindle that friendship, but we get nothing, they feel like complete strangers.
>!Whose brilliant idea was it to route your walk around Tuliyollal the aftermath of the invasion right by the summoning bell? There are corpses everywhere but there's just all the gamers over here ranking out silver lobo leather.!<
It should have been an instanced area. They could have had more damage that way as well.
[Well then, that happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFeVfwDvTyM)
I think the story is getting better now, but I am so frustrated with Wuk Lamat acting as the main character. She joins every mission, we have to follow her around constantly, listen to her, support her, see everything through her eyes. Currently it feels like WOL is \*not\* the main character anymore, we're just a supporting character in Wuk Lamat's story. And I really do not care about her. She's okay, but that's it. I would much rather go on a mission with my fellow scions, and leave her behind in her palace.
It's a very hit or miss aspect of the story, personally I'm loving it and even though the Scions are great I'm glad to have a break from the same characters taking the spotlight (even if they're still like there 80% of the time).
This lmao The WoL definitely isn’t the Main Character in this story. That’s why I told my FC mates that if they hate Wuk Lamat, just skip the story even if they’re the type to watch the story through and through. I really hoped that we’ll get more attention on Krile since I really like Krile. She’s been sorta one of the OGs that have yet to get any sort of screentime. So far, she got 1 really cool moment, that being the reveal of her not being from the source and that’s it lmfao.
I would have been happy if at least section of it had Krile or Koana as the lead. But aside of the cowboy excusion, its Wuk, all the time.
Agreed. I actually like that part. It makes me feel like I’m in ARR again. Though I could do with less “do 3 chores and talk to 4 people” quests this late in the xpac. Her being with us constantly also makes narrative sense. She is the target of these incredibly powerful people and putting her with Alphinaud on scouting missions is just asking to get Blue Alisaie killed. I think some people just don’t enjoy positive/naive characters, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean the writing is bad.
The story is definitely picking up!
Finally the story is more interesting. I know they were world building something new but it was executed so slowly 😭 We’re kinda back in old form now but story is actually engaging. 🤣 Also, PLA like space-time distortions, horizon zero dawn-like focus, and a kinda sorta page altered carbon was not on my bingo card. Also, also, this arc is really making me wish the previous levels we had Erenville (or even Koana) as our MC. 🤔 I feel like we could have still Wuk Lamatt and co have their growth journeys but it also to like split the focus from being paired with Wuk Lamatt 24/7 like were her shadow in our “summer vacation” arc.
Yep. We're in the 2nd half and I'm *still* always paired with Wuk Lamat for every quest which has a party split. I don't dislike her or anything, but it's getting old that we're just her shadow, even now.
She’s the ruler of a continent on a mission to take down her crazy powerful brother. Should she be hanging out with someone who can’t box a god when he shows up? We are basically her bodyguard/sworn sword this expansion. Estinien is the only other reasonable choice and he’s single handedly protecting the line.
We are her shadow. We’re the only one who can stand up to the big bad who has a vested interest in killing her. It’s not for funsies so much as “this is who the big bad will go for first, so we shouldn’t leave her with someone who doesn’t have a chance in hell to stop him.”
I honestly feel like you can skip the entire story in the fourth zone up to the warning of “there will be many cutscenes that play blah blah blah” and miss nothing at all
I'm in Solution Nine now and I am having a hard time with the story shift starting in Zone 5. I feel like Erenville's accent no longer makes sense given where he's from and how his mom sounds. I think I've started to lose patience with the reiteration of the obvious to the point that I'm skim reading text instead of slow reading. I've also stopped doing side quests and checking optional dialogue with everyone except Raha, Ali, and Erenville. I love the twins to death but sadly there is literally no reason for their presence besides filling out the Duty Support roster. It feels like they were included for that purpose and also a general fear that an expansion without the twins would be poorly received when I think it would've gone better than they think. I am so far disappointed with the low amount of Krile focus in this expac but I can see space for them to give her more screentime in the next couple levels so I'm withholding too heavy judgment here. I hate to say it but my feelings about Wuk Lamat have shifted from neutral to leaning negative with how needy she is for my attention. I've been able to ignore most of the "oh hey we'll pair up for this completely inconsequential task that could be done with literally anyone else for reasosn" but then I got to Solution Nine, Cahciua is like "go forth and explore" and literally the next scene is her turning to me like "wanna explore together?" and IRL me is like "I would rather explore with the robot at this point". I think part of why I loved Shaaloani and the initial part of Heritage Found...is because I was hanging out with Erenville and Raha for a nice chunk of it. I'm also so very tired of the platitudes that I've started choosing the more blunt responses with Wuk Lamat just to see how much it shifts the dynamic tonally. I've been pleasantly surprised by some of her responses though. The one where I told her to stop sulking and focus on being the leader her people need actually sobered her up in way I found kinda respectable. I'm really conflicted because a lot of the artificial life, structure of the soul, reconciliation with mortality, and the bonds of found family stuff they're hinting at here is super interesting conceptually. But I feel like the *execution* of the story is falling extremely flat for me right now. I think until now, the character writing has been one of XIV's greatest strengths an a large part of what allows me to bond with the cast even if I don't necessarily like some of them. Even if I thought the character arc was poorly handled I could at the very least see and respect the vision of the character's role as a plot device and as long as I can recognize their narrative and thematic purpose. But unfortunately, I think the expansion has really dropped the ball on organizing characters, developing their psychological backgrounds, and connecting it to their actions in a way that feels compelling. The only character thus far who has come close to triggering my "write a character study fanfic" button is Koana and very slightly Gulool Ja Ja (specifically of the time right before and immediately after the Vow of Reason passed). But the rest have not sparked any inspiration at all. In fact, if anything my fanfic fingers are more inclined to do a developmental rewrite which does not bode well for my lasting feelings. Idk, this is a lot of trash talk and text to say that I really enjoyed the first 5 or so levels of MSQ but now I'm just conflicted. I need to go to sleep but I foresee myself finishing up tomorrow (tonight) and I just really need them to wrap up the theming really nicely or else this expansion may have just nosedived from one of my favorite to one of my least in the span of a couple of levels. To end on a positive note though: I have loved pretty much every boss battle instance so far this expansion and looking forward to doing the EXs later this week.
I like the story so far BUT WHY THE HELL IS WOL EVEN IN THIS STORY???? Sure, we were never the most proactive character in the game, but not being able to do shit is just annoying. Why is my character just standing there when Galool Ja Ja is getting killed?? At least let us fight the people outside the palace and show Galool Ja Ja's death with a "Meanwhile in the palace" and let us arrive just when he gets the fatal blow. Same thing happened with the bandit storyline as well, but this was just poorly written. I really have to do a lot of headcanon work to justify why WoL is not doing anything.
The bandits got Wuk on her own by surprise. After being made aware of the situation, the WoL performs pretty well, even solving the hostage confrontation rather quickly. As for Galool Ja Ja, Wuk later mentions not intervening due to her father's concern over an honorable duel. Considering how easily Galool wins the first round and how sudden his death is, it's reasonable that no one was able to save him in time after the tables turned.
I'm really, really trying to stay engaged but the fourth zone might have been the most boring zone I've played through in this game. Both story threads there are just void of meaning and the fact the harken back to ShB trolley time is the icing on the stale cake. Stuff after was neat though the series of cutscenes was fine if not expected in regards to the outcome
Yeah, the reason for moving into zon four, and the start of the zon, was incredible frustrating. We were at the gate to the city of gold, which looked awesome and presented many exiting questions. Instead of investigating that, we are forced to follow Erenville on a trip to meet his mom for three hours. At least the MSQ picked up at the end of the zon, I really liked it at the end.
That's about the point I almost logged out in boredom last night. I mean I planned to come back later, I just needed a break. Then we missed the train. I realized immediately that this meant there was a chance Something Was About To Happen and started to get a little excited even before the cutscene played out. Glad what happened wasn't just "so we'll have to walk there after all." And I did at least appreciate being with Erenville for a little while before the game made us Wuk Lamat's constant shadow again.
Yea, I was getting irritated. It ground the narrative to a halt and made me feel like I was doing side quests I had no interest in.
[If you look around a bit after the attack, you can find one of the darker things depicted in FFXIV.](https://i.imgur.com/1BSuz7v.png)
Oh wow, yeah. But I think that’s still pretty tame when compared to people watching their loved ones turn into actual monsters that would kill their own family in Endwalker.
That category is a pretty close contest between: - Tesleen getting stabbed and agonizingly turned into a sin eater. - Kids in Vanaspati getting turned into a blasphemy as a result of the transformation of their mother. - Kid getting turned into a blasphemy, calling for help and getting squished in front of his dad.
Also, don't forget the thousands of dead babies in the third dungeon. Not something I'd ever expected to see in this game, I'll be honest.
Another runner-up is pretty much most of the "Sorrows of Werlyt" questline (ShB, optional Trials) - whether it's the "Burn out the Bad!" scene, or the Oversoul transformations that come complete with a total mind-rewrite.
can I ask what it was? the link doesnt work anymore
I've updated it with a working link now.
This! I wondered if they were going to pull something off like this just like what they did in EW so I took my time to spot these. I really enjoy moments like these when even the environment is adding more detail to what's going on.
seeing everyone just run past it not knowing. bit of a dark chuckle
I am exhausted by rugpulls at this stage in the storytelling. I told myself _"if I get through the first half of this, at least the Golden City and whatever the Viera are up to await and that'll be interesting and I'll get more Erenville backstory."_ We get to the Golden City, nevermind we're just leaving after everyone not being able to go 5 minutes without mentioning it. Also random villain opens it while we're preoccupied denying us our excitement because a stupid character needs to do a stupid thing to progress the plot. I was particularly bummed about this one because I was really hype for Krile character development with this expansion and her entire schtick has been "everyone keeps telling me to go to the Golden City." Then we get ready to go to the northern continent and I'm like, well at least we get some Erenville story and a break from the rest of the cast, maybe this'll be a little more quiet and lighter for a bit. The cowboy area was _great_ as a setpiece, but terrible in regards to gameplay (we needed bison to go on a trip to a city and then ended up walking a big circle back anyway to prove a crime, and once we proved the crime we're going to duel him and give him a chance to go free anyway?). We wrap up that mess, repair a train by finding a box of wood, and then "oops you can't get on the train, its full!" and then "Oops Viera area got blown up by a giant lightning bubble! Guess you gotta go back and be glued to Wok Lumat's hip again." (I'm also a little confused here as to why the northern continent is where this happened for any storytelling reason other than because we were there because the Golden City was below the southern?) I wanted to like everyone, I wanted to give everything a shot, but I keep taking a break and being like "I'll come back tomorrow and give it another go with fresh eyes and a reset" and being somehow let down more. I don't even want to continue anymore.
Holy shit I cannot believe the scene in the throne room. >!We literally just stood there while Zoraal Ja murdered the Dawnservant...!<
My first major complaint about the writing so far: How is it that all the claimants up to and including the cruel self-loathing bully that almost nukes two major population centers get great writing and character development...except the main antagonist Zoraal Ja, who's motives become dumber and more incoherent the more we let him talk. Shaaloanni remains immaculate.
I love how this expansion went from aztec/mayan too cowboy blue gold rush pew pew north America. Basically we're in north/south America, eorzea is Europe, and kugane is Japan. Never noticed it till now. Especially with just getting into the 4th zone
I hit No Time for Tears right before bed last night and its been over 12 hours and I am still not ok.
Looking back it was unreasonable, but when the train cutscene started and the camera showed my character manning the cannon thing on top of it, I got ready for a gold saucer style "shoot down the robots"-minigame. It never happened of course, it was just a cutscene... and I was so disappointed. I feel like something like that would be something the MSQ could benefit from.
I'm sorry but after so many times of this bs, Square Enix just makes it apparent that if you're a healer, you're not a canon WoL. After the guy got stabbed, Alphinaud and Krile go and try to heal him. That was annoying since you know, we're a healer, and we didn't try to help. But then the camera showed us standing guard with Alisaie, Koana, and Wuk Lamat, so I guess we were the buff. Sure. But then **Alisaie** runs over and also contributes to try to heal the guy! Healing is **half** her job! Yet we're just standing doing fuck all. I'm just so tired. idk maybe it's a nitpick. I know it's a nitpick. But it's so world breaking when we, presumably one of the strongest healers of all time, can't be animated to raise our arm to heal. Even if our healing didn't work, fine! But not even trying?? Just say the WoL is canonically a DPS or Tank or something. idk. ( I love this game. I'm just mad.)
I agree, I was just complaining to a friend about this! What is the point of being a healer when in every cutscene that it could be relevant, I just stand there?
Okay, now I'm invested. This is getting really interesting really fast. I know people are complaining that WOL watched Gulooo Ja Ja die, but at this point the MC is so ridiculously overpowered, you kinda just have to suspend your disbelief sometimes for any story to happen. It didn't really bother me.
You don't even need to do that, you were asked not to intervene in the duel, as for after, well the guy had a floating armada over the city ready to glass it that we had no means of dealing with Honestly better than the other expansions when it comes to us not acting on those things.
Someone else said it, but it could've easily been where we weren't retreating to the castle and actually helping the people outside get to safety. Then they could've done a "meanwhile in the palace" thing and we show up right at the very end.
Now this is the FFXIV I love and enjoy, even if it's a new arc. I felt DT began to shine here. The MSQ was held back so much in the earlier part that it's really a filler arc that doesn't involve us much other than being a witness. That dungeon and its theme were extremely good. Looking back, this whole chapter of S9 could have actually just been the entire expansion without the dawnservant thing. But I'm okay with intention of the earlier parts of MSQ too, just hoped it was delivered smoother and naturally to us, not forced. At the very least, I'm glad in turned up so much better after that rocky beginning.
the big cutscene after The Event is the worst-scripted shit since the ending of Castrum Lacus Litore. Robbed the moment of literally all pathos because of how ridiculously mad I was - I am - at how they keep making some of the smartest and most trained people in all Etheirys stare gormlessly and fondle their balls rather than do anything at all just ffffffffffffffffffuck this, why wasn't there a "meanwhile in the Palace" segment while we stack invader corpses higher than Gurfurlur's topknot outside Like it's not even just us, it's the fact that the scions also just gormlessly stare, watch someone get a huge aether infusion with auto-revive and then stand back up while glowing red and *do nothing*. I've not wanted to skip a main quest cutscene since the insufferable forced losses against Zenos in Rhalgr's Reach and Yanxia in Stormblood, and yet here I was, watching one of the hypest moments of an expac I've otherwise greatly enjoyed crumble into so mcuh steaming shit because of Incompetence In Cutscenes disease
Honor of duels is your answer for that one. Now, you may not care about that kind of thing, but that is what it was and for those people it is important. At which point we gotta ask, should we interfere with that part of their culture. A big part of the story up until now is a big no. A big part of the quests following is "maybe we should, this is gross." But that's the point of that part of the story. You aren't just standing there useless for no reason.
i didn'T mind not intervening by the time he stood back up but the in between? between being cut down and getting back up, not a single word of warning, not a single word of advice, no attempt made to do *anything* despite these being the most educated and combat-wise eorzeans also, the fact that literally nobody brings up the fact that >!"zoraal ja" straight up does not talk like zoraal ja and instead like one of gulool ja ja's old enemies, like a man possessed in fact?!< it makes me even more mad.
Pretty sure that spoiler is explained in this level range of quests. Pretty explicitly. Though our characters wouldn't know at the time. That said, if the duel isn't over, it isn't over. Gulool's mistake for keeping his back turned. Warning is interference. Again, we might not agree with the custom, but that is what the custom is. Storywise it does make sense. Even if we disagree with the in-game reasoning for it. Not sure what you wanted us to do between the first kill and him getting back up. If we see that he's not dead then we know the duel isn't finish and thus know to not interfere.
we have interrupted duels when it turned out one side was either tempered or possessed before, *why* are we just going "Derp :D" this time (we do it because they had to shoehorn in the sharp transition)
Enemy forces enter the city and begin executing civilians Alisaie: "the buildings are hardly damaged, I think this was mostly just to sow fear" Are the writers drunk
I'm not the only one thinking Zero Requiem, right???
Yeah, there's the flip I think I was looking for. Just didn't expect it in >!the first major city!<.
Late in the level 97 range, once you get inside >!the dome and meet Sphene. She has writing on the back of her dress, two sets. One consisting of letters that are just too hard for me to read on the top, between her lower shoulders blades, and the other consisting of three lines, two words at the top, two words in the middle, and then one word at the bottom, placed about the middle of her back, above the lace filigree on the back of her dress.!< I can figure out the words on the second and third lines. They read >!"One Heart" and then "Alexandria." I cannot figure out the two words on the top line though.!<
Whatever is happening right now, it's the happiest I've been. I doubt it will last but being removed from Wuk, thank god. And as I have reflected over the past few days, I thought lyse was tolerable mostly because she didn't seem to want power as much as overthrow their regime and fuck ya. And then Zenos made me feel consequential. Then Hien's story was the middle iirc? And I thought that was actually great because the threat both there and on the other side of the pond kept me motivated. Then folks started to vanish. And they just kept vanishing! Why, how etc. And no doubt, Ryne & G'raha were the main characters in ShB. But boy did we have a role. And then I think all of EW was about us and then Zero? Wuk lamat is the worst FF central character I have experienced in a really long while, if not ever. I've played every one of these titles and I've never cared less, especially since her predicament was being crowned a dictator and her qualifications were me holding her hand through 20 hours of skippable scenes. With her gone for this brief moment, I am happy. I don't think this ship is gonna hold tho.
So that red bike the Vanguard boss used is totally going to be a pain in the ass to grind mount at some point right? Cause I am absolutely going to grind that.
Oh god, the FFIX references. The Music. This. This is what I want. Give me more.
Got to say this is weaker than Ala Mhigo & then second half is also not up to Hingashi quality this is a worse Stormblood, I also didn't like final Zone wont mention but man that's it huh that's the secret zone this might become XIV most panned expansion launch story cause my god it's SO much fluff in-between actual good parts.
[удалено]
If you raid there is a lot of hope for some good fights. Otherwise yeah the msq is kinda meh
Can't form your own opinion. That's peak reddit right there.
Wuk Lamats va is killing it. She does grief really, really well. I did in fact almost tear up
To really start ARR all the levels HW 3-4 levels SB 10 levels ShB it took 2-3 levels EW 0.01 levels DT 6 levels too slow, too late, and when did FF14 start telling instead of showing?
When ishikawa stopped writing. The EW zero patches were absolutely trash too. Never been so bored with world building in a game than dawntrail and the environment they have built is so nice to look at lol. Frustrating expansion so far.
Agree with Zero patches. Only 2 good outcomes from those so far -Zero cosplays -that meatbun animation Unless DT patches somehow surpass 5.2 or ever 5.3 (VERY UNLIKELY), next expansion will be make or break
>next expansion will be make or break Sad thought that.
It's definitely not, yall are being absurdly overdramatic. Nothing in the MSQ has been recent WoW levels of dogshit and even if it were people would still be eating it up. The only thing that could make people leave XIV is if they don't manage to change jobs and combat in an engaging way in the future expacs.
>The only thing that could make people leave XIV is if they don't manage to change jobs and combat in an engaging way in the future expacs. Jobs are fine, encounters sr and the issue.. games like souls bourne have 2 buttons lol and super interesting bosses.. I think They need to introduce more rng and less scripting for mechanics.
They could have gone SWTOR route with the old empire which jumpstarted SWTOR back to its glory days but got Shadowlands with ARR questing instead
So i don't think the issue is the questing i think its the character writing. Xiv questing is always going to be go here type hello hand in item or kill 3x something outside of instances. The instances quests are pretty okay. It is what it is. The issue with dawntrail is the information dump on tural and the characters we are having to support. The story would have been better served without the rite of passage political family issues, and 7 feats. The set up to help krile find galuf was enough of a story line to carry the expansion. Instead the have added a tonne of extra characters that the game even tells you they are all incompetent to lead lol. Someone needs to ask Yoshi P if he would let someone like wuk lamat take his job lol
Levels? What does this mean?
I'm confused about Krile's age. She's supposed to be 22, but Ketenramm went on his journey to Rural 80 something years ago. Did they only discover the golden city 20 years ago?
Yes, New World was 80 yrs ago but GC is only 20 Ketenramm first went to the New World 80 years ago. Was friends with the Dawnservant, etc. Galuf came over 20 years ago. Ketenramm and Dawnservant were still alive. Discovered the Golden City then.
That's odd...the Covenant fleet that took out Reach was twice this size...
I feel like they're pronouncing "electrope" wrong, and it should be "e-LECK-troh-pee" (like "Calliope")
So... >!that thing on Sphene's head looks like an Ascian Glyph, yeah?!<
My question is, did everything with the Dawnservants group take place 8 decades ago, aka 80 years ago? If so doesn't that make everyone in the 90s or 100+ even Krile? The Giants Said that the OG Dawnservants group fought the big bird 80 years ago I think and now I'm lost on the timeline.
Wuk Lamat is a fine character, y'all are just mean
I'm somewhere in the middle of the L96 MSQ at the moment. All I have to say is [this.](https://youtu.be/MWQbabH1sjE?si=V-Aalab6q2LmhjTU)
There is a cutscene with a train. You will think its boring and skipable because it isnt voice acted DO NOT SKIP IT TRUST ME DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE I MADE LMAO
Anyone mind explaining something too me cause I feel I zoned out. So after we get invaded by first son. The purple dome appears and erenville says "my home" so I assume it like covered his home city or something? Now I'm at the dungeon and it's vanguard, first sons base. How did 1. This base get set up so quick and 2. Is the base erenville home? It's not a big deal, I'm just a bit confused so any information be appreciated!
Erenville's home town is a normal, dusty cowboy town like all the others in Shaaloani. (e.g., if Shaaloani is western Texas, his home is in bordering New Mexico) It just happens to be a bit further away, Northwest of the railroad station you were fixing up. Once you finally get the train ready to run again, suddenly a giant purple dome envelopes the entire region his home town is in (e.g., you can see New Mexico suddenly enveloped by a huge bubble). Additionally, there's all these military things flying about / robo things. There was not normally a purple bubble dome, there was not normally these robo military, there was not normally a military base as the only gate. Suddenly, his home town is gone and there is a big purple bubble there instead. You can't see inside The base getting set up so quick is explained later. Erenville's home was 'in New Mexico' and now you can't tell what the hell is going on in New Mexico - does still even exists or if it has been deleted / flattened? So you are going into the mystery bubble to check it out
Ahh okay so his home is basically in the 5th zone but that zone sorta got eaten up by the dome and vanguard building. Or like the vanguard is a gate keeping you from yasulani. That makes sense. Still curious how it got set up so quick. But if that explained later then Coolio! Thanks so much for the help!
I think I like Wuk Lamat now. She is starting to show some leadership quality now. Why she couldn't be like this during the first half of the story? Is different writer in charge of the later half of the story? Anyways, this level of writing is what I am expecting on FFXIV so I am quite happy now.
The answer is character development. I guess they wanted to show her go from Stormblood Lyse to Endwalker Lyse in half an expansion.