We’re back with another brutal analysis of FFXIV: Dawntrail. The Rite of Succession initiates the new saga, and not in a glorious manner.
FFXIV: Online is property of Square Enix. I have no claim to it.
Wuk Lamat video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fdIcjviRFo&t=2247s
Dawntrail Villains link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl0_kt7CyRE&t=4410s
Time Stamps
0:55 I done Goofed
3:37 The Rite is Flawed from the Start
6:12 Fixing the Motivation
9:48 Dawntrail’s Beginning is a Mess
17:23 Fixing Wuk Lamat (God save me)
22:01 The Golden City is Poorly Developed
28:28 Improving Krile’s Plot
31:59 Fixing Wuk (AGAIN)
36:45 Conclusion
source
I wasn't expecting this video. I respect you can admit when you are wrong. Funny enough, I told someone just yesterday to practice what they preached. Interesting stuff. Makes me wonder how the story would be if The Dawn Servant praise was all propaganda, he was a sham, a bad guy, and his children had to not just come to terms with that, but now give that title true meaning.
Hot take: Dawntrail should have been the beach episode of FFXIV. Meaning that the msq should have taken a much smaller role compared to previous expansions. Instead the focus should have been on introducing the new areas, peoples, and cultures. Seeing how the former scions are moving on from the events of ARR through Endwalker, developing their characters, and giving them new drives and ambitions for use in future expansions. Krile's quest should have been what motivated you to travel around and explore, not the Rite of Succession. And as you travel the game should have hinted at future areas, introduced plenty of new interesting characters, and dropped plenty of plot threads that could later have been spun into a serious multi-expansion story.
All the way up to the end of Endwalker the scions character development was mainly reactive, driven by the dramatic events of the msq. It would have been great to let them have the breathing room to redefine themselves, and let them grow into new versions of themselves who were ready to face the dramatic events of future expansions.
Where did it say she was trying to merge with the source and not another shard? Will admit I totally thought she was targeting a different shard not the Source.
I agree whole heartedly that the opening shouldn't have been about the succession at all, the pre patch story should have been about Krile learning about Tural and the letter and looking into a guide, using Sharlayan connections to reach out to someone from Tural (To give that time between patches) And have it be a surprise that its Erenville. Our initial motivations is just another adventure and spending time with the Scion with the least screentime, seriously Krile has had like maybe 10 minutes of screen time for several expansions now, it angers me so how she was robbed so much this xpac.
A change I'd make it throw out the B plot as it was entirely, sorry to any FF9 fans, but we just got done with a feast of member berries with the post EW content, also the fact that both the Voidsent and Alexandrian's have the exact same fucked up problem just the latter is prettier and all cyberpunk. Make the A plot more give me more than a Tik Tok historian reading a wiki article's of lore and background to Tural, also have it so the rite of succession isn't kind of racist as "All the people's of Tural" Didn't include its native population of Viera/Miqote/Hyur
Now, I'd change the golden city to be something that'd be seen as contraversial and something to be hidden away in context of the setting, and something that has less wacky stakes to feel like our vacation is anything but. A Neo Allagan settlement, a city of old Allag that survived the fall of the Allagan empire, hidden itself away and just continue'd its technological buildup to the cyberpunk we come to find. It can be seen as a commentary on the sins of the father, do these people who are centuries and several generations seperated from the atrocities the Allagan Empire inflicted upon the world, do they deserve to be welcomed into the wider world, how would you integrate them. Could have it that there might be some more millitant elements that are all about keeping hidden away, and some who feel they are stagnating being hidden in their city, maybe have those Militant elements did something to Krile's parent back then, because as nice as it was for Krile to get something finally in the final act, what she got was "Oh you're from this other world, but no your people are actually from the source who fled into this world and back again"
at some point i hope youll make videos on Hermes and Meteion/Endsinger in Endwalker
Good thing i didn't buy dawntrail. I wouldve crashed out with how horrible the msq is.
I really love this take.. Can you imagine the difference the story would have if all zones except living memory were just open? They can change the looks of entire zones. Can you imagine the connection you would have had to Heritage if you saw it before the events that happened there? Maybe met black bun's mom irl? This is something that FFXI and FFXIV 1.0 and ARR had right. you could wonder the zones if you dared. In this game it's not even dangerous.
I'm still baffled as to how the first half of DT got approved when it's lacking so many of the fundamental aspects that make for an interesting story.
The golden city was the primary point of intrigue for the New World prior to us going there, and it really shouldn't have just been reduced to a footnote for the most of the plot. I feel like they aggressively spoiled the whole Solution Nine "twist" in the pre-release material because they lacked the confidence they could hold people's interest otherwise and it was the primary factor motivating me to slog through everything with a vague assurance things were going to get more interesting *eventually*.
well only a company like square can get away with such poor writing and still collect a paycheck.
this is one of their 1st big failures as far as 14 i concerned, and if they continue like this reception for the game will cool off and less people will be playing. Not sure why square would want that.
Dawntrail's sin wasn't not giving us a bikini clad waifu bait at all, but rather making said bikini clad waifu require the pain and suffering of leveling her trust avatar to 100
I got the impression that the disease was supposed to be akin to the reverse of the Spanish visiting the Americas. Whereas the Spanish brought the flu and small pox and devastated the native population, in this one it was the invaders that got the disease that devastated them and forced them to retreat
God I love this channel
another banger by the king. 🧎♂🧎♂
I do love that they were so insistent on rushing the Ancient/Ascian storyline to it’s conclusion all for this of all things. They struck gold with Shadowbringers, they could have expanded on it until 8.0 at least like Ishikawa suggested. Instead they rushed it all so that we could have whatever Dawntrail and Endwalker were.
Regarding Sphene deleting her memories at 2:43, the whole point of that was that her memories were influencing her "programming" and he couldn't actually hurt anyone intentionally. It is the whole reason she needed Zoral Jaa in the firstplace. After filling him, Sphene removing her memories was the emergency step, that would allow her to start actually conquering other nations directly.
I was so disappointed about Zoraal Ja. The whole rite he was the bad, ominous broody guy with bad intentions. Then he told us why he wants to start a new war, the intentions make absolutely no sense at all and we just kill him off in no time.
I mean wtf?! Almost every other bad dude in the game has a better writing and background lore and everything than this! He felt so bland, like a promised golden egg with lots of hidden lore in it and all you get is a mostly blank sheet of paper with a few scribbled sentences on it. And Sphene also felt easily foreseeable in her actions and barely posed a surprise.
Just why? After Meteion, Emet-Selch and all the other important "villains", this is the worst joke I've ever seen.
Like in general the whole expansion feels like they put their writing trainees in charge without any supervision, who then came up with lots of great ideas, only to throw away half of them in the middle of production and connect what's left to finish the story somehow. That's what it feels like for me. An uncoordinated, mashed mess of ideas and lore made by too many ppl who didn't communicate enough.
I just hope with all the loose story threads left (and most of them are really promising!) they manage to catch us once again with great, well thought storylines in the epilogue and following patches. Cause DT was a disappointment. I didn't expect much in the first place bc it obviously had to be something like ARR 2.0, but I'm unsure what they're planning to make out of this. Maybe in a few years we'll laugh about the bad start, like we do with ARR today. But I won't buy another expansion like this. I'm too broke to throw it around for bad games.
Also another revelation I made: the more marketing you see the less worth the game really is. I've never seen so many DT trailer ads on YT, website marketing etc before of the whole game and yet DT is the worst expansion
I used my free login time before Dawntrail on completing 6.1-6.55 to discern whether I wanted to buy DT. I hated the post-Endwalker stuff (not even the FFXI fanservice saved it for me), but what had me excited for DT was shown in 6.55:
1. Wuk Lamat being a spirited but headstrong character that we help through her mistakes (she never really makes any)
2. Urianger and Thancred become our eventual enemies, even if it ends up as a light-hearted battle (never happens)
3. The trailer and descriptions of Tural made it sound like we were getting a vacation (immediately thrown into important plot)
Was it that hard to just give us what was teased? I felt deceived.
Man i would have loved to fight urianger and thancred in a friendly way instead of a big bug, a third of the expansion should have been like if the straw hats from one piece had a friendly competition, bantering, some fights, the clever ones using their brains to get advantages… Its a shame most of the scions were there only to say a few lines and be available to join the dungeons.
We could have finally had a expansion without world ending threats to enjoy a new continent, its people and have some time with the scions, as it being another continent nobody would be worried that we get together. And the reason to disband the scions is bullshit tbh, how in hell would I as a limsa peasant feel safer if the equivalent to the avengers disband just because being together can make some people worry?, if anythig i would be terrified that in less than a year the world will be probably ending again but my saviours have disbanded. Because the team refuse to make the twins adult everything that has happened in the game has happened in less than 2 years, so people should be still traumatized from the meteor and the end of days, they would be rioting against disbanding the scions.
Krile was at the front of the marketing and with square saying she will be very important for the story and her only role was having an usb and meeting the clones of her parents for lore dump.
After the day is saved it would have been cool to have the scions enjoying the scenery with summer or local clothes, being able to ask them to join for pics (im a disaster taking photos but its easy as fuck, they just need to turn on the follower system they already have implemented) For seasonal event it should be the same but the events have become worse than in ff11 somehow.
Finally i want to predict that the whole point about the clone/son of evil lizard guy will be either BS or irrelevant, because seeing how somehow the whole population isnt worry about the son of a dictator inheriting the robot army control because wuk vouches for him
12:24 everything you just described is usually found in the competitor's game where they stress far more environmental storytelling over quality linear storywriting. It is kind of funny how WoW & FFXIV have a long history of stealing eachother's homework, with War Within recently fixating far more on story, character development, and promising evergreen content like FFXIV. These recent developments have been well-received with some but left other long-time wow players who didn't really care for story feel dejected and with nothing to do, since they skipped cutscenes in the first place. That is to say I kind of hope SE steals from WoW's approach to dynamic worldbuilding since we never got a sense of Tural in general. I distinctly remember BfA's zones, side-quests, and progression despite having a mediocre mainstory to fall back on. From the City of Gold OST that would always play in this golden, Aztec-inspired city called Zandalar to the sailor-themed ports of Kul Tiras, to the small side-activities and environmental details, I think those aspects would've made Tural far cooler to explore. It might not have saved the story, but it would've given the player more time to breath on a new continent.
I loved wuk lamat and the story, the only thing that irked me is when they had a restrained wuk lamat deal so much damage to sphene she took 10-15 percent of her health off the health bar if SE doesn’t say she is a warrior of light ima assume the minstrels ballad, sphenes burden is the real canon fight. They could’ve replaced that with a time event where all 8 players beat down on sphene in synchronization or something
17:44: I would push back by saying that this is actual a well-known trope in fiction. An extension of the sheltered aristocrat trope where their guardian, usually their parental figures, ship them off as foreign dignitaries, military leaders, diplomats, etc., to lands faraway for them to gain worldly experience or setup rapport with the local nobility. I wouldn't say it was a well-executed trope nor really justifies Dawntrail's pricepoint, however.
30:55: Catering to the strongest MMO demographic (furries) aside, I think the reason Lyse was more tolerable, despite being a poorly written character herself and in no way shape or form a replacement for the tragedy of Ilberd, was the fact she was sort of… just out of the way. She let all the Xaela tribes, Lord Hien, Yugiri, Gosetsu, M'naago, Conrad Kemp, Zenos, Yotsuyu & Fordola shine by simply… not talking a lot that entire beginning to middle part. Most people remember the proper ending to SB being sort of lackluster given Lyse had more prominence and dialogue lines, but I feel the writers in SB allowed Lyse to act more like a soundboard for other characters as she would often ask what it mean to be a leader to characters like Hien. Latter of which gave us the brilliant "sink castle" strategem, which added a lot to his character. Not only was he more mature than Lyse, he had a tactical mind for warfare and was willing to make auspicious, completely out-of-left field moves to win.
Overall solid video and I'm glad you touched on how ridiculously childish Gulool Ja Ja's plan actually was. Almost like they were catering to the 12-18yo demographic who only watch shonen animes.
There are so many times when I just thought "They have literally done something like this in earlier expansions, but a million times better"
– Introducing a completely new world (Shadowbringers)
– have important characters in danger and/or die (see the npc vs zenos battle in StB, still one of my favorite roleplaying sequences)
– building up a huge threat over the span of an expansion (Endwalker, Shadowbringers…)
– etc.
6:15 I have the same idea and the strange feeling that for most of the developement of Dawntrail that was the plan for most of the issues in Tural, as you said,
Storm in the HanuHanu Village: Lightning Aether Inbalance
there crops not growing: Aether inbalance
Viligarmanda only using Snow and Storm Skyruin Shift in the storytrial would indicate it has already massive amounts of ice and Lightning Aether… ice comes from its inprisonment… but where does the lightning comes from?: Aether inbalance
Mamojas Forrest is totally glowy mutated? I wonder what under that part of the Forrest (seriously that meteor explaination is just rediculious)
Heck In the Vanguard the exact same Blue Glowing Creatures spawn out of lightning as we see in that forrest
Krile should be THE expert analysing this stuff because of Eureka, making extreme sense of why she came with us on the journey from a story teller perspective
there are just to many buildingblocks that fit to well together if the Golden City suddenly becomes the culprit of all those issues
my crackpot theory is that late in Developement someone in power had the brilliant idea to shove Wuk Lamat into everything and make her center of all attention.
would at least explain why the VA was so bad and why "cutscenes" are all just standing and talking as it would have been extreamly rushed.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Dawntrail’s plot seems like the product of committee and may have been subject to numerous rewrites. Why else would they do such a shoddy job with tacked on voice acting of many key figures in the Scions?
Going through dawntrail it reminded a lot of how i felt with arr. Not in a good way, the boring cutscenes, the uninteresting dialog boxes, the potential for something better.
I really felt i just had to get through it sometimes even tho i did enjoy it. I like wuk lamet but i also don't. her arc felt so rushed and when ppl complained i kept seeing that she is supose to be based off a "shonen anime protagonist" and i just couldn't see it. You are right, she never fails and i thought it was weird she never left the city. These are her people but she knows nothing of them. Her lizard brother also just suddenly flipped from maybe ok to evil for no reason. He just wanted war to teach people that war is bad???
Dawntrail was inspired by wokeness. That’s why no one likes it.
If someone you just met asked you to help them become leader of an entire country you've never been to, would you do it?
I wouldn't. I'd probably laugh. Sounds like a joke. But that's the plot setup of Dawntrail for some reason.
Krile getting marketed as important to the story to the point that she is literally on the splash art and then getting shoved aside is just like what happened to Kairi in KH3. Hyped up in all the marketing, "it's her turn!" everywhere, everyone so excited to see our girl's growth and have her by our side… only to be shoved to the side for no discernible reason. For Krile, it's because Naruto the clingy girlfriend will not let anyone else have the spotlight for ten seconds. For Kairi… well, who knows, but I find the obvious versus 13 salt ruined a lot of that game, so Kairi was probably affected by that too.
You nailed this, honestly. I do have a couple suggestions of my own. Having allies traveling with you that represent each race in Tulliyolal, with the twins and Krile in tow. Have Erenville introduce you to Lamat, but have him off in Shaaloni doing something else, you meet him there, and travel to his home. Meet his mom and the people there. Then hurry back because they're closing the gates in anticipation of the rite of succession. We could travel around Tural with the twins and Krile, meeting the people like you suggested, then starting the rite. Then once the rite starts, have the twins off doing the thing they came here to do (seeing as the rite had absolutely nothing to do with their purpose in Tural), as you travel around with Lamat, her small entourage, and Krile.
It really would not have hurt the story to have Wuk Lamat already traveling with the small party, but then getting introduced to you for additional help at Erenville's recommendation. He really didn't do much when he was traveling with us anyway. Other than being half a second away from from slapping an orange cat upside the head in every new zone.
Then, since they want the Scions in the story so badly, after the rite of succession is over, you break off from Wuk Lamat's party, and rejoin the Scions for the conflict with Sphene. If they want someone to join you from Tulliyolal, it should be Koana. Since his entire motivation is to use technology to protect his people from conflict and to advance their country. He would have a vested interest in the motivations and technology of the nation that just attacked his home.
YT autodeleted my comment for no dang reason, and I am very upset about it. sigh Let's try to rewrite this from memory…
My thoughts on how things should have gone: We should have been invited to Tural by Galool Ja Ja, as an advisor to his choosing a successor. We would not be supporting any one candidate over another, but instead observing each of their faults and virtues, and reporting back Galool on what we see. We wouldn't have a contest for succession in my version, but we would serve as mentor and advisor to all of them in turn. This would cut down Wuk Lamat's role in the story, by splitting between all four claimants. I like your ideas of having three open zones to choose from at the start, as this would be episodic storytelling to give us some idea of each candidate and what they are like.
Furthermore, my idea would work with the vacation aspect as well: We would be guests of the King, not slaves to his daughter. We could enjoy time sightseeing and exploring and offering support if a claimant wishes for it. (We could even fit in a bartering quest with the pelupelu – imagine Estinien learning to barter!) Zoraal and Bakool would obviously deny any attempts to aid them, but we could learn more about them while more or less doing our own things.
The City of Gold is a mess in the final product of Dawnfail. In my version, there would be no government sanctioned hunt for the City of Gold. I submit that if we're doing this at all, this should be undertaken by the Scions as a competition amongst ourselves. Estinien by himself, Thancred and Urianger by themselves, Krile, Erenville and the Twins with us. (And if we want stupid comedy, throw in Puddingway.) It could be a fun thing to begin searching for, and Krile could have personal reasons to do so. As we finish the first three half-zones and have finished reporting to the King on first impressions, perhaps the Scions could engage in this race to find the Golden City. We could have the different claimants also searching for the City for whatever reason.
I feel that we could merge the eugenics plotline into Galool keeping the City secret: This would give him a dark past that he hides away, and once it is revealed we could see the different claimants determining whether they wish to expose this foul history or not. This could tie into both the mamool ja's outsider status in Tural as well as the plague that happened to the giants (although if this is directly the cause of Galool's actions, we would have to alter the timeline of the Giant Plague drastically).
As for Alexandria and everything to follow… I have no idea how to make any of that functional at the moment. More thought will be needed.