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Hello everyone I am Jmulls of Jmulls Gaming and welcome to my little corner of the internet!
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In today’s video, I talk about a bunch of topics surrounding Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail !
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THe story is the main selling point of this game. I personally think most of the story is pretty mid and saying it's the best story of any mmo is not a flex because most mmo have barely any story.
In my opinion Dawntrail just sets us up for more 10 years of the same content from previous expansions being reskinned, the formula has grown stale on Stormblood and YoshiP refuses to step out of the safe zone which leads the game to feel more of just the same. So yeah, story aside FFXIV is still a pretty solid single player game with MMO elements her and there.
Reusing the formula has carried the game for 10 years so I understand them being adamant about not changing it that much because predictability breeds comfort and that's pleasant to people. It keeps the subs running after all.
I'm tired of it but I'm just one guy haha.
Dawntrail is the first time EVER playing this game I went "nope, fuck this, i dont care anymore" and decided to skip all dialogue and cutscenes.
I gave it an earnest chance, but by the time we reach Shaaloani I had lost all motivation. The Rite of Succession wasn't fun or interesting, and the second part of the MSQ is just repeating the Emet Selch and Amaurot stories but high-tech whatnot thrown in. Not to mention the shallow childish writing and the cringe Pepsi-Cola Corporate Slop music they raped my ears with.
The writing team should be fired and Yoshi P should feel ashamed for greenlighting this. They don't even have the "uhhh well we were working on another game at the same time so we didn't have the time or resources" excuse this time. This is just dog shit and if the story doesn't drastically improve by 7.1 I'm probably just going to unsub until next expansion.
Agreed, while I enjoyed MY story with DT and the journey I took upon myself and thought of the MSQ secondary until all was said and done to reflect on what happened. I do feel the quality in the MSQ writing & some of the voice acting was lacking to put it simply and hope the patch MSQ can remedy this to an extent. The combat content has been great and is what keeps me around. The hate that's just blindly going after every single frame or hyper focusing on the EN VA for Wuk being T it is wild and should just stop. BUT this is the internet so people will do what people do, and with that it is such a small percentage of people even going to those extreme ends of hate. Same goes for those that are blindly accepting said performance because of actor being T. It goes both ways and is a slippery slope of a debate to trend on, so best to avoid that side of the "discussion" and focus on what's objective comparative to what came before. Maybe not SH or EW; as that's completely unfair, but HW & SB when having said discussions now & down the line. Sorry mini ramble there.
That being said, I hope with the patches we can get a vacation from Wuk Lamat cause omg was she just overbearing….lmfao. Give us more Koana or Bakool Ja Ja! But for sure we NEED more Krile in the patch content, there's just no debating against that.
I really don't like criticising the writting and design, it makes me sound snobbish af, but when people are legitimately debating on whether this is the worst MSQ story in the entire game, worse than even the first half of Stormblood with its glacial pace, that's when you KNOW you messed up.
The main problem I'd argue nit being Wuk Lamat, though they try way too hard to make you like her and it makes her overbearing, but rather that ALL the stuff they actually built up and advertised for the story was half-baked and handwaved away almost as quickly as it was introduced.
The Scions picking different heirs to the throne to support, driving a wedge between this tightly nit group that isn't personal but more political & philosophical. As well as asking if the Scions perphaps shouldn't have the influence to get involved to begin with unless a Primal shows up. That whole plotline is BARELY a thing
Krile is given 5 minutes for her arc. Nothing more nothing less. They did her dirty
The other heirs to the throne also barely get any screentime and despite all the focus on Wuk Lamat, we don't REALLY get a feel for her relationship with her adoptive family.
And all that time that SHOULD have been spent on these plotlines is wasted instead on the most mind-numbing MSQ quests in the history of the game. Not even STORMBLOOD made me want to skip cutscenes this badly!
The final arc is also just a good summation of this expansion:
a solid premise, ruined by lousy execution.
Also, the english dub is just ATROCIOUS at times. People say Wuk Lamat's VA is bad, but I'd argue its not entirely their fault. Because the voice direction for Dawntrail ACROSS THE BOARD is weird.
Cutscenes that should be voiced are silent and often ones that are have wooden deliveries that should have never made it into the game.
Seriously, I have no idea what happened with Dawntrail. Its like the game went backwards in quality.
Honestly, for the first time in the history of ff14, I couldn't even finish the story before I just got too bored and let my sub run out (Got to solution nine)
What I didn't like: The MSQ and Wuk Lamat
What I did like: Everything else XD
They need to give Wuk the Lyse treatment. They've ruined any chance of making her likable in the eyes of a large portion of the fanbase. Has nothing to do with who voiced her. They tried way too hard to push her, and when you try to force people to like something, you'll inevitably push them into hating that thing. Happens to wrestlers all of the time to use an example from the video.
I do like the direction of the playable content outside of basic questing. It's a lot more engaging. I was ready to unsub after finishing the story, but the dungeons and trials kept me playing.
SE needs to fire their woke consultancy firms and do away with DEI incentives now. Another expansion like this will kill XIV.
The issue with living memory is it’s a dead zone. Nothing special. Finished my fates and never went back there. The gimmick worked once and quickly wear off. It was just so much more beautiful before and now we got a trash zone.
Let's hope that post patches would be better and without Wuk Lamat and dawntrail will be treated like ARR something what you must do(even if ARR was much better and it was real world building).
One of my big problems with Dawntrail beyond having Wuk Lamat around way too much, was how she suddenly became so strong with no explanation. In one part, her strongest attack couldn't even phase Bakool Ja Ja, not long after she's solo'ing Bakool Ja Ja, his groupies, and hired mercs
This is the first expansion of FF14 that I would encourage people to use a story skip potion on when it becomes available. I am that letdown by it.
After playing FF14 for almost 4 years, Dawntrail actually got me to the point where it made me try out WoW.
I'd have never seen this turn of events coming pre Dawntrail.
I overall didnt like the story, great themes but poorly executed, but gameplay wise DT feels really good
I love how everyone forgets to mention that Wuk Lamat’s VA wanted Bridget from Guity Gear’s VA cancelled for being a woman when Bridget is trans
And yet Wuk Lamat is a woman
Double standards much?!
The story wasnt good wuk lamat is a boring character but the fight designs are amazing
I think the game is so outdated now. Not just on how they present the story telling but also in the way they implement all other contents. IMO the graphic update is not enough to counteract this. They need to try something new and take risks. Everything in the game seems recycled and nothing really feels new. Even the new classes feels boring and uninspired imo.
The only issue with the arcadian is i didnt get to cook the announcer medium well.
completely unrelated question…. where is your accent from? 😮
People are critical of Wuk Lamat for various reasons.
She had too much screen time that the story actively pushed for it, she pushes aside other characters to elevate herself, and the characters that are pushed aside are dummed down to raise her up. She is written like your typical Shonen anime protag/Mary Sue. She just gets strong out of no where because shes the main character and theres no actual build up for it. I get that people bring up the argument that we are mentoring her but at the same time it feels like we arent. A mentor is someone one who is going to challenge you. Not just for your strength and grit, but for your ideals and what you are fighting for. That never happens. We just keep elevating and reinforcing Wuk Lamat just because shes a good person and has good intentions, and we never challeng her on her views.
In regards to the VA Sena Bryer, lets be real here her voice is just objectively awful on all fronts, shes an amature VA who got placed in a major lead role and did a poor job in execution and line delivery. Her voice is completely monotone. It lacks any emotion or range, and the performance she gave was just god awful. But of course you have the keyboard/ssj warriors who will use Sena's identity as a deflection from these criticisims and be completely disingenuous while making horrible generalizations of anyone who is critical of Wuk Lamat and Sena by extension. Nevermind the fact that Sena has made awful and inflammatory remarks and posts on her Twitter. She's just an awful person.
Now regarding DT's story. The whole reason why its been mixed is for various reasons, ranging from story pacing, to story telling, the message, and the under developed characters like Kaona, Krile, Zoraal Ja, and so on. And while I appreciate the FF9 references, as someone who liked FF9, I have mixed feelings about how it was executed. Lets be real here almost all of the later half of DT is back to back FF9 references, from Alexandria, to the caharacter references, little easter eggs in S9 and even parts of Living Memory. But…ill be honest if thats all what the expansion has going for it…then its really bad writing, because what would the experience be like for someone who hasn't played FF9, or know the story of FF9, or if they dislike FF9. I can imagine their experience wouldn't be any better or worse, but i can imagine it would be hollow.
I'm really in the minority that I actually really liked the MSQ. It felt like a good beginning and set up for a new story.
I don't mind our WoL taking a backseat or mentor role once in a while, but damn we're stupid. I mean like…really, really stupid. Our character stands around basically as an extra for a large majority of the MSQ letting awful things happen around them when we should be taking action. Our inaction has so many consequences in the story, and it's ridiculous after everything we've been through that we would be so passive. And then to top it off we need Wuk Lamat's help to save the day? This lady got kidnapped by a random group of thugs and required rescue, threw everything she had into an axe swing just to effortlessly get repelled by a one-handed Bakool Ja Ja, etc. I'm supposed to believe that in a matter of days she has suddenly become so strong that she can not only whoop Bakool Ja Ja and his merry band of lizardmen all on her own, but we also need her to bail us out against the final boss just so Square could try to force another Zenos moment? We have been to the edge of the universe and eat gods for breakfast; I don't buy that we needed Wuk Lamat's help when she couldn't even help herself just days prior. This was character assassination.
What I didn't like : Wuk Lamat stealing so much Spotlight from Erenville and Krile
What I like : Surprisingly, the Job Changes. They don't look like much for the most part, but to me many still feel surprisingly good so far, like Samurai and Bard…and I honestly like Black Mage, though that's likely because I never understood how to play it before^^
I do wonder if FFXVI being developed in tandum with Dawntrail hurt it in some way. It just strange to see a game that is so well written, with such great characterization and with so many lore hooks to be reduced to the bare bones almost kids cartoon story of Dawntrail. All to introduce a key…
Hot take: I liked the MSQ
The negative reactions are not just negative for the sake of negativity: They have reasons for their complaints, and are asking for genuine discussion on how to improve on these issues. I don't see how burying one's head in the sand and pretending that everything is fine is good for ourselves or for the game. We can enjoy future installments in the story if those installments are good – ARR was very bad, but the Crystal Braves and Teledji stuff was pretty great! Stormblood was a mixed bag, but the patches were spectacular! – but it is our right as customers to say that the product we bought was not up to the quality we have come to expect. I'd argue that we absolutely should be loud, because suppressing our honest opinions will make it impossible to discuss anything about the game. Discussion is what keeps interest in a story alive, not blind love. One would hope it is positive discussion about things that worked and what we could learn from those…. but if the story is bad, we must have the ability to discuss that openly so as to foster a community that allows for free expression. There is no better way to destroy a fanbase than to silence a group.
Story is bad yea. All the characters were written poorly. The main cast were pingponged between smart and capable to brain damaged. Wuk Lamat especially switches from powerful and smart to mewling kitten and brain damaged on a whim. Even the scions arent exempt from this. Like the part where she gets kidnapped? That was so obviously a scam, yet the supposedly smartest people in the world all just decided to stand by and…. wait? Not to mention its literally a straight path, did they all go blind spontaneously or what?
Speaking of standing by, the whole stand and watch syndrome got even worse somehow. When lizardboi got killed and the key dropped, everyone just stood by with their mouths agape like some kind of moronic ape. Why? Just take two steps and go pick it up. Whats with the spontantenous lobotomy?
Its so bloody puzzling. To go from sb and ew story to this travesty is just embarassing.