I’m optimistic and let’s talk about why…
Yoshi P face from thumbnail at 39:10
https://www.youtube.com/live/JhNkQv_wUj4?si=Kbwh318jQWytKRCP
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 an interview Yoshi P did with PC Gamer at Gamescom concerning the feedback to Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail ‘s MSQ !
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I don't know this whole thing kind of made me remove myself from the final fantasy community it's already some things that have him say certain things about certain topics Yoshi P himself.
But then you have people hating on this whole new expansion that takes place in a area where there is supposed to be people of color a rich background with lower and mythology outside of the range that we normally get in the final fantasy games in general be one of the most diversive evil loved or hated people attacking the voice actor who did a phenomenal job. Because I can tell you some of the other voice actors were they English characters lack a lot of emotion in their voices and sometimes it bothered me how their voices didn't match the scenes especially early on in ARR.
Because even if I didn't like some of the characters they grew on me very quickly in the story was very good. And that's not me being a final fantasy fanboy it just was good writing It made sense that it was not going to match the last two expansions because they were the end of a long saga. This one was supposed to be an entry to a new beginning and it felt like that. Unfortunately the community rip this down, tearing it to pieces even harassing the voice actors. It was horrible and honestly I'm happy to take a step back for a while.
Hopefully we'll get more improvements I do like what they did with the combat for the first time since I started this game this expansion made me want to do a savage and extreme which I never felt confident enough to do until now. Because of that increase in pace and mechanics it made me more comfortable and willing to try.
Hopefully all of this enthune and you just go back He used to be and not this mayhem.
Personally, I liked the concept of the Rite of Succession. But it wasn't fleshed out enough. It really did feel like a chore at times instead of being engaging. It was Wuk Lamat's journey; but it wasn't as investing for the players since we didn't really have a connection with her from the get-go. Now, if we had replaced Wuk Lamat with a character like Lyse, it would have resonated a bit more. But leaving it this bareboned with a new character and trying to force feelings on us in rapid succession didn't stick as well. I think they should have extended the Rite of Succession's objectives and kept Alexandria as a post-game scenario; or narrowed it to a point of being insignificant to the overarching story and instead filled it in with something else— perhaps even simply finding the city of gold. Perhaps it would have given us more time to care for Wuk Lamat as a character and feel more in tune with her story. It forced us to interact with the other characters, which was fine. But you could really tell at times that it was trying to make you feel a certain way unsolicited.
I still love the game. The story even had some great moments that resonated with me as much as the other expansions. But if I had to look at it critically, there were definitely some pacing issues.
EDIT:
Also, after watching this video and thinking about how overpowered the Warrior of Light is compared to the overarching world now (understandably so considering everything they've been through), I also think a good decision for moving forward would be to weaken the Warrior of Light somehow in the story. Kinda like Samus Aran somehow losing powerups in every Metroid game. Hydaelyn's Blessing should eventually run out and prevent the WoL to essentially being this unstoppable powerhouse. It might not resonate with everyone, but many story elements become obsolete when you consider "Why didn't the WoL just stop it? Haven't we slayed literal gods on more than several occasions?" It could be an option so we don't require some ungodly powerful menace to make us feel tension. I think using the concept "Hydaelyn's gone and her blessing is waning" could help with overall investment? Make it so Hydaelyn's Blessing was a reason for our strength. We're still powerful after the long journey; but not quite as infallible as we once were when we essentially had the Mother of all Primals strengthening us.
It's not just Wuk lamat taking up all the spotlight, the scions were as useful as background character playing a tree in a stage play. They offered nothing of value to the story despite their experience across the expansions. Alisaie struggled with feeling weak in comparison to the WoL and her brother, even feeling like she failed to live up to her grandfather but grew through her struggles. Yet she doesn't share any of this with Wuk Lamat who is weaker and not as knowledgeable as her brothers. Alphinaud formed the Crystal Braves and at its height,it fell apart, learning the hardest lesson of his life. Even working with the Garleans to rebuild from the Ashes and the hardships that come with it and yet he does not convey any of this despite Wuk's naivety and lacking of leadership. G'raha gathered survivors into a thriving bastion in a world on the brink of destruction, his struggles and sacrifice were never once a topic to Wuk or Sphene. And finally we get to the point of going into Living Memory and the one person who has a thirst for visiting other shards, crossing between realms and we end up leaving Y'shtola behind because "Someone has to babysit the gate". At that point, it felt like they brought her, Thancred and Urianger back just for fan service and nothing more. I understand they are starting fresh, wanting a new story after the 10 year journey but you can't just erase the experiences and lessons learned from the character's lives. That is what makes the characters who they are.
I kinda disagree with u. Endwalker was delayed due to dialogue. But even then outside msq dawn trail has too many issues to name thank god for arcadian raides tho
If wuk lamat will be following us into 8.0, im going to be an msq skipper
I wanted to give Square the benefit of the doubt and give them the chance to learn a lesson from this one but it really sounds Yoshi really is up his own ass on this one
This was ROUNDLY hated and Wuk was a lightning rod for people who just could not stomach the direction they took
Go ahead and don’t learn a lesson from this Yoshi. By all means.
You will be the one who has explain the cratering player numbers to the corporate overlords. In fact, just give us another Island Sanctuary instead of more glamour plates or player customizations
You are doing fine
I can't believe people are crying so much. Genuinely wasnt that bad. Ok it isnt tailor-made for you get over it?
I just dont like the answer given because its dismissive. Because it sounds like he expected that fans would be unhappy cause it was not as grand as SHB. This is an issue because this is not the first time they did something of a new direction ingame. HW was literally a solo story plot. It went on one expansion and it was complete. We had some prep work in post ARR to it but nothing else. So its very clear that they could have done a good job in one expansion… I dont like this excuse that its because its a "restart"… to me this is just a big fat bad job done. I would have rather liked the answer that "yes we are aware, we are already working on / have a continuity to the story that we hope the fans will love". Their only saving grace was the game content, cause battles were def the highlight of this expansion.
so the vacation was a lie. We still have to save the world from apocalyptic events 🤣
Shadowbringers was in a whole new world with all new characters, Emet Selch didnt exist as a character til the final patches of SB. He had existed exactly as long as Wuk Lamat did. Sure they had ascians etc but almost none of the lore in ShB existed before it. Yet it was amazing. Amaurot was super impactful in ways Living Memory just didnt. The big difference is the entire main story of ShB was one story. The first 7.5 levels of DT are entirely predictable and are a different story than the Alexandria part. Was slow and predictable then rushed the part that needed more time. Saying its a new story is an excuse. They have shown they can tell a new story and do well. They just didnt this time.
Yoshi P is checked out, he ended his vision with Endwalker, he's sitting back, collecting and phoning it in. If you are expecting the game to be received poorly, thats when its time for you to go. Period.
The whole of dawntrail feels like an anime movie to a series like Naruto, One Piece or Conan. The movies are their own universe and fan favorite characters are just there for fanservice. Also these movies don't interact with the series. It happens in their own bubble. DT feels just like that.
Is he addressing how butt ugly Female hrothgar are?
The story was garbage. At the end of the MSQ: I didn't care about anyone new introduced, the events were not memorable, and everything just dragged. And yes, all the EN voices were low quality to save the story. Ganna be hard to stay the next couple years in the game, let alone 10 years if they keep this pace.
I disagree with his statement on Wuk Lamat. Making her "confident" would have made her more insufferable not less. Whenever I hear people talk positively about her it's her issues that made her endearing to them. In fact most people's complaint about her are about her is that she hogs the spotlight overshadowing Erenville and Krile the most important characters of the second half. Making her "confident" to me sounds like they'd go down the route of another over used girlboss character. And we don't need anymore of those.
For me i didnt hate DT's story ie being more on the side as Wuk lamat's mentor but all the fetch quest and non VA cutscenes was a real drag all the battle content is great though so i would have liked to see a bunch of those MSQ fetch quest dropped in favor for MSQs with Instance fights instead and can give some reason like we are teaching Wuk lamat x so we decide to fight/spar against y ect.
I liked DT. Yes unironically. I’m starting to wonder if people like me just haven’t really been speaking up because the people that did dislike it are so very, very vocal about it. I had fun. It was like a 7 out of 10. No I didn’t mind Wuk Lamatt. No I didn’t mind not being the MC. I found that kind of refreshing. I liked the characters and the cultures, and was thoroughly interested throughout. I suppose I just fall on the other side of this polarizing release, but hearing people count how many times we talked to Wuk Lamatt was kinda cringe. I never cared. I never counted. I even liked her. The VA was a little flat at times, but I didn’t hate her. I hated Stormblood. I quit the game twice during that expansion. I never wanted to quit playing DT. But to each their own
It has nothing to do with the story, but the delivery. The story delivery was terrible. The potential was there but they set themselves for failure the moment they lowered the bar themselves for themselves. This could have been a One Piece ish call to adventure but it was so slow and made so uninteresting that it put a lot of us to sleep. Hiding behind a “new story ark” excuse will not do.
Could’ve fixed the pacing and kept Wuk Lamat’s arc by having her be knowledgeable about the first few areas but then not knowing much about the rest (ie. the Mamool Ja)
I actually liked it way more than Stormblood on release. But well, that isn't much of a compliment, Stormblood got saved by the patch content MSQ. I feel like outside of pacing issues, the VA directing was one of the biggest issues of Dawntrail.
No story shouldnt be changed for smooth brains.
The fact you keep calling the PC the warrior of Light shows you dont get the story as much as you think you do
The way I see it, Yoshi-P is just doing damage control right here. Remember, even if he is the game director, he is NOT the boss of the entire project; that would be Square's investors and bosses. We have known Yoshida for so many years, and he has strived for nothing less than excellence for this game, but the fact that he was "expecting mixed responses" means he was okay with the direction D.T. was taking at the time of development. They overestimated themselves and thought since FF14 is pretty big now, then they would get away with anything such as hiring a trans v.a, having an average story at best, and overall remaining silent for exactly 2 months until now. After all, the reviews were in since Dawntrail came out. Anyway, despite its flaws, one thing I will give to them is that content-wise the game feels great, and they improved many things within the game with combat design being one of them. No one can say the raid series hasn't been great or the extreme fights were lackluster.
DT seems to have a LOT of plot holes from what i can see. First one, when Sphene is visiting the kid with the illness where his body is too far leaning to lightning aspect and saying there's nothing they can do for him, i'm sat there just yelling we have a cure for this, there's an entire post Shadowbringers patch that is us literally finding a way to cure this problem, and they don't bring it up once. Second, why didn't Kriles parents just stay in the source when they dropped her and key off instead of going back, they literally say that have been trying to erase themselves so their knowledge doesn't fall into solution nines hands, they could have just stayed in the source and then solution nine would never have got their hands on the knowledge. Third why does Erenville have a Icelandic accent when his mum and everyone in his village clearly has a American accent and if anyone says he may have developed it as a cover on his travels like his name change then why did his mum or anyone that knew him not bring up the fact that his accent sounds completely different now? Aside from that the plot was just waaay to boring and strung out in the start to the point where it actually felt like a chore to try and complete this expansion. Last problem is the fact that they kind of just ripped off the story of FF9 in the end, solution nine was just the lifa tree that was processing souls and the whole dimension hoping and world merging was pretty much just the plot of Terra needing to merge with Gia to continue existing
My thought on this expansion was patrick the whole time. The scary air ships are floating there…. menacingly.
Really disappointed with this response to the community. I didn't find Wuk Lamat the character annoying, for the most part her quirkiness was ignorable. What was annoying is how much the writers focused on her, she was the main character of the product and that's not what was advertised. It doesn't help that her eng voice actor is antagonizing people on twitter now, which is a common pattern when it comes to problematic writing like this in other games. What I'm concerned about now is that CBU3 is being compromised by people of like mind and Yoshi P is being made to stay quiet about it, likely by Square Enix who tends to have tons of bad ideas & making them go in this direction might be their latest.
Stormblood executed a story about exploring someone elses homeland(s) much better, without making us a side character. It was ultimately about liberating Lyse & Hien's home countries, however in doing that they managed to tell a story that was still mostly about us by using Zenos as a foil and in general making us the face of the effort. Dawntrail did none of that, it just seems like one of the writers made an OC and made the story all about their OC with 0 mind or care for the actual player character. The consumer. I hope if they already had patches planned, they take them back to the whiteboard, because more of what they did with Dawntrail isn't going to work. They gave these new writers a shot, they failed to make something appealing to the majority of their players. Do not let them cook again if you want to keep subscriptions, that's just basic business.
ARR was a lot better than DT in many ways. Better world building, better character development, even more cities on our maps. ARR had a nuanced, gritty political MSQ that told stories of the tyranny of the rich over the poor, xenophobia, racism, immigration, political infighting, environmental authoritarianism, conquest, refugees, and mystery. DT didn't even come close. Alphinaud was so obnoxious in ARR that I wanted to toss him over a cliff – and the writers gave him a fitting comeuppance. How clever was that? Of course ARR shows its age – it is 10 years old. But I'd have taken ARR's MSQ, its side quests, its many lore filled dungeons and optional hard modes ANY DAY over this FF14 spinoff.
And try to keep me engaged by waving Azem McGuffins/time travel/shard travel whatever in front of me? What's to assure us they will not burn through those as quickly as they burned through FF9 and Alexandria and whatever shard that was.
As for throwing player fantasy in the trash and replacing it with a new character – in this case Wuk Lamat – the producer does not broach this topic. Wuk isn't the problem. The problem is that FF14 now plays like WoW – the player watches their heroic Faction Leaders do Heroic Things in cutscenes, while the former "Champion of Eorzea" stands around nodding.
Also, say goodbye to the Scions. I understand they made some mistakes here, and I understand they definitely did try. What I don't understand is why they made the mistakes they did and why they don't seem to see it as many of us do. Maybe we'll never know. I wish them the best going forward.
They wouldn't have had a mixed response if they had kept Ishikawa in as the writer.
Her writing is what made the first half and the post-content of Stormblood good.
Her writing is what made Shadowbringers and Endwalker good.
Suddenly changing hands to someone who failed the last time they were given the reigns is a colossal mistake.
all I hear and see not with just you but many is whining cause ENDwalker and ShadowBringers which had huge story line behind it was so well and THEN but this new stuff is just shit it is suppose to be character development for the other character and a story build upstarting fresh not some BS story just thrown together tooo many people expected a story like the last 2 instead of what EVERY and I mean EVER MMORPG START out like when you are getting a fresh slate. If you have not played another MMO then do it and see if you don't get somewhat the same feeling any new MMO is that WAY. OH and if you don't like my generalized OPION on this IDC I'm tired of everyone and there mother thinking oh it sucks because it isn't the best thing when story and stuff isnt completely perfect when a new game or era of a game comes.anyways i had my spill I dont need a reply just tired of seeing this like everything else out there .
But did you speak to Wuk Lamat?
absolutely right with solution nine, the only thing i cared about was to get to solution nine asap and this made the previous bullshit with woke lmao and the rite of suck session even worse. im still mad at this bullshit even tho im not playing anymore, and yoshi pee admiting that he allowed this absolute atrocious crap on purpose makes me wonder if i want to spend my money on this game anytime in the future again
Can't wait for the 7.X series to come out and be the same slop. And even then people will still be copeing, saying it's not that bad. 😂
Krill should have had more screen time!
Its good to see that Yoshi-P is listening from the sounds of it. He may not have touched on everything, but i think we can trust that he'll convey criticisms for Dawntrail to the rest of the team. I mean, after 10 years of proving they DO care and try their best to listen, i think we'll be safe with what's to come.
At the end of the day i still found this expansion to be enjoyable. Tural is absolutely beautiful and I loved seeing all the new areas and places. Not perfect and has some noticable issues, but overall I enjoyed this base expansion. Looking forward to the after patches and all that's gonna come with it. Especially Hidlibrand!
The article reeks of the phrase "executive meddling" and given the fact that and I know people will go "but OP that's a conspiracy" Sweet Baby Inc. was a active consultant firm for Square Enix until a few month's ago apparently where SE decided to cut ties with them. Meaning that the XIV story we got for Dawn Trail was probably screen past people from SBI for "cultural sensitivity" and BS modern audience buzzwords.
I mean SE has a habit of executives meddling in products that do well enough just because they feel they know better due to the fact of their placement in the corporate food chain. Now add in a western NGO (because SBI takes money directly from Canada's government) that has a very bad habit of alienation of a game's core audience….and you get trash stories.
As other's have echoed, Yoshi P should have known better after the mixed reception of Storm Blood's story arc. Not only that but he even delayed EW's release to clean up the story (as someone has mentioned). Meaning that Dawn Trail was basically a sacrificial expansion on the altar of executive meddling using a firm that is well known in the gaming community of the Midas number 2 touch (have to skirt Youtube's AI somehow).
Shadowbringers released July 2019
Endwalker released December 2021
FFXVI released June 2023
Dawntrail released July 2024
Remember
No one ask for beach episode
No one ask for vacation
No one ask to be in shadow of another character
It is just like the outsource consultant yoshi p mention before ( SBI but they dont want to say it cuz of backlash) help them with the story and they dont want to agree with the mix review so they dont upset them and lose the support money square enix receiveing from certain company (black rock)
If yoshi p keep doubling down in wuk lamat and this type of story telling, gg wp the story is dead.
Thanked him for saving the game back then but currently, especially after this interview, it's clearly proved that they didn't double check DT before release and there is a huge disconnection between the teams. He's clearly playing tone deaf game with this respond. People never had problems with the characters themselves but the childish writing. To be fair, even if we removed Wuk Lamat from the story, the writing was just so cringe and immature. The dialogue choices felt like placeholders. Even when he thought 'if we wrote Wuk Lamat to be a more confident character', she will just be the same as she already was: flat, 1 dimensional and no real growth. The world adapted to her naive ideology and that's not how it works. DT story was written as if it was the very first time the writer got to write a hero journey while they only wrote cheap comedies for their whole life.
A lot of people make this mistake, where they assume the issues with Dawntrail is that it's not as impactful as Shadowbringers and Endwalker. I just don't get it.
Before the launch, everyone was saying how excited we all are about this low stakes summer vacation expansion where we have a friendly rivalry with our fellow scions, and find a lost city of gold. It sounded like a ton of fun, and it didn't need to descend into saving the world again.
It's just a poorly written story. Nothing more to it. They didn't need to make a bad story to establish new concepts to be built upon for the upcoming expansions, and they didn't need to give us a big conflict to make us care. Think about all the beloved sidequests that we do that almost never have any sort of stakes. What happens if we fail in the Hildibrand quests? A bunch of incompetent villains might get a bit further before someone with some actual skill comes to knock them down a peg (AKA. Godbert and Julyan) What happens if we don't do the Omicron quests, or the Lopporit quests? the people of Mare Lamentorum and Ultima Thule stay sad and without purpose.
These quests aren't "end of the world" high stakes, but they're not nothing. we grow to care about these characters, and put in the effort to see their story end happily.
Let's say in an alternate Dawntrail, The only parts of the Rite of Succession are to find the Golden City, and best Gulool Ja Ja in combat. Wuk Lamat, Koana, Zoraal Ja, and even Bakool Ja Ja are all close friends who all would make for a good choice for the throne. The competition is less about proving who's best suited to lead, but a simple sibling rivalry where they all compete to prove they're the best. No bad blood involved, no prospective ethnostates, or worldwide war mongering, or cultural erasure. Additionally, the Scions would be split between the four competitors, and play the part of rivals just as well. We'd get to see them throw some taunts our way, and we'd join back together if and when a real threat arises.
Most of the zones would be about searching for what information we can about the Golden City, and helping the people with their issues in the meantime. Maybe a historian who might know something has been kidnapped and held hostage in a dungeon, and we need to get him back. Maybe the chief won't grant us access to their sacred archives until we handle the hoard of beasts terrorizing their trade routes. One singular goal that we work towards naturally instead of just going 1 to 7, and we're good.
And of course, cut out the Alexandria stuff almost entirely. Or at the very least, have it be set up as just something the locals know about, maybe we interact a bit, but it's mostly just setup for a future story. Kind of like the Ala Mhigan refugees or the Coerthas questline in ARR. Parts of that story was good, but it still just felt way too jarring. and the tone was all over the place between whether we're supposed feel uneasy at what goes on there, or explore it like it's Disneyland. It's like they just didn't have confidence in the story they were already telling, and rewrote it half way through, squeezing the Rite of Succession into just the first three zones instead.
All that to say, we were promised a chill summer vacation, and we ended up saving the multiverse from a megalomaniacal soul stealer trying to create and maintain her race of perfect immortal drones.