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idc what anyone saids i rank Dawntrail ahead of Shadow bringer but not HW, most are claiming its like stormblood or even worst then endwalker. Dawntrail will be a perfect example on how difficult it is to be a MMO programmer. square enix listen to years of feedback to make a extended main story quest to make everything grindy and once they do. everyone complains about the MSQ being boring and not make any sense. i got DT better then SHB based on the zones looking better and the gathering mount that cost oarnge scripts.
I am of the opinion that the best way to play the DT MSQ is to treat it like the vacation that Yoshi-P said it is.
Just chill, maybe have a cold drink in hand, enjoy the new sights and sounds and just go along for the ride. For once, the fate of the world is not in your hands.
I think this is the first time the FF14 community would not be triggered to use the skip button in story quests. I think people would be grateful for it this time around.
It's wild that you dont get a single fight until 10 hours into the msq (if you read fast)
I guess I'll have to get used to my favorite game bekng trashed on for another 2 1/2 years. I guess it's been good. The people with that awful copy/pasta will just be vindicated for time to come.
I'm not sure if Zepla was just tilted by the Hanu quests (very understandable lmao), but I was really surprised by Zepla saying the Fonjeantaine quest felt contrived/forced. There have been way bigger on the nose forced/contrived moments in other expansions such as:
1. Chai Nuzz just so happens to be the ex president of the golem making company and has the perfect knowledge we need to get to Mt. Gulg.
2. Emet and Hythlo just so happen to be at the exact spot and time that elidibus shoots us back to from the CT
3. Time perfectly flows at the same time as the source right as we get to the first.
4. No one trying to heal Haurchefant, even if the WoL is a healer (before the retcon).
5. G'raha summoning the souls of our companions to the first, so they can be there for the story.
6. All of the races in Ultima Thule having problems that exactly mirror the struggles our scions faced in their stories.
I could go on and on, and don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater of any of these things; I love the stories of these expansions. But the Fonjeantaine quest was less than or equally as contrived as these and was relatable for a lot of people. Lots of people feel inadequate and get caught up in comparing themselves to others. Yes it connected to Wuk Lamat having similar feelings, but I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to complain about this in a vacuum while ignoring that ffxiv has done this all the time since ARR.
THANK YOU, Zepla, for speaking your honest thoughts on the quality of the msq so far. Your critique was word-for-word to my description of how this story fell short. Hamfisted, over-reliant on tropes, bad pacing, and dull. We really deserved a lot better with this msq, and I’m sorry to say that some of it does get more interesting, but I think you are also going to take issue with a lot of the later msq as well.
We definitely should all complain more about lack of voice acting. Every story would be greatly enhanced with more of it. I hope they listen and try to fit more in next time.
I get she is suppose to over react for content but it was actually cringe watching her make unnecessary faces. Its kinda sad and pathetic. I didnt care for the story but her acting this way is childish
At 3:46:35 I don’t know if this came off the same in the English VA, but in the Japanese VA Krile is saying what Hydaelyn always says to us, (“hear, feel, think”) and it comes up many time in the expansion and i think it’s just a great callback to how we are now carrying on Hydaelyn’s ideas and mission after what happened in endwalker, makes me feel like the WoL is basically the mother crystal for others guiding them
Zepla's separation anxiety from Erenville.
It feels really weird watching this and seeing Zepla being extra nitpicky about everything and complaining about every little thing, and i think it's because she went in knowing about all the negative reviews and the mixed reception. She would never say anything bad about how convenient it was that Chai Nuzz was the president of the golem company in ShB and knew everything we need to get to Mt. Gulg like another commentor said. It's too bad really, i feel like she would've enjoyed herself more if she hadn't known about the mixed reception.
lol i rolled my eyes unintentionally during that one part where she said something about how the music doesn't fit the scene, like seriously?? it just feels like she HAD to complain about something there, it's weird.
I appreciate your honesty making it a lot easier for people who didn't enjoy Dawntrail to simply exist and have an opinion. Thank you <3
I think the main reason people don’t like this expansion is that it’s basically just the MMO version of an escort quest for the (so far) whole expansion
The last like 30% is good but my god…I was so sick of talking to 3/3 villagers.
I’m a writer, and a massive fan of the lore of this game, and the entire msq this time around is more contrived than a high school creative writing project. The plot, the character development, the conflicts, all of it. The music, setting, fight design, all the rest of it is top notch—I’m thoroughly enjoying endgame, and viper is extremely fun, but my god, that story was cringe.
lol, not even Zepla's commentary can save the MSQ — it's just so bad. Story, pacing, dialogue, characters — all sound like it's written by a middle school teenager. I literally just canceled my sub…I just can't take anymore of this.
My first few days of playing DT I just felt this… staggering sense of disbelief at how badly written the initial zones are. I didn't rush it. I took my time. Each zone I explored and did FATEs, did quests, unlocked flying.
It was just after where Zep stopped in the vod that I started to feel the urge to button mash through dialogue.
I'm now in zone 5 and I just want it to be over.
I'm devastated.
I have my own criticisms of the story too but nothing that would make me hate the story in whole like some people out there. I'm also able to enjoy the story on its own rather than constantly comparing to anything before, because obviously if you compare something to your favourite you'll always be picking up on things that you don't like.
So a cat watched a bunch of birds starving to death, knew the solution to their problem and said nothing? Are we pretending like he wasn't planning on eating those birds?
While it does get better, I don't think the writing is ever 'good' in this expansion. There are good moments where something was done right, but it's so few and far between. There's a lot of plot holes, exposition dumbs, constant 'tell, don't show', there's inconsistencies, the exact same message is preached every 4 lines and characters forget things that happened not 5 minutes ago. There were a few moments where you have flashbacks to previous expansions, and I got whiplash from those realizing this is the same game. I will at least say the art, music, dungeons and trials are all amazing. Despite my disinterest in this msq, these things made the expansion still worth doing.
The Hanu plot requires suspension of disbelief. Everything happens the way it does because that's the way it was written.
I am in full agreement with you about the story. It is so bellow par as to be unrecognizable and inexcusable. Wuk Lamat is just Naruto from Wish. There's almost too much humor and it's that safe, inoffensive, childish humor. The whole story is like that. And it's a rehashing of past plot points and character motivations. This is the Force Awakens for FFXIV. The new writers looked at what had worked in the past and "It would be better in my style." No. No it's not. Fire yourself.
the amount of people who are literally foaming at the mouth responding to every comment with "Yeah it gets worse, we call that wuk lamat'ing" etc are so pathetic LOL you literally cannot contain yourselves you must bring everyone, even those who haven't seen 95% of what you're talking about, into your headspace. They MUST know how BADLY you feel about it before they get there
jesus christ it's like actually physically revolting behavior
the writer who wrote shadowbringers didnt work on dawntrail at all and it really shows
Not to sound like a negative Nancy, but does anyone also feel like it's either night time or raining 80% of the time, or is it just me?
Mounts need to be dieable.
The Mardi Gras analogy murdered me
Yeah, you called it.. you were being TOXIC as all hell this stream. I'm 3 hours in and you've done nothing but nitpick and complain and over analyze. Spent nearly the entire 3 hours so far listening to you and that toxic chat nitpick on if the Hanu knew or did not know, this like throw away minuscule thing and guys couldn't fucking just drop it an move the hell on. Rehashed over and over again. Im pausing the vod to get some breakfast at this point, taking a break to see if I want to keep watching this hatefest. Its felt like you came into this episode/stream 2 looking to hate and bash it.
"Solve world hunger. Tell no one!" : The Grinch (Jim Carey)
It's like everyone is trying to keep Zepla away from Erenville to keep her focused.
I predict, by (at) the end of the story, Zep is going to want to beat Miss Mittens to death.
Like I said when I unlocked it, Picto felt like Black Mage with a.. with a.. with a new coat of paint.
What an absolute downer of a stream. Like even if the content isn't the best, one would think the content creator also has some responsibility to not let their stream descend into an endless moaning and whining fest for five hours. Yes the writers deserve some criticism for their writing, but you also deserve some for delivering a depressing, tedious and self-indulgent stream.
My wife and I were planning on watching your whole DT journey but we'll be bowing out, because who would watch this? And I agree it's not the best writing but this overreaction is just depressing and unnecessary. We'll watch Jesse's msq instead when he starts, since we know he will at least make some effort to deliver some type of entertainment, humor or something worth watching even if the game itself isn't stellar.
Wuk Lamat's plot armor is thicker than ours, and we can raise from party wipes. The story was so forced, and it kinda would make me think that a person that believes in manifesting destiny wrote it. Wuk Lamat's horoscope told her she needed to party today and she just got lucky that it coincided with the objective. I think in her case the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" fits her the best.
I have problems with Koana too, as he seems to just want to abandon traditions for the sake of progress, and that is bad, because you dont know why those traditions are there and how they could be important, for instance this part of the story. His solution could've easily led to relying on his solution, because he failed to discover the root cause that led to the problem in the first place. It is kinda like treating lead poisoning but failing to get the patient to stop using their pewter glass. But he is still the best candidate in this story.
Call it like you see it. CS3 is looking for reactions. If you didn't like it and didn't say anything, they'll make more of what you didn't enjoy.