I’m not exactly surprised that basically any controversy vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XIV’s most recent expansion is pretty much completely focused on the story (with maybe 5% reserved for “Viper is too complicated” or “Pictomancer is kinda unbalanced,” half of which is correct). In terms of content, mechanics, dungeons, and so forth, it’s neither better nor worse. The graphics update is nice, but the pieces are familiar. And so a lot of your personal reception is going to come down to whether or not you personally like the story, which is also not the same as whether or not the story works or the places where it doesn’t.
Today’s Wisdom of Nym entry is about that last part, which is one of those things that can often be a struggle to recognize. To use a personal example with the game, though: I personally do not like Thancred. I’ve not cared for the character through his entire history in the story. However, even though I don’t like him, his interplay with Ryne and his general arc in Shadowbringers does work and is well-written and hits the right notes. Dawntrail has some parts that are going to hit differently depending on whether or not you like the characters. But what parts genuinely do not work? I’m glad you asked.
Also, needless to say: Yes. Spoilers ahead. It has been a month.
Doubled stories are not easy, and this one struggles
This is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the biggest real issue. A doubled story is a story that is, essentially, two stories that are a single work; the novel The Neverending Story is a good example. And Dawntrail is absolutely like that; it has a three-act story that starts with heading to Tural and ends with Wuk Lamat as Dawnservant, and then another three-act story starts up with Alexandria, Sphene, and the Unlost World.
It’s not an accident, and you can see why pretty clearly: If you just blew the quest to become Dawnservant out into the whole expansion, it would be intolerable and padded, and you need that story for the second story to make sense. But you can also see the problem. The story ends at the end of the third act, and then it starts up again, and you need to really nail that restart without the audience feeling like they have seen a whole tale and can go do something else.
That’s tough to do. And it does not totally work here, either.
Part of the problem is that the first story is very much a tourist’s expedition, in which basically every segment is “travel to this region of Tural, learn about this culture, have a culture-centric adventure.” There is character development going on with Koana, Bakool Ja Ja, Zoraal Ja, and of course Wuk Lamat, Krile, and Erenville, but it isn’t always front-and-center. (This is, I think, why it doesn’t work as well for some people; it’s hard for Wuk Lamat vs. Bakool Ja Ja to land at full force when they’ve interacted directly a couple times.) The second story is where the stakes really elevate, but the tie to the first story is entirely reliant upon that character development.
Our weakest story point comes when we wind up in Shaaloani for very little reason and go on what amounts to an extended sidequest because it’s something to do. It’s not bad, but it has a big “when are we going to get to the fireworks factory” feel. And the strongest character-based storytelling absolutely comes in the expansion past that point, but getting there can be lopsided.
Erenville shouldn’t be here
I know that I mentioned not liking Thancred, but I want to open this off by making it clear that I actually really like Erenville. Especially by the end of the story. I like having a character who is a bit more cantankerous about being taken out of his comfort zone, an archetype that clearly worked really well when it was Emet-Selch doing the same basic routine. The problem is that Erenville being with the group and constantly being a downer is… actually a bad thing!
We don’t have a clear idea of what’s motivating him to hang around. He doesn’t provide a useful viewpoint or a set of skills we otherwise need. He doesn’t seem to want anything until we finally finish paying off his mother’s plotline in Living Memory. And to be clear, that’s a great moment. I am a big advocate of the idea that getting plot points right where they matter more can override making mistakes when they’re less important.
But when the expansion is, as I mentioned, kind of a tourist run, which some players are not going to be as into, you kinda don’t want one of your major mouthpieces to be sighing and asking why you’re bothering all the time. It’s the wrong way to deliver lines. And we don’t even have a sense of what Erenville is hoping to accomplish in the process. He’s just the WoL’s friend and Wuk Lamat’s friend, so he’s there, but he doesn’t seem to have any skin in the game until Heritage Found.
I’m hoping he gets some good development in the patch stories; if anything, the continual nature of the MSQ means that the end of the launch expansion really doesn’t dictate the final evaluation in hindsight. But in the expansion proper, he’s just a tagalong telling you it’s boring when you do not need it.
A lot of the characterization requires really close reading
By the time I was listening to the dope-ass trial theme for fighting him, I had a really good idea of who Zoraal Ja was as a character. Zoraal Ja is a character who survived when he wasn’t expected to, but he struggled to differentiate himself beyond the mere fact of his existence. Everything he accomplished seemed to just be expected of him as the son of Gulool Ja Ja, and he had no way of measuring up. You can feel it in every part of his interactions. He needs to surpass his father’s legacy of conquest even though his father didn’t conquer anyone. His powered-up phase form shows up with an empty head where reason would go! This is obvious text!
…through the trial and after it, anyhow. Up until that point, it’s pretty much all subtext.
Don’t get me wrong; I love me some subtext. The problem is that when you are hanging a lot of your plot on understanding why this lizard has so many issues, you need to make sure that your players understand it. And here’s where the doubled structure rears its head again. There just is not more space to really dive into making all of this text, so if you catch it (or you have someone who is catching it), you understand going into the fight. If not, it can feel backfilled once the fight has started, and while there are scenes that clearly establish this, they are quietly present rather than demanding your immediate attention.
I’m using Zoraal Ja here as an example, but pretty much everyone outside of the three characters you travel with is definitely applicable in this regard. Heck, I’ve seen some people argue that Krile got a lot of her main development offscreen, and while that’s inaccurate, the story has kind of primed you to think that way based on other developments. The main tale demands attention in a way that Endwalker didn’t.
Tural has too many societies you’re touring
This is last and arguably least. On the one hand, yes, you should have a whole lot of different societies on a whole continent. On Eorzea you have five separate city states, at least nine different tribal societies that we’ve ultimately explored, and then a few more on top of that. It’s not that Tural is somehow a problem for having Moblins as an idea.
But over the course of this expansion we are being introduced to at least a dozen different totally separate societies and trying to understand them, which is a tall order. And some of them just… don’t really connect. It’s hard to feel much about the Shetona when we never see them separately from Alexandria, the Moblins don’t even make a whole lot of sense, the Pelupelu have no reason for being tiny humans except to have another tiny merchant race… it’s a lot.
And that’s not even counting the stuff we know should be here but we haven’t seen yet. For example, the Whalaqee are seen only as part of the Fisher quests, and while those quests are delightful and I love them, we were all waiting to see these people, yes?
It’s easy to start tuning out at a certain point. And again, for a first half in particular that is focused heavily on introducing all of these societies, that can be a bit of an issue.
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, assuming that there’s nothing massively surprising or unexpected to talk about in patch 7.05 (which I’m not expecting), I’m going to flip things around and talk about the narrative parts that do work really well. Not that you need to know that my overall assessment is still positive (I stand by my first impressions; I wrote them having finished the story, after all), but I think they deserve some consideration before I talk about the conclusion I’m ultimately building toward about why I might like this expansion more than Endwalker in a lot of ways.
Wisdom of Nym: The story beats that really work in Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
Wisdom of Nym: The actual storytelling issues with Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s Arcadion brings the noise
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s delightfully light role quests
The Soapbox: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail, mortality, remembrance, and last chances
Wisdom of Nym: Spoiler-free impressions of Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s leveling dungeons
First Impresions: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail is a dense summer getaway for the MMORPG
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s relatively smooth early access isn’t a sign of doom
The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.
