ZJ is the perfect example of someone trying to break out of his father's shadow the wrong way.

TFW you go to meet Alphinoud first and only go to Ahm Aranag 2nd. You "though" you have an idea where this is going and how... You are so wrong.

Well... The thumbnail technically wasn't wrong but she really didn't matter that much. Only 3 lines matter and it really feels unnecessary. Even without our adventure in the 13th you could probably deduce fairly easily that there might be problems with taking a foreign soul into your body.

I'm really confused at how these multimillion dollar games can't have people just play test it before releasing. Even have someone play the story first before it gets released. My take is probably this was done in Japan and not in North America and the play testers were afraid to criticize the makers. I thought they should have significantly shortened the right of succession to about 1/4 of the game and the 3/4 could be about Alexandria. I enjoyed Shaaloani (a few people thought the break in between was weird).

If you cried at the end of Shadowbringers then you knew how incredible this expansion was. By far the best story/expansion for FFXIV.

The Ivalice alliance raids in Stormblood are definitely relevant to the Endwalker raids. Also, the third Variant dungeon in Endwalker is very relevant in Dawntrail.

I think a lot of the problem with Stormblood stems from having two separate writers, one for each half. This caused a lot of character development to get a quiet reset when coming back for the Ala Mhigo half. As a person who adores the 14 story and has played through twice (3rd time planned in a year or so) I did not like Dawntrail. I did not like it to the degree that I haven't been able to start it with my alt. The pacing was terrible, the characterization was terrible, the story was an absolute mess. Wuk Lamat is a victim of the above and wasn't a deciding factor to me. Though I am the exact opposite on Lyse Vs Wuk Lamat. Lyse had an excuse for not understanding the realities of fighting a resistance war and how occupation affects people since she grew up pretending to be someone else in entirely different settings (hers was a lot of the character development that dropped between part 1 and 2 of Stormblood). Wuk Lamat was written like a moron. We read three or 4 library books in 6.55 and I went in knowing more about Tural than she did. She didn't even know anything about the people in her city much less the people outside of it. She would have been much better used if she had been intelligent and had been the one guiding us around and teaching us about Tural and its people. Instead we had to teach her how to wipe her nose and tie her shoes. She was also locked in a cripplingly juvenile idealism for the entire story. The wuk Lamat at the end credits was the same one at the title screen. She might have learned some things but she didn't develop from them. This story was a victim of its writing.

Raubahn is the leader of Ala Mhigo. Lyse was the Resistance leader and afterwards became councilor to Raubahn.

The main problem with DT is the quests. They're repetitive and boring. The "Talk to Wuk Lamat" meme is too freakin' accurate; that's easily 90% of the MSQ. Take a step, talk to Wuk Lamat, take another step, talk to Wuk Lamat, go down the road, now talk to Erenville (or Krile, if the Devs felt daring that day). And it's not for any major plot beats: it's all filler info that could've been handled much better. One of the other major things I hated was Erenville's narration every time we hit a new zone. Erenville always tells us how to feel about the area -- a major writing mistake and usually a sign of piss-poor writers. A good writer never tells people how to feel. She writes the scenes and describes what we see; what we feel about it sould be an intensely personal reaction. He also narrates all the history and lore of an area in a big boring info dump (just like Lyse insisted on doing in StB); it's stuff that should be discovered by interacting with the NPCs and quests in smaller chunks and personal stories. In comparison, take Shadowbringers, when we first enter Norvrandt. We wake up in that rich purple zone, walking thru the dreamlike purple grass and weird trees and looking around. No narration. No one telling us what we're looking at or how to feel. We get no info until we bump into the familiar-looking trader, and even then, it's a natural conversation, no info dumps, no long descriptions of what we're already looking at. It's an effective, dreamlike opening, which hits like a truck a bit later when you see the trader's ring... But in DT, we get info dump after info dump after boring narrated-description-of-what-we're-seeing after boring NDOWWS. We're not allowed to see and look and feel for ourselves. The writers are violating the major rule of effective writing: Show, Don't Tell. We're *told* constantly. We're not allowed to feel for ourselves. DT is, at its core, a good story, but it's greatly flawed by bad writing and worse quest design. (Just discovered your channel a couple weeks ago, and enjoying the vids! Keep it up!)

VTubers opinions dont count

I'd also like to say the long story is allowing ourself to heal

The lady screaming perfectly captures how I felt lol

I think one of the issues with the Endwalker patches is that they don't have original content. The story is more or less a retelling of FF4 with nothing major changed, compared to the usually fairly subtle or transformative references we're used to in XIV. I can't imagine having been someone who's played FF4 who got to look forward to... no original story... for two years. We didn't even get a side trial series storyline to distract us because the MSQ cannibalized it. Either you liked what you got or you were screwed for over 24 months. Another thing about the warriors of darkness storyline is that it maybe took up 2-2.5 patches of content? It was a side issue for a vast majority of the HW side quests while we fought Nidhogg. The Void storyline more or less took up 4 patches of content, since we didn't really interact with it in a meaningful capacity until 6.2. That's a LOT of time spent on one storyline that isn't base expansion content. I think another reason why I think the Void arc wasn't well received was poor storytelling. As someone who has recently dealt with a character in a ttrpg whose entire personality also was "I don't know how to be a human so I need people to teach me to be one", I realized that it's REALLY hard to write that sort of character without it becoming either forgettable, annoying, or smothering. With the recent Wuk Lamat references to Naruto and his "Talk No Jutsu", I'm going to also point parallels between Zero and a character from that anime called Sai, who goes through a very similar process and is also not very favored by fans of the series. To be honest, I think Zero's character was done well until 6.5. The transformation into a Paladin was super pander-y to anime tropes and people who played FF4. I think her decision to just let Golbez off scot-free because "friendship, emotions, and mutual trust" is a complete letdown. The worst part of it all, in my opinion, is that we then leave them in the Thirteenth, so what character development does happen to literally anyone in the patch content is locked away for us to rediscover later. In contrast, while the WoDs go away at the end of the HW patch quests, we got character development for Alisae, Uringer, Yda and Papalymo, and even Emmanelain of all people. People call it filler because, if you removed the entire Void arc from the story, literally not a single thing changes about any characters, their development, or their dynamics. It'll pay off down the road, sure. But it definitely made those 2.5 years of waiting hurt a lot more. I think the current issue is that whoever is on the writing team, as Ishikawa has been moved to supervisor and no longer really gets to put proverbial pen on paper, leans far too into typical anime and storytelling tropes without understanding why they work in the context of their individual stories. If they want to improve and create another Shadowbringers or 6.0 Endwalker, I think they need to take some time to do some literary analysis and learn more about the community that they're writing stories for.

My welcome to endwalker moment was level 83 trial :D :D :D :D:D :D :DD:D:D Actually, frankly speaking, I was a bit more creeped out by the moment after the trial than I'd have expected to be xD. And FRANKLY, EVERYTHING leading up to Vanaspati was way worse for me than the welcome to shadowbringers moment.

As an FFxiv titan veteran. It gaol.

People spread a lot of misinformation about things they disliked about the story/world building/lore/flavor & have VERY strong opinions about plot hooks which are directly addressed in not only yellow quests but also stuff in dungeons people get rushed through, things on the map, & optional dialogue before and after quests. This is why it's objectively untrue that it's value-neutral to rush players through content, even if they're good at the mechanics & their role in combat - it's a narrative-based MMORPG, not a skinner box of raid content like WoW or Lost Ark. The meta for FFXIV has always been about knowledge of the story, world, & characters. No wonder people who only obsess over numbers are miserable. It's not their kind of game in the first place, the pacing is WAY too slow for their tastes, but they desperately want to force it into being a conveyor belt of raid content just like any other MMO & that's... weird.

If only ff16 had a single dark moment besides ifrit eating phoenix's neck

it cant be filler when we actively participate in the balancing of ether in both 1st and 13th. It's crazy of consequences and can either lead to restoring peace in both or be vulnerable to terrible fuck-ups from new antagonists. It drastically changes the way we see the interactions between worlds and may lead to crazy new things

I remember my reaction to this scene "Oh she's dead.... OH... OH SHE WISHES SHE WAS DEAD"

Doesn't change how bland the character and writing was.

This is why I'm more excited for 8.0 than 7.0. I know we're trying to downscale the world because we can't keep giving stronger enemies forever but the Lunar Subterrene dungeon gave me a strong Shadowbringers style foreshadowing. I just hope Ishikawa is heavily involved in whatever void story comes next

Thank you for this! A lot of people say they'll go back to clear out those side quests when leveling an alt job ... and don't. And they're really not that useful on their own because they give about 25% of the XP and MSQ will give. They can be really helpful if you just need a few small taps to get leveled for the next dungeon, especially when you are trying to level multiple jobs via the MSQ. But whether you're in an area for the first time or coming back there are several reasons to at least click on the quest giver. Perhaps the main one is that particularly starting with HW, many side quests give gear as rewards. Or they give emotes or minions. I love how you feature quests that fill in important lore (without saying too much about it). Most zones have one side quest that turns into a 4-5 quest series that adds some character to the people and/or their cultures in that zone ... and many are required as unlocks for Tribal quests as well. There is one HW questline you did not mention here tho that is essential for lore freaks like me. It's the Scholasticate questline (and it's tangentially related to Hildebrand as well in a serious way). If you're not familiar with it you should check it out. One other reason to do these side quests, particularly with the normal raids: they change details in your story -- I think even in the MSQ in a few places, but I may be remembering wrong. There are NPCs you only meet in side quests that play critical roles in the lore of the game and if you never meet them, then you not only lose dialogue options you get a different cutscene. If I didn't skip side quests on alts I never would have known this. They're only very minor, almost photobomb-like appearances ... but you can't have those NPCs appear if you've never met them in the first place.

This is the terrifying moment in the game for me. I had basically the same reaction as Alisaie when we both saw Tesleen transform. And just realizing that Tesleen died in EXCRUCIATING AGONY right before our very eyes was just horrifying!

I had a welcome to ARR moment The fate of the Flame sergeant I team up to fight Ifrit, was trully shocking for me, something I've never forgotten The fact that later on a cure for tempering was discovered, made it even worse

Lol, there are like five "Welcome to Endwalker" moments.

The "welcome to endwalker" moment for me was right after beating Zodiark. You find out that was all planned, and now the end of the world is set in motion. Getting back and seeing fire raining from the sky, hearing the man talking about the sins that will unmake us, the fact the sky was horribly reminiscent of the end of 1.0, that was my definitive "welcome to endwalker" moment Edit: something I noticed that just makes this all even more tragic is when you fight her later, the way she moves implies she's still fighting against her transformation, trying to hold herself back, to stop herself from fighting you but failing despite her best efforts. Tesleen was the most tragic character in the whole game from beginning to the bitter end

The Sineaters aren't just similar to zombies; they are indeed zombies. It's explained in the healer role quests for Shadowbringers. They're fully dead, they're just being puppeteered by light. It's why the Cardinal Virtues exist to begin with, since they're corpses later raised into undeath by being infused with light.

In every expansion, every patch, the developers have expanded the lore and introduced dozens to hundreds of lingering plot threads to use later on. even if the developers do not know at this moment exactly what they will do with the 13'th, they've left themselves a lot to work with later on. This isn't the first time people in the community have proclaimed something as filler content, and each time so far it's come back up later and became a massive deal. Let's have some patience please and see where things go.

yo the majority of tips has nothing to do with getting more out of the story dude ...

I think the big difference between Shadowbringers and other expansions is that Shadowbringers starts with everything going bad much earlier. Or rather has gone bad before we as the WoL even show up. Other expansions, it takes like 30-50% of the expansion to get to around to showing the real problem the WoL is having to deal with. So the "welcome to xpack" simply happens far later, not necessarily reducing the impact of their moments, but also coming in too late to set the tone for the entire expansion, as much of it has already happened. DT Spoiler Below: I'm of the opinion the Welcome to DT moment is the Wuk Lamat vs Bakool Ja Ja fight you control. Because I think it underscores what DT is going for: And that is one of hope and positivity. Not only is it one of the cooler moments of the entire expansion so far(damn that Warrior ult was sick). Its also the turning point for Wuk Lamats character where her positivity, passion, and hope gives her the strength to put her ideals into practice. Back up her beliefs, and also exemplify them. People associate "welcome to X" moments as dark moments. But the point of DT is not darkness at all in my opinon, even if it has that in Zoraal Ja and Sphene. Which is kind of why they don't hit as hard as villains as someone like Emet does.

This is a great example of motivating player. I wish we had a little more scenes like this.

What made my experience so memorable and depressing is having to see Tesleen herself as a boss for the first dungeon and then having to strike her down... :'(

I've been enjoying the side quests in Dawntrail (and parts of Endwalker) a lot recently, since I decided to give Viper a try when my Paladin got overleveled. Back in the early days (circa 2013-2014), though, I grinded through a lot of the ARR side quests and the memories of them are basically lost to time. I can't even remember if they were enjoyable.

"Your adventures [in the Source] will be a lot more light-hearted in tone." Gaius Baelsar would like to have a word with you.

Yeah, Shadowbringers is a massive tonal shift. The whole expansion is top tier. Endwalker is incredible as well.

the Welcome to EndWalker moment is definitely the first trial, hands down.

In my opinion, 1. the reason why Endwalker patches really emphasized being a filler is because this arc was THE MOST of the MSQ patches 2. We were used to closing the book of an expasion around X.3 of patches 3. Base Endwalker story feels like it tried to squeeze in story in 6.0 and it should've finished around 6.3 4. YoshiP and devs come out on record that they're are not really planning on the long run for the MSQ and they are using the random seeds they planted int the past to see witch ones would grow the best 5. (and this is just my personal take) these patches feels like you took Shadowbringers Ultima Weapons trials side story and placed in MSQ to feel the gap, i won't deny they can make good things int the future, but this is how it feels at the moment

To make matters even worse, shes one of the boss level Eaters in Holminster Switch, and hatched from that cocoon nearly instantly Which means all of the cocoons we see in Holminster... We arrived mere moments too late to save those people.

Post EW literally was planting the seeds for future expac like 8.0 or 9.0 where we go back into the void

Like tataru learning a clases that was not filler either or Crystal tower

I do feel like they don't really capitalise on the remarkably grim storyline of the sin eaters. It's a warning as what could happen to Tesleen might happen to the Warrior of Light, but I feel as if it didn't quite go anywhere. Possibly because I can't think of any character on our side (sad selch-daddy aside) who actually perish during the MSQ. Properly that is, not just the crystallization. That's not to say it's not a good story, but I wish that there had been a little more heft and cost to it. I still got emotional at most of the story beats, not knowing it was going to be all okay, but I hope that we end up getting another Vault sometime soon. Something that's going to be a real proper gut punch. And I will WEEP. And it shall be good.

I hate "welcome to shadowbringers". It's such a cult like behavior to go to a streamer and spam that line.

When's the last time we got some random one-of characters with their own backstory as a whole MSQ patch, and then just forgot about them (allegedly). The Warriors of Darkness is the last one I can remember. Hmmm...... Ah my habit for making comments before actually watching the video strikes again.

Well this aged poorly.

11:18 killing her off without even a cutscene was kinda mean.

0:58 was that what I think it was? The beginning of the WotLK cinematic?

the welcome to dawntrail moment is : "speak with Wuk Lamat" because that's all you do

this is why i love shadowbringers! i had the same reaction! i wanna delete my memories of shadowbringers so I can enjoy its story again!

Why did they move the writer of shb away from writing to a management position… Dawntrail is extremely disappointing story wise. Like seriously we got this? Whole of shb and mostly endwalker? Such good writing and story telling, all this to get Dawntrail?

Nice montage of weak minded fools. E: It doesn't work. It's HILARIOUS! What idiot turns their back on someone/something with a singular function to kill them?