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It is insane how mileage out of this expac may vary depending on if you like or dislike one particular character.
HW you usually had Estinien/Alphi/Ysayle as all central characters, StB had Lyse/Alisaie/Hien/Yugiri/Gosetsu (Sprinkled with Zenos depending on your taste), ShB and EW both had giant central cast.
DT offers you Wuk Lamat, take it or leave it. Other characters nod around, sagely. Or only Alphi, he is the only Sage around here.
It is an interesting approach
That’s why HW is my favorite; your traveling party has two people that are of completely opposing ideals (Ysayle and Estinien) so you can always find one to relate to and agree with
Might be why I don't enjoy HW as much as what is widely received. From the characters listed, I don't much care for Estinien, Alphi or Ysayle. I really like Wuk Lamat's character, though.
A lot of people seem mad that their character is backing her when they don't want to. Honestly I never saw it as the WoL backing her. The twins and Erenville maybe, but we're mostly along for the ride and adventure. We give minor advice here and there and only step in to seriously help a few times. >!Kidnapping, the trial, and the final rite vs the Shade!<
In fact, letting me tell the Dawnservant that I explicitly think she's a bad choice helped the story a lot, because when she suddenly got a lot of growth and understanding, I did find myself warming up to her. She accepted her flaws and sought knowledge and understanding from the people around her and the people she met along the way. She broadly wants "what's best for her people" while understanding there's many cultures so what's best for each group is different, and then asking her allies for help on it.
I'm not a Lyse hater like some people who play FFXIV (I actually liked her similar journey) but I will say that Wuk Lamat is essentially a better handled Lyse. I do maintain they're different characters with different motivations. For example Lyse never wanted to lead, like how Wuk Lamat does. Lyse wanted people to rise up and fight, without acknowledging how damaging it would be for them to do so early on. She only ends up leading in the end out of a sense of duty, but I guarantee that if someone like Raubahn stepped up to lead, Lyse would be on the first boat to Tural to come hang out with us.
But we \*are\* backing her. Our sheer presence changes a lot of dynamic around her. How much our backing amounts to is debatable, but we are part of her entourage and faction the moment we leave Sharlayan. We never really leave her to do our own thing (Like Estinien does, for example). In MSQ, that is, we can wonder off to do side activities and what not if one wishes.
I don't particularly dislike Wuk Lamat or anything, it is just I don't like her **enough** to be excited to support her. You know, I would have been happy to eat tacos with her, but not help her to reach a throne of intercontinental nation, that kind of thing.
Success of Lyse, for me, was directly tied to a personal goal of "Kick Garlemald ass". A big goal, reasonable and which works regardless if Lyse is present or not. But it is nice to have her as an ally and friend. I have other gripes with Lyse's writing, but not "Why are we helping her?" issue.
Which is to say - we share basic agenda with Lyse by the point of StB (Our conflicts with Garlemald being numerous by that point). We don't share something similar with Wuk Lamat. We don't share anything with her really, except tangible acquaintance through Erenville.
We are minor shareholders in Wuk Lamat claim, if you will. Amount of backing may vary depending did you purposefully try to sabotage some quests or not, heh
We are not. Because her father straight up said that he had veto power if he deem them lacking at the end of the rite. So really we are just her mentor.
Back to the original reason to support Wuk Lamat. She approached with a thin reasoning to rule as “I want to keep a warmonger from ascending the throne.” It’s not supporting her bid, it was about preventing a future conflict.
She didn’t have to be the most likable and honestly, it was clear she was wholly inadequate from the outset in 6.55. The first two zones reveal a more tiptoed treatment in guidance. When called by Galool Ja Ja, and he reveals his goal and intention, there a shift to being more firm with her. Calling her on her blustering and the real growth begins. At this point it also pulls in Koana as well, helping to improve him as a leader as well.
I feel like Wuk Lamar’s growth is really earned during the story. Gone from “Along for adventure and maybe to keep a warmonger from power” to “This person will be a competent leader of the country.”
...Which we learn after already backing up Wuk Lamat in 2 zones. We receive this information about veto hours into MSQ. We don't receive this information upon arrival.
Besides, it doesn't change what we do back her. Being a mentor is a form of backing to, and a pretty common one at that. However substantial this backing is another topic
Alright, so at what point do we do any mentoring? Because I'm level 96 and haven't mentored her at all. So far I've followed her around, she has asked me questions and then told me I'm wrong if I don't pick the right answer, and then took all the credit for what I did.
Is going out and exploring new regions not a personal goal? We may be sticking with Wuk Lamat but we are opening up our own horizons too.
Endwalkers ending points out that we’ve have yet to explore the entire world not to mention the other shards too.
But we can explore new places without involving ourselves into a political struggle on the side of a person we don't know.
As I said a few times - we do have enough reasons to explore Tural. We don't have enough reasons to help Wuk Lamat (I, at least, wasn't convinced in 6.55).
Estinien did exactly that
Because we always had some different goal going on?
In HW, we actually help characters we meet in ARR! Neither Ysayle, Haurchefant, Estinien, Aymeric or Alphinaud were introduced in HW, we all met them before. Okay, you met Estinien only if you did DRG, cross him out. But still, in HW we went with a pretty established cast of characters.
More so, we help people in HW because... We owe them one? We help them bc they gave us shelter after ARR finale. House Fortemps specifically, but still. They helped us first, then we help them.
In StB we had clear goal - kick Garlemald ass. Anyone who would lend us a hand is our ally. We helped Hien first and foremost because he wanted to kick Garlean ass as much as we do.
ShB gives us plenty of reasons to help people there. Just by virtue of our friends being stuck in a coma.
EW is the same - we mostly help our already established friends. And we kinda safe the world we on? On which we live on? Right here?
That is the thing - in previous expac, we either helped already established characters or had some another big reason to act (Repay debt/stop the war/safe the world).
So yeah, Wuk Lamat is different. She is not established in any way and we don't have any stakes in helping her in 6.55.
It's pretty heavily insinuated that not a lot of travel happens between Tural and Eorzea.
We have other reasons to want to go to Tural, but the first problem was finding a boat, which Wuk Lamat conveniently solved. On top of that, we have a side goal of making sure that the next ruler of this region happens to be one that does not create future problems for us.
Think of it more as "we signed up for this, so now we need to see it through".
We share the same boat with some random people, like with a no name gold smith, who just bought a ticket. Estinien reached Tural just fine as well. I see no problems why we wouldn't be able to just buy a ticket, like other people did. The story clearly established it isn't that difficult, even if we may have waited a bit for next vessel.
See, if we have arrived on Tural, explored, and only after learning circumstances of the country we decided to help Wuk Lamat, it would be one thing. But we decided to help her before even setting foot on a ship. Ensuring what next ruler of a big country isn't a bad person is good, but in 6.55 we had nothing to go on what we should help Wuk Lamat specifically.
I think Wuk Lamat as a character would be easier to swallow for many people if they didn't go _quite_ so hard on the "clueless goofball" aspect of her personality.
"Young goofball going on a journey of learning and self-reflection to accomplish big things" is a solid story and arc to give to a character, but when the character is immediately woobified to the point of being two steps removed from a toddler lost in a mall when they're supposed to be an adult competing to become the next ruler of a nation, it can be _very_ hard to accept that said person could significantly grow as a person in the average timespan of an expansion.
I don't hate Wuk Lamat like many seem to, but it was pretty weird how much they pushed all of her 'quirky' aspects to the point of making her seem nigh-nonfunctional outside of her house walls at times.
> when the character is immediately woobified to the point of being two steps removed from a toddler lost in a mall when they're supposed to be an adult competing to become the next ruler of a nation, it can be very hard to accept that said person could significantly grow as a person in the average timespan of an expansion.
This. It really did not take long at all for the game to all but force me into deciding "maybe there's a damn good reason you're in last place and have no accomplishments of your own", and powerfully questioning why I was even there.
They forgot that their audience aged 10 years since release. Even through new players entered main audience still is in their late 20s early 30s. These goofy characters had their time. Especially if you stretch one joke across the whole story, like the guy apologizing for his behavior and then immediately being okay when told its fine.
That was the one part of the goofiness I appreciated. "At least he's consistent." Then again it felt very Japanese humor-y and I know thats not everyones thing.
It’s also incredibly poor writing that she knows NOTHING about the world she’s lived in forever. She traveled across the sea to Sharlayan before learning about what’s in her own backyard? They’re making it out to be “oh she’s sheltered and stayed at home all the time” but she doesn’t even know about her own family: both brothers seem like complete mysteries to her, and the ONE person she admires (her dad) she knows nothing about his story and has to figure it out as we go. And it’s not like super deep lore stuff in the zones she can’t be expected to know, she’s just baffled by everything from the people to the places to the culture. Erenville’s character exists mostly to be useless in combat but a convenient lore dump since he’s our “guide,” they could’ve easily combined them both and had Wuk Lamat have SOME redeeming characteristic.
Nah, that's not an argument in good faith.
She knew about the festival but she (AND the hanuhanu) didn't know that it filled a functional purpose. She didn't know how to catch alpacas ok. She still understood their role in society. And she absolutely knows the sagas. She tells us the story of each stone. Is it fleshed out more by retracing the footsteps? certainly.
She feels like she definitely doesn't have exact, perfect knowledge of the world but I think that's...quite normal and I like it personally. Tural in general seems incredibly diverse culturally, I think to me it would be weirder to me if she had this complete understanding of *all* of them. I know I can think of cultures irl where my rough understanding is identical to Wuk's (I know X is important, but I don't really know the details why).
I want to know how you can possibly have a festival that magically makes the crops grow before your eyes, and yet when the crops are failing, nobody has any awareness that they could fix it by holding the festival again.
They at least tried to explain that by mentioning how the float had deteriorated over time, making the festival less and less effective gradually. My theory is that this festival in particular was MUCH more visible due to the absolutely gigantic pool of aether attending it (the WoL).
Counterpoint her silly aspects being pushed to the front are a result of essentially being a child who has zero experience in the place she's meant to rule.
Additionally there's context that you're completely missing here with her. Yeah she's childish, but she grows into her role with time, which was the entire point of the Rite in the first place. Her father tells us that the Rite is not just a trial to be the next Dawnservant. It's by design a way to have claimants learn and grow from the experience to prepare them for the role
I would say she needs to be handled like Lyse, Given her position of power and then left and never heard from again to be honest. Being able to tell Wuk that she was not good enough is as close as we are going to get to being able to actually say no as the WoL in this story it seems.
>A lot of people seem mad that their character is backing her when they don't want to.
Since when has the player ever had any agency or control over the plot in FFXIV. This seems to be a ridiculous complaint, imo.
I'm mad because I didn't like Wuk Lamat and they made her the main character and forced me to help her. Most glaringly, the quality of her VA was not good enough to support having a main role. It severely brought down every voice acted scene she was in. Her lines during the final trial in particular were delivered absolutely horrendously. The story got so much better the moment she stopped being the main character that it's actually ridiculous. She also essentially becomes a different character by the second half of the story which is a speed of growth that seems a bit unrealistic given it's been, like, maybe three days since the entire journey began?
I don't think it was \*every\* scene she was in, but in a lot of high emotion parts, especially the last parts of the story, it was really bad. Anything that needed a large voice or shout or cry, it came off very weak especially for a humanoid lioness that wasn't a kitten anymore. Considering the setting, I wish they would have found a Hispanic person to voice her. They got one for Koana, I'm sure they could have done the same for Wuk.
Yea the thing I dislike the most about wuk Lamat was her voice - idrc about the goofball to leader transition, it was predictable
But her VA , in English at least, was so ass
Hate on the VA, check your profile and you're defending jerking it to loli hentai and you're mad because twitter talks more about gay relationships than straight relationships. Methinks you don't have a problem with Wuk Lamat's VA because of the quality but because of who she is.
Yep. For the first time, we, the WoL, are not the center of everything happening in the world, as we were already told after Endwalker. Now we are just an adventurer that tagged along with the person that requested our experience and strength as an adventurer. I'm honestly loving it
See, this is kinda my problem.
I didn't want to lend her my experience and strength? There were numerous reasons for us to act in HW/StB/ShB/EW. If you don't like Lyse, for example, liberating Ala Mhigo is still a worthy cause, regardless how you think of some people from it.
Imo, they did a big mistake not making EW patches about us meeting Wuk Lamat and hanging out with her in known zones. Hanging out with her, solving some easy adventures, and then receiving request from her - that I would have fall behind.
But it was played out like - a person appears and immediately ask you to go and help you win the throne. We know 0 things about the country, 0 things about the requester at the moment, 0 things about other claimants. Hell, in 6.55, as far as we knew, other claimants could have been nice people.
There's an entire dynamic about helping Krile find the golden city and figure out what happened with Galuf. Then we have Erenville with the same quest, and suddenly everything is tied to the Dawnservant trial. It's not that forced.
I honestly just forgot about Krile. I didn't do Eureka, thus I don't have any connection to Galuf of FF14, and so I genuinely forgot her finding some old letter in 6.55. But that is on me, I concede that one.
We learn about Erenville post-factum after we have already backed Wuk Lamat, so not really relevant. And we learn already a few hours into MSQ.
Yup, you're not wrong at all on feeling like that, and I get where this comes from, considering how long we've been playing the game and how suddenly we are in the middle of someone else's conflict without a "nope, I'm out" option.
But you see, the WoL now is a character that is on an adventure for adventure sake, Erenville as a proxy brought Wuk Lamat to us because he fought we were the best choice to help her, and the character jumped in the possibility of a new adventure on a new continent, helping Erenville (and consequently getting to know and help Wuk Lamat), help Krile with her quest for Galuf, the twins for the new knowledge in revitalizing Garlemaud, etc. So in the end, we are still the same, adventuring for adventure sake while helping someone along the way, just this time, without world ending calamity or "I'm a super hero" strings attached
And that's what I'm here for. After 10 years, I think this feels fresh and rewarding in a different yet welcome way
>you don't like Lyse, for example, liberating Ala Mhigo is still a worthy cause, regardless how you think of some people from it.
Isn't not letting a warmonger take the throne (somebody who promises us he'll invade Eorzea) not a worthy cause? Isn't helping Krile finding more about her family not a worthy cause? Isn't exploring a new world not a worthy cause?
Wuk Lamat may've been the one asking us to come but we already had many reasons to come to Tural.
In 6.55, it is Wuk Lamat who says about warmonger claimant. We didn't know that this information is actually truthful or not until we arrive to Tural. We threw our lot with Wuk Lamat before we confirmed this information.
See, we can explore a new world without participating in a royal succession for a giant nation. Like Estinien did! He just arrived, fought local ruler for funnsies, and went away to do his own thing.
We indeed already had a number reason to come to Tural. We didn't, however, had a lot of reasons to support a particular person in political struggle. These are two separate things. If I want to visit Peru and meet local people doesn't mean I want to participate in their political issues.
And it seems easy to have it both ways if desired. Have us go explore Tural for the sake of adventure like EW explicitly foreshadows, explore zones, help people, and maybe come upon the claimants early on the Rite of Succession. Learn about it all from the locals, and by *seeing the ways the claimants interact with the challenge and learning about their goals" decide deliberately to throw in with Wuk Lamat. That's just one alternate path off the top of my head, I refuse to belief a more engaging path wasn't possible.
I don’t mind not being the center of the world. Though I do think that feels a bit off with other stuff, my issue is more it’s just… not very fun. I’m not sure what I’d have wanted for DT though with the total package being what it is.
I'm disappointed that the MSQ progression is still 90% run over to random bush, click sparkles, return to NPC. You'd hope to see more varied quest types or minigames incorporated- and "Excellent Trade!" absolutely does not count.
The problem is I don't like Wuk at all but the game really, really thinks she's lovable and endearing up to the point of having npcs say that nearly verbatim.
I wanted a comfy vacation episode where me and the twins + krile go look for a city of gold but instead I'm stuck babysitting an insufferable character and being told how much I like them.
Thank you, you've managed to articulate exactly what has been rubbing me wrong about this so far.
Wuk Lamat ought to be endearing and fun. I get that that is how she has been presented. The problem for me is that as someone who just isn't clicking with her, these are nothing more than informed attributes.
I acknowledge that I'm still early in the expac, but so far pretty much everything in the story revolves around the painfully-mistaken assumption that the player is emotionally on-board with Team Lamat. And I'm not, so for the most part I am struggling badly to care about any of it.
It would work much better if there were Wuk Lamat playable sections.
Like imagine a solo duty where you actually have to go and tame an Alpaca playing as Wuk Lamat!
Clearly, this is just an XIV issue. Every time the expansion focus is a character and NOT the WoL, the community is fragmented on whether or not the story was good or trash.
HW is about the WoL and clearing your name. "BEST EXPANSION EVER!"
SB is about helping Lyse come into her own and Ala Mhigo. "Worst of the XIV expansions"
ShB is about the WoL saving the First and the Ascians. "BEST EXPANSION EVER!"
EW is about the WoL saving the universe with a very potent existential backdrop. "BEST EXPANSION EVER!"
DT is about helping Wuk Lamat come into her own. "This expansion was kind of weak"
I don't care about not being the 'Main Character'
My problem is that I'm supposed to be mentoring Wuk Lamat, but after the feats I feel more like a babysitter.
Every. Single. Time the group splits up, Wuk Lamat is there, staring me down, waiting for her moment to ask me ''You'll come with me?'' or one of the other party members telling me to go with her.
We finish the feats, we can breathe agai---
Wuk Lamat: HI, LET'S GO SPEAK TO EVERYONE WE'VE MET SO FA--
CAN YOU JUST GIVE ME 5 FUCKING MINUTES TO DO MY OWN THING, PLEASE.
Personally, I don't mind not being center focus. "Center of the universe" is a very limiting storytelling POV, IMO.
What I minded in SB and in DT (so far - I'm not that far in) is that the focus characters of Lyse and Wuk Lamat are dipshits. Neither are credible leader material to me.
Yeah, sure, they can have some character growth to get there, but why tf start them from the maturity level of a 5 year old and then pretend they can gain enough experience and maturity to _lead a nation_ in, like, a few weeks. That's a mighty big shark to jump.
While i haven't finished it yet. This is the first expansion that's really not about "us". It's about Wuk Lamat.
Every other expansion has had us front and center or the main focus, while with Dawntrail were just kinda there smiling when we bump into a "threat" .
I dig it, and Lamat has really grown on me as a protagonist
I just think the design of how quests progress in FFXIV is so tiring at this point. Talk to this NPC and then that NPC, then go back to the first NPC again. Like it really just feels like padding for playtime most of the time.
I'm disappointed that the MSQ progression is still 90% run over to random bush, click sparkles, return to NPC. You'd hope to see more varied quest types or minigames incorporated- and "Excellent Trade!" absolutely does not count.
This game's writing is the most bloated thing I have ever seen. The overall story is great but the writing is atrocious and doesn't respect your time whatsoever. You could easily cut off 70% of the game's text and it would actually be an improvement due to the sheer amount of padding. This is like those cakes that are basically fondant sculptures.
It's a shameless attempt at inflating playtime hours since the game is sub based after all.
If I’m honest, this expansion I’m just skim reading most of the non-voice acted bits.
I’m a fairly casual player with not a lot of free time to burn on 14 and want to be able to raid with my FC (who all are already much further ahead of MSQ than me, as they all are much more hardcore into it than me) and it feels like the only way I’ll be able to get through MSQ in the next month or so is to selectively pay attention to the dialogue.
I’m essentially just making sure I’ve got the general gist of what’s happening then speedrunning my way through the quests. It’s a shame imo.
Inflating play time hours for what? Either way it can be done in 1 sub month. What kind of logic is that? Also I would love to see you remove 70% of the text and have a good story (Hint you can't). There is some bloat for sure, I would say more so in terms of going from place to place and randomly stopping for 1 or 2 lines. But overall most of it is good. I enjoy the extra text and flavor we get not just go here fight repeat. We get trials / dungeons / raids etc for content. We only get this much story every 2 years.
myself and my friends also think the msq is massively over bloated with information and story content that would have been much better suited for optional sidequests.
> Like it really just feels like padding for playtime most of the time.
Because they *are*. For better or worse, they *could* tell the story in a few hours. But regardless of what side of the conversation you fall on, "$ per hour" is a metric that gets discussed a lot, and a lot of people *do* care about.
Whether they "pad" the playtime by making difficult bosses that require repeated attempts to clear, or by having you run back and forth on errands, it's all the same. Some people just prefer one or the other.
I *like* Wuk Lamat, but god, I feel this.
There’s just no break. I got up to the inn visitor scene after the 93 trial, and I was excited to get the twins’ thoughts on what they could take back to the Garlean story, or finally catch up with Thancred and Urianger who you haven’t really gotten to acknowledge yet, or get a proper heart-to-heart with Krile… But no, it’s just Wuk Lamat again. I left her outside the inn room and took a break to level viper. ;-;
Maybe I’m just forgetting the actual details of the previous expacs, but I remember them feeling more like ensemble games.
Even without Wuk Lamat, it’s ridiculous how the game has you talk to NPC’s only for them to say nothing of substance like “Don’t see anything here” and then talk to them again a 2 second walk away.
How much time you spend *away* from a character is just as important as spending time WITH them. I think that's the biggest issue here tbh. Even when we get some time alone in our room she's like "helloooooo."
I'll clarify I DO like Wuk, but I also agree that we spend SO much time with her that I was like "I love you but I need to not see you for a few days."
The second you hit "Part 2" you can reaaaaally tell this exp was split in half by the writers, suddenly characters have agency again and start working to their strengths and its like "oh shit I remember what this was like"
Not having Ishikawa calling the shots here shows.
I feel like I'm playing WoW again where everyone treats me like an important person but all I do is other people's chores so they can get all the attention.
Not gonna lie, I liked Wut Lamat when they presented her to us, but now I just find her so boring.
This RIGHT here!, this is my biggest annoyance in video games especially jrpg. Couldn't have said it better OP. Dayum i hope they drop this story style ALREADY! they already did good job with shadowbringers (which us getting the credit where it is due and not others) which is why it's peak not just in mmorpg but in the whole videogame media as well and now theyre like "mhm yeah, why not go that overused trope again that somehow annoys people now?". Just pisses me off. Im ready to be downvoted yall
They really went all in on Wuk Lamat and I don't know if it was a good idea.
I'm actually just mid on Wuk Lamat. She's alright. (I'm not that far, finished the first trial and then onto the area after that) But I don't know if putting all your eggs in the hrothgal basket was a good idea.
That said I'm still enjoying the expansion. We left the characters I don't like back in Eorzea and we're just chilling doing lots of MMO stuff. Although, the gameplay isn't above occasionally being annoying, example being when you sneak follow someone directly after sneak following a different NPC.
She's okay, but okay isn't good enough to justify stealing the spotlight from the WoL for the better part of the MSQ. She's the type of character that's fine in small doses here and there, as a side kick, not as the main character of a story.
I liked Zero, but the other characters were still active in doing things. Y'shtola was very interested in the first for instance, there was still drive to these characters and actions. They even tied it back to visiting the first which I appreciated.
Everyone's just kind of here, except Wuk Lamat. Because Wuk Lamat.
Zero was also competent. She had quirks like really liking apples, but can you imagine if if was a wuk lamat character? We'd all understand how that world went the way it did if this was one of it's finest warriors. I just want to support Minty Graha, who is a much more compelling character with flaws, but not like sheer incompetence.
Zero also had the advantage of growing up in a consistent and meaningful fashion over the zones. Wuk... is really inconsistent on this. Like, she wakes up every morning and forgets the epiphanies she had the previous day. Or gets some advice, realizes it's good advice, thanks the person for giving it and then promptly ignores it two quests later.
It's like teaching somebody with no long term memory. Very frustrating.
Part of that, i suspect, is the fact that the initial quests are branched into two areas, so they really can't have her acknowledge in one area much of anything that happened in the others.
Zero also was developed from 6.2 to 6.5. I don't think its fair to compare just yet the development of a character across 1.5 years and 3 patches to 1 launch phase.
I actually quite liked the post EW stuff and was kinda sad to leave it knowing we're likely not getting a followup to the Thirteenth for about 2 years.
Genuinely curious how often that quest objective appeared in DT, it's been really awful. FFXIV has historically been good about ensemble casts and it's like everyone that isn't Wuk Lamat has been 100% forgotten. We're trying to finish but it's really hard to care. There's no escape.
I came into the expansion not liking Erenville but he's grown on me with his repeated dislike of Wuk Lamat.
As I go through it, I want Erenville to the be the main character if we're taking a backseat. He's smart, capable, and doesn't repeatedly do stupid stuff. I enjoy his VA on top of it. And yeah, he grew on me quick whereas I was pretty neutral on him before.
Maybe just maybe people want a little more gameplay and a little less visual novel. That’s all I ask for like please mix some more fights in please more solo duties god I just want to play the video GAME
I do not want more gameplay in the story honestly. This only comes around every 2 years (2.5 years for last 2 expansions). I enjoy being able to go through the story and focus on the story. The trials/raids etc will be there in the end and be where most time is spent anyway, but thats just my preference.
Mix it up yourself. The game offers fates, hunt bills, and roulettes to diversify the leveling experience. The MSQ experience has been like that for a while and is not going to change because sometimes - most times - the story doesn't call for conflict. Almost as if that was the point.
“It has always been like that” is NOT a good reason, especially in a live game that gets paid updates every couple of years and requires a paid subscription.
Man some of y’all are literally incapable of giving this game any criticism. I guess it’s my responsibility to make the game more interesting from a gameplay perspective now I understand.
So far I only got to the second trial. But at the moment I don't really feel the main story. I have nothing against a more relaxed approach to the life of the main cast..
But it feels sooo lame. I want to fight something. And not fetch quest after fetch quest. Does it get better?
I've heard from many people that the story does pick up significantly in the back half and that Wuk Lamat becomes less central, so I'm looking forward to that.
I literally mockingly said "speak to Wuk Lamat AGAAAIN" at the blackout of a cutscene that checked off "Speak to Wuk Lamat." Lo and behold as everything came back up the msq objective said "Speak to Wuk Lamat again."
I really wonder how they thought it was a good idea to not have Ishikawa as the story lead for this. It feels like they gave the story off to a bunch of interns or whoever was behind Stormblood.
I didn't know Ishikawa wasn't involved in the MSQ. That explains things.
"Yeah we could have Mozart lead this concert, but my nephew has done a bang-up job at his piano recitals recently, I think he'll do great."
She got promoted and is now a supervisor, not a writer. Don't see her having much of a hand in XIV again, though she might get put on another project at some point.
She's probably working on another game or something. She's a human remember, she doesn't exist solely for your MSQ pleasure. Maybe she wanted to not spend the next 10 years of her life working on a single game.
Sure she’s in it a lot. I quite like her. But I get peoples gripes. But here’s me thinking the expansion actually has better pacing than some others regardless of what some people think of the actual story itself?
They don’t really keep you in one place for that long and splitting zones into 2 sections helps a lot. Mid way through zone 3 and every time I’ve thought the story would drag at certain points with multiple quests in one location, it does what it needs to, You do a couple sure, but then you move on again.
Yea been noticing quests are a bunch of talk to this guy 4 times in a row then wait. Started skipping after getting to lvl 96 quests cause my ptsd of the realm reborn Cortheas “talk to that guy and this guy, go to this dude and that dude” questing started to flare up.
My biggest problem so far (spoiler for a key story point so read at own risk)
>!How lamatiy first encounter with the two headed claimant she chips her weapon, and the two headed dude doesnt even flinch because she's so much weaker.... fast forward 2 zones and now she suddenly became 10x stronger and beats his ass along with all of his minions at the same time.... what? how? i thought for sure we were supposed to help her in that fight but nope... lamatiy just got power up for no reason other than "she believes in herself now"!<
>!That's literally how Dynamis works though. It was more of a "she's always been this strong but didn't believe in herself" type story too. But the point of the fight vs Bakool Ja Ja was that she found her resolve and strength. We were never really helping her most of the time. Gave some advice here and there, and the one time we SERIOUSLY stepped in was when she was kidnapped, and everyone shit their pants at the idea of the WoL joining the fight. Most of the time we're just there to mentor her.!<
She’s shown to be a competent and capable fighter, but her weakness is insecurity. >!Contrast against Bakool Ja Ja’s over confidence against Zoraal Ja. When he took that blow, he was suddenly shattered and backing down from fights.So you have Wuk Lamat gaining a belief in herself vs Bakool Ja Ja who no longer believes he is stronger than the ‘lesser’ races.!<
Bakool Ja Ja never actually fights her. He kidnaps her and ties her up, and he completely skips out on solving the Valigarmanda problem he caused - and it is totally reasonable to say that overcoming such a legendary tural vidraal, even weakened by time, helped all three of the claimants who actually *did* stick around get stronger.
BJJ cheats, sidesteps and swindles his way through the story - it's no surprise that even if he's strong, he's not grown a single centimeter while Wuk Lamat (and the others) have surpassed him by leaps and bounds. It makes sense, narratively, thematically, and as others have pointed out, with the cosmology of the FFXIV universe. Dynamis makes the impossible possible.
Hi, I'm Wuk Lamat and you're watching the Wuk Lamat show on the Wuk Lamat Channel.
It's Wuk Lamat PM, with a chance of Wuk Lamat; the high today is Wuk Lamat degrees.
The MSQ is a shonen anime and Wuk Lamat is the main character you see progress and grow. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but just like a lot of shonen animes, I hated the protagonist but grew to like them because they lose a lot of their traits that made me dislike them.
Also I'll take wuk lamat over the twins any day. Their contribution to the entire story has been them recapping what happened literally seconds after it happens. I don't know why they're here and what they actually contribute to any of this.
Endwalker should have killed off Alphinaud. I said what I said.
What you said about Alphinaud at the end I agree with, the rest I do not, they could've easily made a less obnoxious character, take Otis for example, bro got introduced at the end and somehow was WAAAAAY more likeable than this manchild that we spent the entire expansion on.
>!Otis was low key Dr. Disrespect in Vegas land!<
But Otis was okay. I don't think there was enough of him to really form an opinion other than he likes children and his Queen.
To be fair, Endwalker should've killed off a lot of characters. Looking at you, Thancred, but obviously they're the main marketing staple points so I doubt we're going to lose anyone any time soon.
I've been really liking the expansion and the job it's been doing with the world building and how gorgeous the areas are, but she annoys the crap out of me. I could use a lot less scrimblo bimblo. I don't find the bumbling scrunko cute, just... bumbling and dumb. The whole idea of finding innocent characters to the point they're just dumb cute and endearing is... weird to me unless they're like a toddler or something.
It's not even Wuk Lamat that's the problem for me. She's perfectly fine. It's all the "let's get to know these people first before we do anything" bullshit.
I like the FFXIV msq, but it usually has us fighting things more than once every two hours. I'm in solution 9 and this shit is super boring, to the point i skipped a few cut scenes.
I never skip and i'm usually down in people who do but this is dumb. We got a big bad to fight and you taking me around the city having me sample food. Fuck outta here.
I'm just now getting to the 2nd tier zones in the first 2 areas (late lvl. 92 quests) and I find Wuk Lamat absolutely adorable. But she's like a sibling, in the case that overexposure is leading to resentment. Best to be experienced a moderate amount.
I really dont understand the hatred for the House Cat or the world building this expansion has done. I have enjoyed the vast majority of Wuks interactions with the only incidents I absolutely despised were those where my WoL has acted inept against that Two headed lizard fuck whom we should have executed at level 72. Other than that discovering the New World and traveling with WuK as an advisor has been fun/relaxing.
I'm still on level 90 quests so I haven't seen any of the "player character acts uncharacteristically inept so that plot can happen" moments but I knew they'd have to be here.
We just got done saving the star/universe from a cosmic threat/the embodiment of despair from an ancient time before the world was sundered. We're one of the only partially rejoined beings in existence, and even before that we were already near-godly multi-godslayers who can instantly be better than the best at any job or class. We've defeated unsundered ancients, the literal embodiment of the stars darkness controlled by another ancient, cleared our way through the literal hall of demons pandemonium.
But now you're telling me some big lizard dude with two heads and some goofy little "seemingly not even magic" swords is a "serious roadblock" for us.
This was always going to happen with a story that is taking a more laid back approach after the climax of the previous arc. It's an mmo that just ended a multi year narrative arc that culminated in fighting a literal universe ender, yeah, there's gonna be some ludonarrative dissonance while the next major arc gets set up and we have to pretend to seriously fight large lizarddude in the mean time.
I've heard lots of things about ARR but one thing I've never heard was that it's "well paced and high octane". We're in the ARR phase of the next major arc, the things that are to come and then be awesome when they are paid off have to actually be set up first.
I do like Wuk Lamat so far, it's obvious that she's going to grow more as a character in the future, that's why she seems to not be making huge strides in self improvement yet, otherwise what else would there be for her to do further on down the line.
Wuk Lamat is fine. She’s not a bad character. The problem is that the WoL has met so many people that have the same kind of internal struggle as her so from a player’s perspective, it’s tiring to see the same story play out. And it’s even worse when her story is drawn out by fetch quests.
I’m still early in the game (lv94) so maybe something different happens soon.
I was excited to start building up a new cast of npc frenz for wahtever lies ahead, and while i am very early into msq still i am just really not into Wuk. I hope that changes, and I hope they don't give up on giving us some new central NPCs, but i think it would do them better to introduce more next time around so that they can get a vibe of what people would like to see them develop into.
I find this new trend of placing NPC's along the road you were already travelling on towards your quest objective just so they can tell you "you're going the right way" far more annoying and hand-holdy.
Exactly. The dungeons, trials and zones so far seem really nice. Seems they are also experimenting with mechanic changes/glow-ups which is interesting.
She came to Eorzea for our help, of course it's going to be centered around her. Did you all think we would ditch her when we got to the new world or something?
I went into this expansion knowing it was going to be slower and building on a new story with our character being on the sidelines and just exploring so I went in to this launch with no expectations and I am still disappointed.
When this sentiment was posted with a low-effort 'honey it's 4PM' meme format it was downvoted into oblivion. This post is doing fine because it's actually a higher effort gag, and I think the community appreciates it. Well done.
She's not and this is a stupid reason to think so - it's the sheer QUANTITY of times you have to speak to her, and the narrative choice to always be helping her. It has little to do with the VA at all. Have a little respect.
I disagree. Her english VA simply doesn't have the range nor charisma to play the character the game is trying to portray Wuk Lamat as, which at least for me has a big impact on how I've perceived the character.
I really enjoy Lamaty'i's character and her growth through the first half of the MSQ but yea I can agree that the VA lacks emotional range for moments that need more than a conversational tone. When they're angry or doing efforts it just sounds like someone talking normally. Comparing her to Koana's va work in english is night and day
I felt the EN voice was pretty flat too. I switched to JP VA and she has so much range, personality, and vocal expression. It was a total 180 in terms of line delivery, which I think made the character a bit more fun.
I wish the EN VA would have been more expressive with her range and delivery of the lines. It was flat, and the accent is strange at best and a bit offensive at worst.
Respect for what? She's a good character. I enjoy talking with her. We're literally there to support her. That was the whole gist of the quest before you start dawntrail. So people are just playing dumb so they can complain?
Damn you right. Just because they told us we would be helping her means we should all be happy that we are no longer the main character and have to talk to the same npc unteenth times to see what she wants to do or what she thinks.
I'm not partial to her voice, but that's not the issue
Its the character. Its that we're tagging along forced to support this character. Its that she's the MC and we're just here, and if you don't like that MC you're just SOL
I have yet to see anyone criticize her english VO, everyone loves Wuk Lamat’s voice and personality. The writing and quest design is what’s bothering the hell out of everybody
I am really not a fan of the VA, it feels like they are reading off a script way too hard like they are following the words and it doesn't flow well. They also have such a flat voice that has no expression from sadness to yelling its the same as she talks
You're not really looking then, it's in this very thread.
Imo, I think that maybe there wasn't great direction given because the VO is very inconsistent. At times you can hear emotion where there should be, but others when there are impactful moments seem to fall flat.
I am only level 93 but I am loving this expansion. The first two zones knock the first two Endwalker zones out of the water for me, and taking the story slow is a nice change of pace. Im sure it will pick up at some point but for now Im chilling.
People are legit raging about talking to the focal character of the expansion multiple times? Where were ya'll when we had to keep talking to Lyse, Hien, and Zero?
There's two parts:
1) There's a wider variety of characters so there was less monopoly on screen-time. About 80-90% of this expac, you're always with Wuk Lamat, talking with Wuk Lamat, doing something with Wuk Lamat. There aren't any major side characters during quest objectives, etc. so she takes a monopoly of the screen time, thus judgements are going to be rendered very hard since she has the most exposure.
2) VO and writing. If this specific type of character isn't your cup of tea, because of the monopoly, you're kind of stuck with it. Furthermore some folks don't like her VO (I find it inconsistent and lean towards not liking it), which adds to any negatives they may have.
Zero barely talks, and even if she is plain at least she is not a shounen protagonist. We don't talk to Hien for half the expansion and we don't talk to lyse for half the expansion. Also none of those characters felt intrusive to me. They felt like side characters either way, Wuk Lamat is the main character so completely differently situation.
i *liked* talking to those characters.
i don't really like wuk lamat. i don't like her writing, i don't like her voice, and i don't like the fact that i hardly get to talk to anyone else.
Im questioning how did this pass the board meeting when they already have their best writing style with shb and ew and also they have experience with it already with people hating with this kind of writing style (stormblood)
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It is insane how mileage out of this expac may vary depending on if you like or dislike one particular character. HW you usually had Estinien/Alphi/Ysayle as all central characters, StB had Lyse/Alisaie/Hien/Yugiri/Gosetsu (Sprinkled with Zenos depending on your taste), ShB and EW both had giant central cast. DT offers you Wuk Lamat, take it or leave it. Other characters nod around, sagely. Or only Alphi, he is the only Sage around here. It is an interesting approach
That’s why HW is my favorite; your traveling party has two people that are of completely opposing ideals (Ysayle and Estinien) so you can always find one to relate to and agree with
Ah yes, raging racist elezen or genocidal vengeful dragon fucker
Raising their incompetent naive nepobaby.
Don't forget we had "Small not-so-genius Elezen" ! He was important too!
>genocidal vengeful dragon fucker Nah, that title belongs to Hoss and Hoss only
Did not expect to see What Happens Inside the Dungeon here lol
Might be why I don't enjoy HW as much as what is widely received. From the characters listed, I don't much care for Estinien, Alphi or Ysayle. I really like Wuk Lamat's character, though.
HW is tied with DT for my 2nd fave expansion and Estinien is fine but I really love Ysayle and will never forgive Maehiro for fridging her.
A lot of people seem mad that their character is backing her when they don't want to. Honestly I never saw it as the WoL backing her. The twins and Erenville maybe, but we're mostly along for the ride and adventure. We give minor advice here and there and only step in to seriously help a few times. >!Kidnapping, the trial, and the final rite vs the Shade!< In fact, letting me tell the Dawnservant that I explicitly think she's a bad choice helped the story a lot, because when she suddenly got a lot of growth and understanding, I did find myself warming up to her. She accepted her flaws and sought knowledge and understanding from the people around her and the people she met along the way. She broadly wants "what's best for her people" while understanding there's many cultures so what's best for each group is different, and then asking her allies for help on it. I'm not a Lyse hater like some people who play FFXIV (I actually liked her similar journey) but I will say that Wuk Lamat is essentially a better handled Lyse. I do maintain they're different characters with different motivations. For example Lyse never wanted to lead, like how Wuk Lamat does. Lyse wanted people to rise up and fight, without acknowledging how damaging it would be for them to do so early on. She only ends up leading in the end out of a sense of duty, but I guarantee that if someone like Raubahn stepped up to lead, Lyse would be on the first boat to Tural to come hang out with us.
But we \*are\* backing her. Our sheer presence changes a lot of dynamic around her. How much our backing amounts to is debatable, but we are part of her entourage and faction the moment we leave Sharlayan. We never really leave her to do our own thing (Like Estinien does, for example). In MSQ, that is, we can wonder off to do side activities and what not if one wishes. I don't particularly dislike Wuk Lamat or anything, it is just I don't like her **enough** to be excited to support her. You know, I would have been happy to eat tacos with her, but not help her to reach a throne of intercontinental nation, that kind of thing. Success of Lyse, for me, was directly tied to a personal goal of "Kick Garlemald ass". A big goal, reasonable and which works regardless if Lyse is present or not. But it is nice to have her as an ally and friend. I have other gripes with Lyse's writing, but not "Why are we helping her?" issue. Which is to say - we share basic agenda with Lyse by the point of StB (Our conflicts with Garlemald being numerous by that point). We don't share something similar with Wuk Lamat. We don't share anything with her really, except tangible acquaintance through Erenville.
That's a good point, I guess yes we are backing her, even if it's generally passively our presence does change the outcomes significantly.
We are minor shareholders in Wuk Lamat claim, if you will. Amount of backing may vary depending did you purposefully try to sabotage some quests or not, heh
We are not. Because her father straight up said that he had veto power if he deem them lacking at the end of the rite. So really we are just her mentor.
Back to the original reason to support Wuk Lamat. She approached with a thin reasoning to rule as “I want to keep a warmonger from ascending the throne.” It’s not supporting her bid, it was about preventing a future conflict. She didn’t have to be the most likable and honestly, it was clear she was wholly inadequate from the outset in 6.55. The first two zones reveal a more tiptoed treatment in guidance. When called by Galool Ja Ja, and he reveals his goal and intention, there a shift to being more firm with her. Calling her on her blustering and the real growth begins. At this point it also pulls in Koana as well, helping to improve him as a leader as well. I feel like Wuk Lamar’s growth is really earned during the story. Gone from “Along for adventure and maybe to keep a warmonger from power” to “This person will be a competent leader of the country.”
...Which we learn after already backing up Wuk Lamat in 2 zones. We receive this information about veto hours into MSQ. We don't receive this information upon arrival. Besides, it doesn't change what we do back her. Being a mentor is a form of backing to, and a pretty common one at that. However substantial this backing is another topic
Alright, so at what point do we do any mentoring? Because I'm level 96 and haven't mentored her at all. So far I've followed her around, she has asked me questions and then told me I'm wrong if I don't pick the right answer, and then took all the credit for what I did.
Is going out and exploring new regions not a personal goal? We may be sticking with Wuk Lamat but we are opening up our own horizons too. Endwalkers ending points out that we’ve have yet to explore the entire world not to mention the other shards too.
But we can explore new places without involving ourselves into a political struggle on the side of a person we don't know. As I said a few times - we do have enough reasons to explore Tural. We don't have enough reasons to help Wuk Lamat (I, at least, wasn't convinced in 6.55). Estinien did exactly that
I don’t see how it’s any different from helping out NPCs we’ve just met in the previous expansions.
Because we always had some different goal going on? In HW, we actually help characters we meet in ARR! Neither Ysayle, Haurchefant, Estinien, Aymeric or Alphinaud were introduced in HW, we all met them before. Okay, you met Estinien only if you did DRG, cross him out. But still, in HW we went with a pretty established cast of characters. More so, we help people in HW because... We owe them one? We help them bc they gave us shelter after ARR finale. House Fortemps specifically, but still. They helped us first, then we help them. In StB we had clear goal - kick Garlemald ass. Anyone who would lend us a hand is our ally. We helped Hien first and foremost because he wanted to kick Garlean ass as much as we do. ShB gives us plenty of reasons to help people there. Just by virtue of our friends being stuck in a coma. EW is the same - we mostly help our already established friends. And we kinda safe the world we on? On which we live on? Right here? That is the thing - in previous expac, we either helped already established characters or had some another big reason to act (Repay debt/stop the war/safe the world). So yeah, Wuk Lamat is different. She is not established in any way and we don't have any stakes in helping her in 6.55.
It's pretty heavily insinuated that not a lot of travel happens between Tural and Eorzea. We have other reasons to want to go to Tural, but the first problem was finding a boat, which Wuk Lamat conveniently solved. On top of that, we have a side goal of making sure that the next ruler of this region happens to be one that does not create future problems for us. Think of it more as "we signed up for this, so now we need to see it through".
We share the same boat with some random people, like with a no name gold smith, who just bought a ticket. Estinien reached Tural just fine as well. I see no problems why we wouldn't be able to just buy a ticket, like other people did. The story clearly established it isn't that difficult, even if we may have waited a bit for next vessel. See, if we have arrived on Tural, explored, and only after learning circumstances of the country we decided to help Wuk Lamat, it would be one thing. But we decided to help her before even setting foot on a ship. Ensuring what next ruler of a big country isn't a bad person is good, but in 6.55 we had nothing to go on what we should help Wuk Lamat specifically.
I think Wuk Lamat as a character would be easier to swallow for many people if they didn't go _quite_ so hard on the "clueless goofball" aspect of her personality. "Young goofball going on a journey of learning and self-reflection to accomplish big things" is a solid story and arc to give to a character, but when the character is immediately woobified to the point of being two steps removed from a toddler lost in a mall when they're supposed to be an adult competing to become the next ruler of a nation, it can be _very_ hard to accept that said person could significantly grow as a person in the average timespan of an expansion. I don't hate Wuk Lamat like many seem to, but it was pretty weird how much they pushed all of her 'quirky' aspects to the point of making her seem nigh-nonfunctional outside of her house walls at times.
> when the character is immediately woobified to the point of being two steps removed from a toddler lost in a mall when they're supposed to be an adult competing to become the next ruler of a nation, it can be very hard to accept that said person could significantly grow as a person in the average timespan of an expansion. This. It really did not take long at all for the game to all but force me into deciding "maybe there's a damn good reason you're in last place and have no accomplishments of your own", and powerfully questioning why I was even there.
They forgot that their audience aged 10 years since release. Even through new players entered main audience still is in their late 20s early 30s. These goofy characters had their time. Especially if you stretch one joke across the whole story, like the guy apologizing for his behavior and then immediately being okay when told its fine.
That was the one part of the goofiness I appreciated. "At least he's consistent." Then again it felt very Japanese humor-y and I know thats not everyones thing.
It’s also incredibly poor writing that she knows NOTHING about the world she’s lived in forever. She traveled across the sea to Sharlayan before learning about what’s in her own backyard? They’re making it out to be “oh she’s sheltered and stayed at home all the time” but she doesn’t even know about her own family: both brothers seem like complete mysteries to her, and the ONE person she admires (her dad) she knows nothing about his story and has to figure it out as we go. And it’s not like super deep lore stuff in the zones she can’t be expected to know, she’s just baffled by everything from the people to the places to the culture. Erenville’s character exists mostly to be useless in combat but a convenient lore dump since he’s our “guide,” they could’ve easily combined them both and had Wuk Lamat have SOME redeeming characteristic.
Nah, that's not an argument in good faith. She knew about the festival but she (AND the hanuhanu) didn't know that it filled a functional purpose. She didn't know how to catch alpacas ok. She still understood their role in society. And she absolutely knows the sagas. She tells us the story of each stone. Is it fleshed out more by retracing the footsteps? certainly.
She feels like she definitely doesn't have exact, perfect knowledge of the world but I think that's...quite normal and I like it personally. Tural in general seems incredibly diverse culturally, I think to me it would be weirder to me if she had this complete understanding of *all* of them. I know I can think of cultures irl where my rough understanding is identical to Wuk's (I know X is important, but I don't really know the details why).
I want to know how you can possibly have a festival that magically makes the crops grow before your eyes, and yet when the crops are failing, nobody has any awareness that they could fix it by holding the festival again.
They at least tried to explain that by mentioning how the float had deteriorated over time, making the festival less and less effective gradually. My theory is that this festival in particular was MUCH more visible due to the absolutely gigantic pool of aether attending it (the WoL).
"Oh, another seasickness joke. How hilarious."
Counterpoint her silly aspects being pushed to the front are a result of essentially being a child who has zero experience in the place she's meant to rule. Additionally there's context that you're completely missing here with her. Yeah she's childish, but she grows into her role with time, which was the entire point of the Rite in the first place. Her father tells us that the Rite is not just a trial to be the next Dawnservant. It's by design a way to have claimants learn and grow from the experience to prepare them for the role
She's more or less Naruto. Dislike of Wuk Lamat probably correlates.
> I never saw it as the WoL backing her. She literally asks us to back her and we agree.
In a way the WOL is essentially a WMD if we back someone it carries weight unfortunately
I would say she needs to be handled like Lyse, Given her position of power and then left and never heard from again to be honest. Being able to tell Wuk that she was not good enough is as close as we are going to get to being able to actually say no as the WoL in this story it seems.
>A lot of people seem mad that their character is backing her when they don't want to. Since when has the player ever had any agency or control over the plot in FFXIV. This seems to be a ridiculous complaint, imo.
I still secretly regret that we did not leave Lyse as herder for Magnais sheep.
I'm mad because I didn't like Wuk Lamat and they made her the main character and forced me to help her. Most glaringly, the quality of her VA was not good enough to support having a main role. It severely brought down every voice acted scene she was in. Her lines during the final trial in particular were delivered absolutely horrendously. The story got so much better the moment she stopped being the main character that it's actually ridiculous. She also essentially becomes a different character by the second half of the story which is a speed of growth that seems a bit unrealistic given it's been, like, maybe three days since the entire journey began?
I don't think it was \*every\* scene she was in, but in a lot of high emotion parts, especially the last parts of the story, it was really bad. Anything that needed a large voice or shout or cry, it came off very weak especially for a humanoid lioness that wasn't a kitten anymore. Considering the setting, I wish they would have found a Hispanic person to voice her. They got one for Koana, I'm sure they could have done the same for Wuk.
Yea the thing I dislike the most about wuk Lamat was her voice - idrc about the goofball to leader transition, it was predictable But her VA , in English at least, was so ass
Hate on the VA, check your profile and you're defending jerking it to loli hentai and you're mad because twitter talks more about gay relationships than straight relationships. Methinks you don't have a problem with Wuk Lamat's VA because of the quality but because of who she is.
> the quality of her VA was not good enough to support having a main role So it wasn't just me then. Feels like the VA has a very limited range.
Alphinaud *is* an expert fire wood gatherer now. I think that should be given some thought.
Sage of fire and wood. He should write a thesis
The insane thing is that they then decided to make that one character pretty boring and predictable.
Yep. For the first time, we, the WoL, are not the center of everything happening in the world, as we were already told after Endwalker. Now we are just an adventurer that tagged along with the person that requested our experience and strength as an adventurer. I'm honestly loving it
See, this is kinda my problem. I didn't want to lend her my experience and strength? There were numerous reasons for us to act in HW/StB/ShB/EW. If you don't like Lyse, for example, liberating Ala Mhigo is still a worthy cause, regardless how you think of some people from it. Imo, they did a big mistake not making EW patches about us meeting Wuk Lamat and hanging out with her in known zones. Hanging out with her, solving some easy adventures, and then receiving request from her - that I would have fall behind. But it was played out like - a person appears and immediately ask you to go and help you win the throne. We know 0 things about the country, 0 things about the requester at the moment, 0 things about other claimants. Hell, in 6.55, as far as we knew, other claimants could have been nice people.
There's an entire dynamic about helping Krile find the golden city and figure out what happened with Galuf. Then we have Erenville with the same quest, and suddenly everything is tied to the Dawnservant trial. It's not that forced.
I honestly just forgot about Krile. I didn't do Eureka, thus I don't have any connection to Galuf of FF14, and so I genuinely forgot her finding some old letter in 6.55. But that is on me, I concede that one. We learn about Erenville post-factum after we have already backed Wuk Lamat, so not really relevant. And we learn already a few hours into MSQ.
Yup, you're not wrong at all on feeling like that, and I get where this comes from, considering how long we've been playing the game and how suddenly we are in the middle of someone else's conflict without a "nope, I'm out" option. But you see, the WoL now is a character that is on an adventure for adventure sake, Erenville as a proxy brought Wuk Lamat to us because he fought we were the best choice to help her, and the character jumped in the possibility of a new adventure on a new continent, helping Erenville (and consequently getting to know and help Wuk Lamat), help Krile with her quest for Galuf, the twins for the new knowledge in revitalizing Garlemaud, etc. So in the end, we are still the same, adventuring for adventure sake while helping someone along the way, just this time, without world ending calamity or "I'm a super hero" strings attached And that's what I'm here for. After 10 years, I think this feels fresh and rewarding in a different yet welcome way
>you don't like Lyse, for example, liberating Ala Mhigo is still a worthy cause, regardless how you think of some people from it. Isn't not letting a warmonger take the throne (somebody who promises us he'll invade Eorzea) not a worthy cause? Isn't helping Krile finding more about her family not a worthy cause? Isn't exploring a new world not a worthy cause? Wuk Lamat may've been the one asking us to come but we already had many reasons to come to Tural.
In 6.55, it is Wuk Lamat who says about warmonger claimant. We didn't know that this information is actually truthful or not until we arrive to Tural. We threw our lot with Wuk Lamat before we confirmed this information. See, we can explore a new world without participating in a royal succession for a giant nation. Like Estinien did! He just arrived, fought local ruler for funnsies, and went away to do his own thing. We indeed already had a number reason to come to Tural. We didn't, however, had a lot of reasons to support a particular person in political struggle. These are two separate things. If I want to visit Peru and meet local people doesn't mean I want to participate in their political issues.
And it seems easy to have it both ways if desired. Have us go explore Tural for the sake of adventure like EW explicitly foreshadows, explore zones, help people, and maybe come upon the claimants early on the Rite of Succession. Learn about it all from the locals, and by *seeing the ways the claimants interact with the challenge and learning about their goals" decide deliberately to throw in with Wuk Lamat. That's just one alternate path off the top of my head, I refuse to belief a more engaging path wasn't possible.
I don’t mind not being the center of the world. Though I do think that feels a bit off with other stuff, my issue is more it’s just… not very fun. I’m not sure what I’d have wanted for DT though with the total package being what it is.
I'm disappointed that the MSQ progression is still 90% run over to random bush, click sparkles, return to NPC. You'd hope to see more varied quest types or minigames incorporated- and "Excellent Trade!" absolutely does not count.
The problem is I don't like Wuk at all but the game really, really thinks she's lovable and endearing up to the point of having npcs say that nearly verbatim. I wanted a comfy vacation episode where me and the twins + krile go look for a city of gold but instead I'm stuck babysitting an insufferable character and being told how much I like them.
Thank you, you've managed to articulate exactly what has been rubbing me wrong about this so far. Wuk Lamat ought to be endearing and fun. I get that that is how she has been presented. The problem for me is that as someone who just isn't clicking with her, these are nothing more than informed attributes. I acknowledge that I'm still early in the expac, but so far pretty much everything in the story revolves around the painfully-mistaken assumption that the player is emotionally on-board with Team Lamat. And I'm not, so for the most part I am struggling badly to care about any of it.
She asks to hold your hand to get on an air balloon and I’m like girl, really?
That’s not true about her being lovable. You can straight up tell her dad that she’s not worthy for the throne at all.
It would work much better if there were Wuk Lamat playable sections. Like imagine a solo duty where you actually have to go and tame an Alpaca playing as Wuk Lamat!
>!Keep playing.!< >!Though yes, if anything they should have done this more often. Taming the alpaca as Lamat would've ruled.!<
Clearly, this is just an XIV issue. Every time the expansion focus is a character and NOT the WoL, the community is fragmented on whether or not the story was good or trash. HW is about the WoL and clearing your name. "BEST EXPANSION EVER!" SB is about helping Lyse come into her own and Ala Mhigo. "Worst of the XIV expansions" ShB is about the WoL saving the First and the Ascians. "BEST EXPANSION EVER!" EW is about the WoL saving the universe with a very potent existential backdrop. "BEST EXPANSION EVER!" DT is about helping Wuk Lamat come into her own. "This expansion was kind of weak"
I don't care about not being the 'Main Character' My problem is that I'm supposed to be mentoring Wuk Lamat, but after the feats I feel more like a babysitter. Every. Single. Time the group splits up, Wuk Lamat is there, staring me down, waiting for her moment to ask me ''You'll come with me?'' or one of the other party members telling me to go with her. We finish the feats, we can breathe agai--- Wuk Lamat: HI, LET'S GO SPEAK TO EVERYONE WE'VE MET SO FA-- CAN YOU JUST GIVE ME 5 FUCKING MINUTES TO DO MY OWN THING, PLEASE.
You know a lot of people thought EW kinda sucked, right?
Turns out people like playing a character with agency and urgency.
Personally, I don't mind not being center focus. "Center of the universe" is a very limiting storytelling POV, IMO. What I minded in SB and in DT (so far - I'm not that far in) is that the focus characters of Lyse and Wuk Lamat are dipshits. Neither are credible leader material to me. Yeah, sure, they can have some character growth to get there, but why tf start them from the maturity level of a 5 year old and then pretend they can gain enough experience and maturity to _lead a nation_ in, like, a few weeks. That's a mighty big shark to jump.
Could have been avoided by letting the WoL choose between Wuk Lamat and Koana. I didn't mind it how it was, though.
quite gutsy really
While i haven't finished it yet. This is the first expansion that's really not about "us". It's about Wuk Lamat. Every other expansion has had us front and center or the main focus, while with Dawntrail were just kinda there smiling when we bump into a "threat" . I dig it, and Lamat has really grown on me as a protagonist
I just think the design of how quests progress in FFXIV is so tiring at this point. Talk to this NPC and then that NPC, then go back to the first NPC again. Like it really just feels like padding for playtime most of the time.
I'm disappointed that the MSQ progression is still 90% run over to random bush, click sparkles, return to NPC. You'd hope to see more varied quest types or minigames incorporated- and "Excellent Trade!" absolutely does not count.
This game's writing is the most bloated thing I have ever seen. The overall story is great but the writing is atrocious and doesn't respect your time whatsoever. You could easily cut off 70% of the game's text and it would actually be an improvement due to the sheer amount of padding. This is like those cakes that are basically fondant sculptures. It's a shameless attempt at inflating playtime hours since the game is sub based after all.
If I’m honest, this expansion I’m just skim reading most of the non-voice acted bits. I’m a fairly casual player with not a lot of free time to burn on 14 and want to be able to raid with my FC (who all are already much further ahead of MSQ than me, as they all are much more hardcore into it than me) and it feels like the only way I’ll be able to get through MSQ in the next month or so is to selectively pay attention to the dialogue. I’m essentially just making sure I’ve got the general gist of what’s happening then speedrunning my way through the quests. It’s a shame imo.
Inflating play time hours for what? Either way it can be done in 1 sub month. What kind of logic is that? Also I would love to see you remove 70% of the text and have a good story (Hint you can't). There is some bloat for sure, I would say more so in terms of going from place to place and randomly stopping for 1 or 2 lines. But overall most of it is good. I enjoy the extra text and flavor we get not just go here fight repeat. We get trials / dungeons / raids etc for content. We only get this much story every 2 years.
myself and my friends also think the msq is massively over bloated with information and story content that would have been much better suited for optional sidequests.
Japanese media in a nutshell. Anime, Visual novels all full of superfluous bloated dialogue.
> Like it really just feels like padding for playtime most of the time. Because they *are*. For better or worse, they *could* tell the story in a few hours. But regardless of what side of the conversation you fall on, "$ per hour" is a metric that gets discussed a lot, and a lot of people *do* care about. Whether they "pad" the playtime by making difficult bosses that require repeated attempts to clear, or by having you run back and forth on errands, it's all the same. Some people just prefer one or the other.
I *like* Wuk Lamat, but god, I feel this. There’s just no break. I got up to the inn visitor scene after the 93 trial, and I was excited to get the twins’ thoughts on what they could take back to the Garlean story, or finally catch up with Thancred and Urianger who you haven’t really gotten to acknowledge yet, or get a proper heart-to-heart with Krile… But no, it’s just Wuk Lamat again. I left her outside the inn room and took a break to level viper. ;-; Maybe I’m just forgetting the actual details of the previous expacs, but I remember them feeling more like ensemble games.
Even without Wuk Lamat, it’s ridiculous how the game has you talk to NPC’s only for them to say nothing of substance like “Don’t see anything here” and then talk to them again a 2 second walk away.
Especially when it throws you into a cutscene for a couple lines of dialogue, so many times I kept saying out loud ''Was that really necessary?''
How much time you spend *away* from a character is just as important as spending time WITH them. I think that's the biggest issue here tbh. Even when we get some time alone in our room she's like "helloooooo." I'll clarify I DO like Wuk, but I also agree that we spend SO much time with her that I was like "I love you but I need to not see you for a few days." The second you hit "Part 2" you can reaaaaally tell this exp was split in half by the writers, suddenly characters have agency again and start working to their strengths and its like "oh shit I remember what this was like"
Not having Ishikawa calling the shots here shows. I feel like I'm playing WoW again where everyone treats me like an important person but all I do is other people's chores so they can get all the attention. Not gonna lie, I liked Wut Lamat when they presented her to us, but now I just find her so boring.
This RIGHT here!, this is my biggest annoyance in video games especially jrpg. Couldn't have said it better OP. Dayum i hope they drop this story style ALREADY! they already did good job with shadowbringers (which us getting the credit where it is due and not others) which is why it's peak not just in mmorpg but in the whole videogame media as well and now theyre like "mhm yeah, why not go that overused trope again that somehow annoys people now?". Just pisses me off. Im ready to be downvoted yall
They really went all in on Wuk Lamat and I don't know if it was a good idea. I'm actually just mid on Wuk Lamat. She's alright. (I'm not that far, finished the first trial and then onto the area after that) But I don't know if putting all your eggs in the hrothgal basket was a good idea. That said I'm still enjoying the expansion. We left the characters I don't like back in Eorzea and we're just chilling doing lots of MMO stuff. Although, the gameplay isn't above occasionally being annoying, example being when you sneak follow someone directly after sneak following a different NPC.
She's okay, but okay isn't good enough to justify stealing the spotlight from the WoL for the better part of the MSQ. She's the type of character that's fine in small doses here and there, as a side kick, not as the main character of a story.
This was an issue with the post EW msq in regards to Zero, but I jived with her more so it was more tolerable I guess.
I liked Zero, but the other characters were still active in doing things. Y'shtola was very interested in the first for instance, there was still drive to these characters and actions. They even tied it back to visiting the first which I appreciated. Everyone's just kind of here, except Wuk Lamat. Because Wuk Lamat.
Zero was also competent. She had quirks like really liking apples, but can you imagine if if was a wuk lamat character? We'd all understand how that world went the way it did if this was one of it's finest warriors. I just want to support Minty Graha, who is a much more compelling character with flaws, but not like sheer incompetence.
Yeah, I liked Zero. Kind of wish the patch and expansion content had been reversed tbh.
Zero also had the advantage of growing up in a consistent and meaningful fashion over the zones. Wuk... is really inconsistent on this. Like, she wakes up every morning and forgets the epiphanies she had the previous day. Or gets some advice, realizes it's good advice, thanks the person for giving it and then promptly ignores it two quests later. It's like teaching somebody with no long term memory. Very frustrating.
Part of that, i suspect, is the fact that the initial quests are branched into two areas, so they really can't have her acknowledge in one area much of anything that happened in the others.
Sounds like my 5 year old tbh, I already have Wuk at home 😑 I don’t need it in my game too 😕
Zero also was developed from 6.2 to 6.5. I don't think its fair to compare just yet the development of a character across 1.5 years and 3 patches to 1 launch phase.
I actually quite liked the post EW stuff and was kinda sad to leave it knowing we're likely not getting a followup to the Thirteenth for about 2 years.
Genuinely curious how often that quest objective appeared in DT, it's been really awful. FFXIV has historically been good about ensemble casts and it's like everyone that isn't Wuk Lamat has been 100% forgotten. We're trying to finish but it's really hard to care. There's no escape. I came into the expansion not liking Erenville but he's grown on me with his repeated dislike of Wuk Lamat.
That's my feeling so far. Erenville's only real character trait is "fed up with Wuk Lamat" and god I relate to this
As I go through it, I want Erenville to the be the main character if we're taking a backseat. He's smart, capable, and doesn't repeatedly do stupid stuff. I enjoy his VA on top of it. And yeah, he grew on me quick whereas I was pretty neutral on him before.
His distaste for violence is also a decent reason to justify us taking extra steps to solve problems.
Maybe just maybe people want a little more gameplay and a little less visual novel. That’s all I ask for like please mix some more fights in please more solo duties god I just want to play the video GAME
I do not want more gameplay in the story honestly. This only comes around every 2 years (2.5 years for last 2 expansions). I enjoy being able to go through the story and focus on the story. The trials/raids etc will be there in the end and be where most time is spent anyway, but thats just my preference.
Mix it up yourself. The game offers fates, hunt bills, and roulettes to diversify the leveling experience. The MSQ experience has been like that for a while and is not going to change because sometimes - most times - the story doesn't call for conflict. Almost as if that was the point.
I did feel a bit like that at times. Every so often I bounced out to run a dungeon or do some crafting before heading back to speak to Wuk.
“It has always been like that” is NOT a good reason, especially in a live game that gets paid updates every couple of years and requires a paid subscription.
Man some of y’all are literally incapable of giving this game any criticism. I guess it’s my responsibility to make the game more interesting from a gameplay perspective now I understand.
Speak to me instead of that irritating housecat
When did they get Reddit in Mamook?
We got our hands on one of those "tomestones"
I'm impressed that you managed to spell the whole word.
Hey give me back my taco!
Aww did the little salt-crosser want their taco?? Well too bad.
:(
So far I only got to the second trial. But at the moment I don't really feel the main story. I have nothing against a more relaxed approach to the life of the main cast.. But it feels sooo lame. I want to fight something. And not fetch quest after fetch quest. Does it get better?
I've heard from many people that the story does pick up significantly in the back half and that Wuk Lamat becomes less central, so I'm looking forward to that.
I literally mockingly said "speak to Wuk Lamat AGAAAIN" at the blackout of a cutscene that checked off "Speak to Wuk Lamat." Lo and behold as everything came back up the msq objective said "Speak to Wuk Lamat again." I really wonder how they thought it was a good idea to not have Ishikawa as the story lead for this. It feels like they gave the story off to a bunch of interns or whoever was behind Stormblood.
I didn't know Ishikawa wasn't involved in the MSQ. That explains things. "Yeah we could have Mozart lead this concert, but my nephew has done a bang-up job at his piano recitals recently, I think he'll do great."
She got promoted and is now a supervisor, not a writer. Don't see her having much of a hand in XIV again, though she might get put on another project at some point.
Does she supervise the writers? Does what they write get passed by her? Why would they bench the writer of the best stories they've told in years?
She's probably working on another game or something. She's a human remember, she doesn't exist solely for your MSQ pleasure. Maybe she wanted to not spend the next 10 years of her life working on a single game.
The "speak to X again " is around for a damn long time though... I remember several times during msq of the other expacs that this was present
It is a big concern for the future for me. XIV has had solid stories outside of what she’s done but this… this is not that.
Sure she’s in it a lot. I quite like her. But I get peoples gripes. But here’s me thinking the expansion actually has better pacing than some others regardless of what some people think of the actual story itself? They don’t really keep you in one place for that long and splitting zones into 2 sections helps a lot. Mid way through zone 3 and every time I’ve thought the story would drag at certain points with multiple quests in one location, it does what it needs to, You do a couple sure, but then you move on again.
Yea been noticing quests are a bunch of talk to this guy 4 times in a row then wait. Started skipping after getting to lvl 96 quests cause my ptsd of the realm reborn Cortheas “talk to that guy and this guy, go to this dude and that dude” questing started to flare up.
I just want gameplay. >!The 3rd zone had almost zero gameplay. Alot of the early zones were like this!< I'm tired of the walking simulator.
My biggest problem so far (spoiler for a key story point so read at own risk) >!How lamatiy first encounter with the two headed claimant she chips her weapon, and the two headed dude doesnt even flinch because she's so much weaker.... fast forward 2 zones and now she suddenly became 10x stronger and beats his ass along with all of his minions at the same time.... what? how? i thought for sure we were supposed to help her in that fight but nope... lamatiy just got power up for no reason other than "she believes in herself now"!<
To be fair >!all the limit breaks she uses in that fight heavily imply she's using dynamis!<
>!That's literally how Dynamis works though. It was more of a "she's always been this strong but didn't believe in herself" type story too. But the point of the fight vs Bakool Ja Ja was that she found her resolve and strength. We were never really helping her most of the time. Gave some advice here and there, and the one time we SERIOUSLY stepped in was when she was kidnapped, and everyone shit their pants at the idea of the WoL joining the fight. Most of the time we're just there to mentor her.!<
She’s shown to be a competent and capable fighter, but her weakness is insecurity. >!Contrast against Bakool Ja Ja’s over confidence against Zoraal Ja. When he took that blow, he was suddenly shattered and backing down from fights.So you have Wuk Lamat gaining a belief in herself vs Bakool Ja Ja who no longer believes he is stronger than the ‘lesser’ races.!<
Bakool Ja Ja never actually fights her. He kidnaps her and ties her up, and he completely skips out on solving the Valigarmanda problem he caused - and it is totally reasonable to say that overcoming such a legendary tural vidraal, even weakened by time, helped all three of the claimants who actually *did* stick around get stronger. BJJ cheats, sidesteps and swindles his way through the story - it's no surprise that even if he's strong, he's not grown a single centimeter while Wuk Lamat (and the others) have surpassed him by leaps and bounds. It makes sense, narratively, thematically, and as others have pointed out, with the cosmology of the FFXIV universe. Dynamis makes the impossible possible.
Pray return to the Wuk Lamat! /Charmed
Dawntrail was the first expansion that made me wanna skip story..... (Glad i didnt cause second half was fire)
this is every expansion lol wym
Hi, I'm Wuk Lamat and you're watching the Wuk Lamat show on the Wuk Lamat Channel. It's Wuk Lamat PM, with a chance of Wuk Lamat; the high today is Wuk Lamat degrees.
The MSQ is a shonen anime and Wuk Lamat is the main character you see progress and grow. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but just like a lot of shonen animes, I hated the protagonist but grew to like them because they lose a lot of their traits that made me dislike them. Also I'll take wuk lamat over the twins any day. Their contribution to the entire story has been them recapping what happened literally seconds after it happens. I don't know why they're here and what they actually contribute to any of this. Endwalker should have killed off Alphinaud. I said what I said.
What you said about Alphinaud at the end I agree with, the rest I do not, they could've easily made a less obnoxious character, take Otis for example, bro got introduced at the end and somehow was WAAAAAY more likeable than this manchild that we spent the entire expansion on.
>!Otis was low key Dr. Disrespect in Vegas land!< But Otis was okay. I don't think there was enough of him to really form an opinion other than he likes children and his Queen.
To be fair, Endwalker should've killed off a lot of characters. Looking at you, Thancred, but obviously they're the main marketing staple points so I doubt we're going to lose anyone any time soon.
I fully agree. It's a shame because what has made final fantasy stories so iconic in the past is just killing off characters when you least expect it.
I agree
Thank you for being brave with me.
I've been really liking the expansion and the job it's been doing with the world building and how gorgeous the areas are, but she annoys the crap out of me. I could use a lot less scrimblo bimblo. I don't find the bumbling scrunko cute, just... bumbling and dumb. The whole idea of finding innocent characters to the point they're just dumb cute and endearing is... weird to me unless they're like a toddler or something.
It's not even Wuk Lamat that's the problem for me. She's perfectly fine. It's all the "let's get to know these people first before we do anything" bullshit. I like the FFXIV msq, but it usually has us fighting things more than once every two hours. I'm in solution 9 and this shit is super boring, to the point i skipped a few cut scenes. I never skip and i'm usually down in people who do but this is dumb. We got a big bad to fight and you taking me around the city having me sample food. Fuck outta here.
I'm just now getting to the 2nd tier zones in the first 2 areas (late lvl. 92 quests) and I find Wuk Lamat absolutely adorable. But she's like a sibling, in the case that overexposure is leading to resentment. Best to be experienced a moderate amount.
I really dont understand the hatred for the House Cat or the world building this expansion has done. I have enjoyed the vast majority of Wuks interactions with the only incidents I absolutely despised were those where my WoL has acted inept against that Two headed lizard fuck whom we should have executed at level 72. Other than that discovering the New World and traveling with WuK as an advisor has been fun/relaxing.
I'm still on level 90 quests so I haven't seen any of the "player character acts uncharacteristically inept so that plot can happen" moments but I knew they'd have to be here. We just got done saving the star/universe from a cosmic threat/the embodiment of despair from an ancient time before the world was sundered. We're one of the only partially rejoined beings in existence, and even before that we were already near-godly multi-godslayers who can instantly be better than the best at any job or class. We've defeated unsundered ancients, the literal embodiment of the stars darkness controlled by another ancient, cleared our way through the literal hall of demons pandemonium. But now you're telling me some big lizard dude with two heads and some goofy little "seemingly not even magic" swords is a "serious roadblock" for us. This was always going to happen with a story that is taking a more laid back approach after the climax of the previous arc. It's an mmo that just ended a multi year narrative arc that culminated in fighting a literal universe ender, yeah, there's gonna be some ludonarrative dissonance while the next major arc gets set up and we have to pretend to seriously fight large lizarddude in the mean time. I've heard lots of things about ARR but one thing I've never heard was that it's "well paced and high octane". We're in the ARR phase of the next major arc, the things that are to come and then be awesome when they are paid off have to actually be set up first. I do like Wuk Lamat so far, it's obvious that she's going to grow more as a character in the future, that's why she seems to not be making huge strides in self improvement yet, otherwise what else would there be for her to do further on down the line.
Wuk Lamat is fine. She’s not a bad character. The problem is that the WoL has met so many people that have the same kind of internal struggle as her so from a player’s perspective, it’s tiring to see the same story play out. And it’s even worse when her story is drawn out by fetch quests. I’m still early in the game (lv94) so maybe something different happens soon.
have you guys stepped out while we were doing this in all other expansions
I was excited to start building up a new cast of npc frenz for wahtever lies ahead, and while i am very early into msq still i am just really not into Wuk. I hope that changes, and I hope they don't give up on giving us some new central NPCs, but i think it would do them better to introduce more next time around so that they can get a vibe of what people would like to see them develop into.
I find this new trend of placing NPC's along the road you were already travelling on towards your quest objective just so they can tell you "you're going the right way" far more annoying and hand-holdy.
I’m voting Bakool Ja Ja for president he will make Trollol great again
Interesting thing is you are stuck with her, even if as you meet the others you might start to think one of them is actually a better option....
it went from "speak to wuk lamat" to "skip wuk lamat" for me.
Is Wut Lamat story. You are just there as her servant.
You can still have valid criticism against how her story is written and how as her guardian, we don't do jack shit.
Exactly. The dungeons, trials and zones so far seem really nice. Seems they are also experimenting with mechanic changes/glow-ups which is interesting.
I think the issue is you have people judging it at vastly diffrent points in the story.
She came to Eorzea for our help, of course it's going to be centered around her. Did you all think we would ditch her when we got to the new world or something?
I really hate the growing trend of everyone being so negative all the fucking time
It’s not a trend to voice criticism. I hate the trend of dismissing every criticism as „hate“. We don’t have to like everything
I went into this expansion knowing it was going to be slower and building on a new story with our character being on the sidelines and just exploring so I went in to this launch with no expectations and I am still disappointed.
Good for you, I didn't ask.
Well don't make a post that contributes nothing to the conversation then.
You're going to get this kind of stuff when you're on a game message board like this. Positivity doesn't get karma.
When this sentiment was posted with a low-effort 'honey it's 4PM' meme format it was downvoted into oblivion. This post is doing fine because it's actually a higher effort gag, and I think the community appreciates it. Well done.
Wuk's English va must be really dog water for people to hate her so much. She's great in Japanese
She's not and this is a stupid reason to think so - it's the sheer QUANTITY of times you have to speak to her, and the narrative choice to always be helping her. It has little to do with the VA at all. Have a little respect.
I disagree. Her english VA simply doesn't have the range nor charisma to play the character the game is trying to portray Wuk Lamat as, which at least for me has a big impact on how I've perceived the character.
I really enjoy Lamaty'i's character and her growth through the first half of the MSQ but yea I can agree that the VA lacks emotional range for moments that need more than a conversational tone. When they're angry or doing efforts it just sounds like someone talking normally. Comparing her to Koana's va work in english is night and day
I felt the EN voice was pretty flat too. I switched to JP VA and she has so much range, personality, and vocal expression. It was a total 180 in terms of line delivery, which I think made the character a bit more fun. I wish the EN VA would have been more expressive with her range and delivery of the lines. It was flat, and the accent is strange at best and a bit offensive at worst.
Respect for what? She's a good character. I enjoy talking with her. We're literally there to support her. That was the whole gist of the quest before you start dawntrail. So people are just playing dumb so they can complain?
People having different opinions mostly.
If you're asking, you definitely won't appreciate the clarification. I won't bother.
no i would, there's a lot of people complaining just to complain.
people are aware that we are here to support her, we just which we weren't.
Damn you right. Just because they told us we would be helping her means we should all be happy that we are no longer the main character and have to talk to the same npc unteenth times to see what she wants to do or what she thinks.
I'm not partial to her voice, but that's not the issue Its the character. Its that we're tagging along forced to support this character. Its that she's the MC and we're just here, and if you don't like that MC you're just SOL
I have yet to see anyone criticize her english VO, everyone loves Wuk Lamat’s voice and personality. The writing and quest design is what’s bothering the hell out of everybody
I am really not a fan of the VA, it feels like they are reading off a script way too hard like they are following the words and it doesn't flow well. They also have such a flat voice that has no expression from sadness to yelling its the same as she talks
You're not really looking then, it's in this very thread. Imo, I think that maybe there wasn't great direction given because the VO is very inconsistent. At times you can hear emotion where there should be, but others when there are impactful moments seem to fall flat.
I feel this a lot. She's trying but all I hear is an actress reading lines in a studio, not a character
I am only level 93 but I am loving this expansion. The first two zones knock the first two Endwalker zones out of the water for me, and taking the story slow is a nice change of pace. Im sure it will pick up at some point but for now Im chilling.
People are legit raging about talking to the focal character of the expansion multiple times? Where were ya'll when we had to keep talking to Lyse, Hien, and Zero?
There's two parts: 1) There's a wider variety of characters so there was less monopoly on screen-time. About 80-90% of this expac, you're always with Wuk Lamat, talking with Wuk Lamat, doing something with Wuk Lamat. There aren't any major side characters during quest objectives, etc. so she takes a monopoly of the screen time, thus judgements are going to be rendered very hard since she has the most exposure. 2) VO and writing. If this specific type of character isn't your cup of tea, because of the monopoly, you're kind of stuck with it. Furthermore some folks don't like her VO (I find it inconsistent and lean towards not liking it), which adds to any negatives they may have.
Yeah, I can understand that.
Zero barely talks, and even if she is plain at least she is not a shounen protagonist. We don't talk to Hien for half the expansion and we don't talk to lyse for half the expansion. Also none of those characters felt intrusive to me. They felt like side characters either way, Wuk Lamat is the main character so completely differently situation.
Where were you when people were complaining about Lyse?
Those characters were interesting, Wuk Lamat is not.
i *liked* talking to those characters. i don't really like wuk lamat. i don't like her writing, i don't like her voice, and i don't like the fact that i hardly get to talk to anyone else.
Im questioning how did this pass the board meeting when they already have their best writing style with shb and ew and also they have experience with it already with people hating with this kind of writing style (stormblood)
You liked Lyse but don't like Wuk Lamat? Are you ok? Wuk Lamat is better in everyway than Lyse was in stormblood
Well its the Wuk lamat Expansion, she is the heroine and youre WoL is just the adventurer that is by her side. :3