[Feedback] Another Post about Dawntrail MSQ

You reminded me of how much I was bothered by Wuk Lamat’s and Erenville’s friendship dynamic in this expansion.

Pre-expansion the build up of what their relationship was, was interesting and it makes you want to learn more. Seemed like a typical Tsundere friend + energetic friend dynamic so it could have been fun.

But what we get is like you said, Wuk Lamat doesn’t treat him like a childhood friend she’s known for decades. We’re always told, not shown, how close they were as kids. I think even Cahicua makes light that Erenville was very happy (or clingy?) toward Wuk Lamat when they had playdates or whatever when they were together as children.

What we get is Wuk Lamat barely acknowledge his existence, then on Erenville’s side he’s always scolding her and treating her like a child (rightly so tbh) but his follow up actions seem more like, I have to help with this idiot. And not I’m helping my idiot friend while joking about it, in a way that friends do. Like with playful back and forth banter you do with friends. Sometimes he seemed just as exhausted with her as some of us IRL people felt about her and her actions.

Top it off with the Golden City, and Wuk Lamat seems so uninterested, and considering to how she treated everyone else, downright cold to Erenville. He’s her childhood friend, possibly even best friend, and even if he’s slow to open up about his feelings, she at minimum doesn’t ask him how he’s doing? It’s like she cared 0 about her “friend” who was being made to speed through processing his grief. I think it was either Krile or G’raha (not 100% on this but it wasn’t Wuk Lamat) who actually mentioned something about Erenville’s attitude.

Wuk Lamat had more compassion for Bakool Ja Ja than she did her childhood friend.

Erenville for me was by far the highlight this expansion. He's grown to be my most favorite FFXIV character. He was well written, but I still think they didn't fully do him justice. I have so many questions. My biggest questions being, how did his mother even die? What happened, and why? And why did he not get the opportunity to ask her? Why was this not addressed, and why does she have a different accent than her own son? Is this just an oversight? Because at this time, it feels like one.

I would have loved to spend more with him and also Krile, who unfortunately felt like a bit of an afterthought even though she was supposed to be a main character. I felt like other expansions did a better job at balancing characters.

And while I do *like* Wuk Lamat overall, there was a point where she became just too much and they should have given other characaters the spotlight instead. Her conclusions and lines felt extremely repetitive towards the end. Other characters definitely could have contributed more.

Overall I did have a good time with the story. The parts others found boring I enjoyed, but I am biased. Erenville's optional dialogues where very entertaining and sometimes heart-wrenching and I couldn't wait to get more of them, and also... the scenery and music where amazing.

Edit: Another thing. I have to agree that our Warrior of Light felt really out of focus. Most of the time, we were just watching from the sidelines, which is a shame. Even as a mentor, we could have done more; For example, we could have had a training session with Wuk Lamat, fighting against her to give her more combat experience. Instead she just randomly became stronger at one point.
I wish we could have been more involved with her character development, too. I don't know. Something was just missing.

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Originally Posted by Papayatar

But what we get is like you said, Wuk Lamat doesn’t treat him like a childhood friend she’s known for decades. We’re always told, not shown, how close they were as kids. I think even Cahicua makes light that Erenville was very happy (or clingy?) toward Wuk Lamat when they had playdates or whatever when they were together as children.

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Somebody would have to confirm this because I don't speak Japanese but I've heard that in the Japanese localisation she doesn't even say that he was very eager and happy to play with her when they were children.

Kind of like "fussy little bunbun" is an invention by the English localisation. I don't know if the Japanese version still conveys on an unspoken level that he was excited to play with her or if the English version changed his characterisation in that regard.

Ok since this is a DT MSQ feedback and I want to be heard so badly forgive me If I copy paste parts what I said in the other DT discussion thread to here

I'm I made a forum account right now just to share what I have in mind. I actually enjoy the 90 to 93 part of the story if you can believe it mostly because Tural is such a beautiful place and the zones are absolutely gorgeous except for the last one, I didnt like that. But then as the story goes on, It started creeping up on me. The scions are a lobotomized versions of themselves, WukLam is always stuck with you, and unlike Lyse, Alphi, Estinien, back in their respective DLC, WukLam doesnt get any bonding moments/ heart to heart with the other Scions so the others ended up stagnating and only WukLam gets character development If I can even call it that. And her always being stuck with us IS SUFFOCATING. When we reached the 1st part of Xak Tural, I actually breathe a sigh of relief cus I can finally, FINALLY, get a moment to myself and I actually thought its time for Erenville's spotlight and maybe later, Krile's spotlight too! But then no! It's WukLam until the end. She hogged all the spotlight away from the other characters, Krile and Erenville deserves better than this.

Zoraal Ja is a very forgettable villain for me. I literally forgot the guy existed and I only remembered he does when we reached Mamool Ja area. And then after that we dont even know why the hell is he doing what he's doing and by the time we do, its too late.

As the other DT MSQ discussion said WoL is literally just an accessory. WoL is not part of the story. WoL is not even the fifth character they're an extra. I know alot of people who like the story keeps saying that "the reason why you dont like the story is because you are not the main character" It's not even about us being a main character that I want, I just want to feel like I'm part of the story! This is not just Wuk Lamat's story its supposed to be ours too! The people barely recognize our existence, I'm pretty sure the story could exist without us. WE ARE LITERALLY NONEXISTENT. All I want is for people to see our WoL and recognize he's there, and Gulol is the only person who did that, who recognized us. In StB and HW I dont mind Lyse and Alphi+Estinien being the main characters because they are well written and we are still part of the story. We are still there! In DT we are literally like a fly on the wall. We are literally just standing there menacingly and nothing more. No recognition, not character development. Its the "Just standing there menacingly" DLC. I want to be a part of the story. The reason I loved FFXIV from HW to EW is because its not just our friend's journey its also our journey, with character growth both for our old friends and new friends along the way.

I just want to be heard so bad becuase I love game but oh man this DLC really bummed me out. I hope the patches win me over I really do cus I love this game.

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Originally Posted by Verathel

Desperately needed and partially to add she's now the co-ruler of an entire freaking continent. Narratively wise if she met the leaders of Eorzea and other places....It would be ridiculous.

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True, but there's also opportunity for some good character growth there i think. If she acted unprofessional/really inexperienced in front of world leaders and she was judged pretty harshly for it I think it would be a good moment for her.

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Originally Posted by Mondschnee

Erenville for me was by far the highlight this expansion. He's grown to be my most favorite FFXIV character. He was well written, but I still think they didn't fully do him justice. I have so many questions. My biggest questions being, how did his mother even die? What happened, and why? And why did he not get the opportunity to ask her? Why was this not addressed, and why does she have a different accent than her own son? Is this just an oversight? Because at this time, it feels like one.

I would have loved to spend more with him and also Krile, who unfortunately felt like a bit of an afterthought even though she was supposed to be a main character. I felt like other expansions did a better job at balancing characters.

And while I do *like* Wuk Lamat overall, there was a point where she became just too much and they should have given other characaters the spotlight instead. Her conclusions and lines felt extremely repetitive towards the end. Other characters definitely could have contributed more.

Overall I did have a good time with the story. The parts others found boring I enjoyed, but I am biased. Erenville's optional dialogues where very entertaining and sometimes heart-wrenching and I couldn't wait to get more of them, and also... the scenery and music where amazing.

Edit: Another thing. I have to agree that our Warrior of Light felt really out of focus. Most of the time, we were just watching from the sidelines, which is a shame. Even as a mentor, we could have done more; For example, we could have had a training session with Wuk Lamat, fighting against her to give her more combat experience. Instead she just randomly became stronger at one point.
I wish we could have been more involved with her character development, too. I don't know. Something was just missing.

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Yeah I wondered how she died as well. Since rabbits live for like ~400 years, and Erenville is 25 according to the latest Encyclopaedia, unless Cahcuia was already super old when she had him I doubt the 30 year time skip would have been enough to make her die of old age.

Also the accent thing was a hilarious double take for me- I didn't know because JP voices, but I asked a friend what she sounded like in english and they said "black american woman". Honestly I wish I could have seen my own face in that moment, the confusion I felt lol.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

Somebody would have to confirm this because I don't speak Japanese but I've heard that in the Japanese localisation she doesn't even say that he was very eager and happy to play with her when they were children.

Kind of like "fussy little bunbun" is an invention by the English localisation. I don't know if the Japanese version still conveys on an unspoken level that he was excited to play with her or if the English version changed his characterisation in that regard.

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I went back and checked, she does say they played together as kids. Unfortunately she does speak extremely fast for my non-fluent ears so unless I change my text language I'm not gonna get the absolute specifics on that lol. She does speak about Wuk Lamat with nostalgia though, so I get the impression it was at least a fond memory.

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Originally Posted by Papayatar

You reminded me of how much I was bothered by Wuk Lamat’s and Erenville’s friendship dynamic in this expansion.

Pre-expansion the build up of what their relationship was, was interesting and it makes you want to learn more. Seemed like a typical Tsundere friend + energetic friend dynamic so it could have been fun.

But what we get is like you said, Wuk Lamat doesn’t treat him like a childhood friend she’s known for decades. We’re always told, not shown, how close they were as kids. I think even Cahicua makes light that Erenville was very happy (or clingy?) toward Wuk Lamat when they had playdates or whatever when they were together as children.

What we get is Wuk Lamat barely acknowledge his existence, then on Erenville’s side he’s always scolding her and treating her like a child (rightly so tbh) but his follow up actions seem more like, I have to help with this idiot. And not I’m helping my idiot friend while joking about it, in a way that friends do. Like with playful back and forth banter you do with friends. Sometimes he seemed just as exhausted with her as some of us IRL people felt about her and her actions.

Top it off with the Golden City, and Wuk Lamat seems so uninterested, and considering to how she treated everyone else, downright cold to Erenville. He’s her childhood friend, possibly even best friend, and even if he’s slow to open up about his feelings, she at minimum doesn’t ask him how he’s doing? It’s like she cared 0 about her “friend” who was being made to speed through processing his grief. I think it was either Krile or G’raha (not 100% on this but it wasn’t Wuk Lamat) who actually mentioned something about Erenville’s attitude.

Wuk Lamat had more compassion for Bakool Ja Ja than she did her childhood friend.

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Yeah honestly biggest disappointment for me was not getting that dynamic between them again. It's kind of there, but Wuk Lamat spends so much time concerned about everything else that after the first area or 2 she's treating us as her best friend instead.

And the lack of compassion in Living Memory bothered me probably more than it should have done. I went back and checked the scene you were talking about. Wuk Lamat tries to talk with Erenville but he walks off saying he'll explore alone, then Krile brings up that he's still coming to terms with everything. Wuk Lamat then just says "you can't really blame him, lets just leave him be" and you go off on your volcanic exploration. If she was saying that at the beginning of the zone maybe I'd get behind it, but at this point it was starting to feel like the elephant in the room everyone was ignoring. You can't really dedicate that area to trying to find Erenville and console him, because that would mean Krile wouldn't get her moment with her parents, so it just ends up with, again, more frustration at how the writers paced everything.

Even in the final area, when Cahcuia is asking you to help her have a little adventure before she dies (i dont think the english really says it, but in JP voice she literally says "before i die :)"), Erenville says something like "you can't seriously be asking me to do this right?" but Wuk Lamat still doesn't show any concern and is just like "Yeah we'll help you out Cahcuia of course :D!" It just feels completely tone deaf, and no one else says anything which makes it feel even weirder. Cahcuia is such a 'Free Spirit' who loves adventuring that she regularly leaves her kid with a babysitter just to go have fun exploring- at parts I found my self saying "hey Erenville your mum's a bit of an asshole", but idk if that was intended by the writers and it was never explored in interactions so I guess that's just gonna stay as a headcanon for me.

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Originally Posted by aTanpopo

I went back and checked, she does say they played together as kids. Unfortunately she does speak extremely fast for my non-fluent ears so unless I change my text language I'm not gonna get the absolute specifics on that lol. She does speak about Wuk Lamat with nostalgia though, so I get the impression it was at least a fond memory.

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Ah but that's in line with what I was told. I heard that she did mention they played but the part of Erenville being explicitly excited was not part of the Japanese original.
I was also told about the nostalgia part, as in, she muses about their childhood from her own perspective and focuses on her own positive feelings of nostalgia.

(So in theory it could have been the case, that for her their childhood was cute and nostalgic as it is for most parents when they think back to their children being small. But that doesn't automatically mean Erenville was actually actively excited to play with Wuk. I also don't mean to claim the opposite, I just think the Japanese version doesn't answer this question at all in that part of the dialogue?
Or does the feeling of nostalgia imply that Erenville was excited from a Japanese perspective?)

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Originally Posted by Loggos

Ah but that's in line with what I was told. I heard that she did mention they played but the part of Erenville being explicitly excited was not part of the Japanese original.
I was also told about the nostalgia part, as in, she muses about their childhood from her own perspective and focuses on her own positive feelings of nostalgia.

(So in theory it could have been the case, that for her their childhood was cute and nostalgic as it is for most parents when they think back to their children being small. But that doesn't automatically mean Erenville was actually actively excited to play with Wuk. I also don't mean to claim the opposite, I just think the Japanese version doesn't answer this question at all in that part of the dialogue?
Or does the feeling of nostalgia imply that Erenville was excited from a Japanese perspective?)

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Honestly i'm not sure, but it feels kind of open to interpretation so i can't completely blame the localisation team. I mean, if it's nostalgic its probably a fond memory.

Listening again, Cahcuia said something along the lines of "Aren't you Gulool Ja Ja's daughter? That takes me back! You and Elene'shpya used to play together sometimes! Do you remember me?"
So there's nothing specific that says he was excited, but you could spin it to say she was remembering it nostalgically because she was seeing her son enjoying playing with someone, given how people say he seemed pretty antisocial growing up. But the english localisation definitely is adding in more meaning to the scene than the original lines- debatable whether that's a good thing or not. Sure they haven't changed the overall story that much by doing it, but it does make me question how much the characterisation of certain people is changed just from a few lines here and there. I'll be interested to go back and look at the japanese text for non-voiced scenes and see if that changes my impressions of anyone. It's also an issue that could have been less of a problem if the story elaborated on their relationship more than a few off hand comments, but instead I guess we just have our imaginations to play with.

All we can probably piece together is they know each other because their parents adventured together in the past. Wuk Lamat says they're childhood friends (she says in JP they are 幼なじみ which checks out- childhood friend/playmate), Erenville says they're just acquaintances who have known each other for a long time (「昔から知り合いだけだ」). I always interpreted it as Erenville playing it down, given how other NPCs reacted to it too, but now because of how there's seemingly no chemistry between them in DT I'm starting to wonder if he was telling the truth lmao.

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Originally Posted by aTanpopo

And the lack of compassion in Living Memory bothered me probably more than it should have done. I went back and checked the scene you were talking about. Wuk Lamat tries to talk with Erenville but he walks off saying he’ll explore alone, then Krile brings up that he\\\\\\'s still coming to terms with everything. Wuk Lamat then just says "you can\\\\\\'t really blame him, lets just leave him be" and you go off on your volcanic exploration. If she was saying that at the beginning of the zone maybe I\\\\\\'d get behind it, but at this point it was starting to feel like the elephant in the room everyone was ignoring. You can\\\\\\'t really dedicate that area to trying to find Erenville and console him, because that would mean Krile wouldn\\\\\\'t get her moment with her parents, so it just ends up with, again, more frustration at how the writers paced everything.

Even in the final area, when Cahcuia is asking you to help her have a little adventure before she dies (i dont think the english really says it, but in JP voice she literally says "before i die :)"), Erenville says something like "you can\\\\\\'t seriously be asking me to do this right?" but Wuk Lamat still doesn\\\\\\'t show any concern and is just like "Yeah we\\\\\\'ll help you out Cahcuia of course :D!" It just feels completely tone deaf, and no one else says anything which makes it feel even weirder.

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I knew she said something but that actually seems worse than I remembered. Because she treated like, he’ll get over it eventually let’s go do something else. Just dismissed completely.

I wish the zones were split in two so it would be Krile story beats in the first two, Erenville story beats in the second two. Then we’d have dedicated time to talk to at least Erenville about what’s going on. Even if he wanted to be left alone it’d have been nice to have the WoL (with or without Wuk Lamat Velcroed to our hip) to check on him. If they went that route it give Wuk Lamat a moment to actually show us that she does care about her friends feelings and what he’s going through right now.

Then at least when she glazes over Erenville feeling uncomfortable about giving his mom her last adventure it could maybe be read as diffusing the tension of the situation and not wanting to draw attention to Erenville quietly suffering. But without any check-in on him from Wuk Lamat it seems plain mean. And no one in our group saying anything after his outburst did make it so weird. I know every moment we could interact with NPCs I was checking in on him. It gave me a peace of mind that, for my WoL story and personality they’d actually make sure Erenville is doing alright in some capacity.

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Originally Posted by Papayatar

I knew she said something but that actually seems worse than I remembered. Because she treated like, he’ll get over it eventually let’s go do something else. Just dismissed completely.

I wish the zones were split in two so it would be Krile story beats in the first two, Erenville story beats in the second two. Then we’d have dedicated time to talk to at least Erenville about what’s going on. Even if he wanted to be left alone it’d have been nice to have the WoL (with or without Wuk Lamat Velcroed to our hip) to check on him. If they went that route it give Wuk Lamat a moment to actually show us that she does care about her friends feelings and what he’s going through right now.

Then at least when she glazes over Erenville feeling uncomfortable about giving his mom her last adventure it could maybe be read as diffusing the tension of the situation and not wanting to draw attention to Erenville quietly suffering. But without any check-in on him from Wuk Lamat it seems plain mean. And no one in our group saying anything after his outburst did make it so weird. I know every moment we could interact with NPCs I was checking in on him. It gave me a peace of mind that, for my WoL story and personality they’d actually make sure Erenville is doing alright in some capacity.

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Yeah i did the same with the interactions, not just at that part but i think from maybe the 2nd area onwards? Just to try and make it feel like I was getting to interact with people. But as it got to the later parts of the story I felt like I was trying to convince myself my WoL was paying attention to her friends/consoling them. Even before that final point (i think i mentioned it in a previous post) she just says "lets leave him to it", and yeah some people do just like to be left alone, but considering Wuk Lamat is obsessed with trying to understand everyone she meets, I wonder why she doesn't seem to try and do the same with her friends?

Part of me really hopes they follow up on these missed story beats in future patches, but I also don't want to disappoint myself if they never do...