Wuk Lamat is the worst and most annoying character ever in this game

[Turtledeluxe]

An interesting bit here, is when Wuk examines Krile's letter and she straight up says it looks forged as hell. The language is different, and the seal is the kind they wouldn't even use in her country. She only acknowledges that it might have been a dictated letter when she notices how put out Krile seems at the prospect of her letter being inauthentic. So to me, a letter that looks more like a fake (or even a trap) than an actual invitation, isn't a good reason .

I agree with your take that the patch is rushed. In terms of narrative, it would have been better to leave the actual commitment to the cause in 7.0. I don't think anything would have been lost by leaving this patch with us ambivalent about the contest but still determined to go to Tural and consider it. This is a minor change but would go toward making the narrative feel more natural. But tbh it isn't just this element to me that feels unnatural, it's also many of the interactions and weird callbacks to 6.0 like they happened ages ago. The writing in general for this patch left me wanting.

That said I feel like your analysis of the letter is off. It seemed to me that the initials were real, but the rest was written by a translator. I think the writers are trying to make you wonder who the translator was vs implying the letter was fake.

[Avoidy]

I agree, so it is not because of her that I want to go. It is because of the potential threat to Eorzea, the place I've spent 4 expansions and ARR defending. If she is lying about something, I'm sure it will become clear soon enough.

My understanding is rather that they want to replace the Garlean Empire as a force that invades and rules places like Othard, Ala Mhigo, Castrum Meridianum, etc. They wouldn't have considered facing a mighty, technological empire like that, but without the Garleans around, the primitive Eorzeans probably seem like easy pickings.

In a way, that gives us more reason to investigate. Someone wrote that letter and if it wasn't Gulool Ja Ja but has their approval, it suggests someone from Eorzea, who resides in the New World, thinks that it needs investigating as well. If it were just idle curiosity, they would probably be like Erenville and not involve anyone else, but this person or Gulool Ja Ja must think there is something sinister going on with the city of gold and want an expert to investigate it.

See, the second point you made is a fair one, but one that would've felt naturally integrated into the story if (like I mentioned earlier) we'd had prior escalated dealings with this opposing group in the past. If it was apparent from prior dealings that yeah, these guys are escalating, so no, they aren't just going to occupy a territory and then stop, then yeah, I'd totally feel justified in interfering with another nation's conflicts since this could easily become a me-problem soon. But as it stands, I don't even know these other people and I just have Wuk's word to go off of, who I guess I trust because we hunted together and she seems nice, so now we're intervening in another nation's conflicts, tipping scales, and screwing over a contest for 3 other tribes. I'm just not sold on it. And honestly the fact that there's room for uncertainty is good and would make this an engaging introduction to DT, except the dialogue options barely allow you to express genuine dissent at all. At best, there's a line (iirc) where you ask if the area's existence is just a rumor and that's it.

As for the letter being a possible forgery and that being -more- of a reason to go and not less... to me, that's just a big fat NOPE. If someone writes me a letter like "hey avoidy, come on down to Texas I've got something to show you" and it's signed some dude I know, but it turns out there's a big fat chance that letter was forged, I'm not gonna be like "wow I guess I have an even bigger reason to head on down there" like hell no lol. It wouldn't warrant further investigation for me, or for anyone who's not looking to get ganked. None of this would. Your reasons are fine, but the stuff you said about it being from an Eorzean in the new world is one really optimistic possibility; it could just as easily be someone in the new world who simply wanted to lure Krile's relative out there to get robbed, tortured for info, and then blown out in the middle of nowhere.

Basically I would've been happier with the lead-in if we'd started seeing escalating conflict from Wuk's adversarial tribe much earlier in the post-EW storyline so that anything she's saying would feel like "yeah, that tracks with what we've been seeing too," OR failing that, at LEAST give me the dialogue options to be like "I don't even know these people, why should I trust what you have to say about them" or any kind of skepticism at all. Legit for all we know, Wuk's group is the one that's thirsty for war and she's just playing us. This possibility is vaguely raised once, like you mentioned earlier, but then ironically the way we're supposed to trust her comes from a violent bloodsport. So the reason we shouldn't suspect Wuk of actually being -from- the bloodthirsty warmongerers she claims to hate, is because, get ready now, she proposed a bloodthirsty hunt and then spent every minute of it salivating at the thought of killing shit and eating it. Like... I'm not saying the story is bad for making me doubt her, but I am saying we should've had a lot more room (dialogue options) TO be allowed to doubt, and if the writers didn't want people like me to think Wuk is hella suspicious and that none of this warranted our meddling, then they should've introduced her sooner, introduced her adversaries sooner, etc. etc.

NGL the more I toss this back and forth in my head, the happier I am that there's room to have this skepticism and debate. I actually hope this issue gets raised in DT because I could see it creating ideological differences among the main characters. Urianger in particular, seems too thoughtful and considerate to brazenly rush into an international conflict because the new girl on the block pointed their resident loaded gun (WoL) at some other people. I just dislike this sort of thing in RPGs in general I guess, when something's popping up kinda obvious red flags and you have to watch your character just roll with it to set up the conflict. It'd be like watching our character (who's been drugged with drinks multiple times) take a sip out of a glass that's been left out for hours and then smile while doing it. Dialogue options have let us be really vicious to Alisaie in the past; I don't see why there wasn't a really basic, polite, "You seem nice, but I don't care about your foreign tribal spats" option at any point.

[Enclavex]

The initial threads and comments were all pretty openly transphobic, but got moderated pretty quickly for once. So most of the complaining now kinda reads like people who want to complain about one specific thing but don't want to get banned for it so they have to come up with other exaggerated negative opinions to compensate. Maybe there are some people with legitimate complaints, but it's pretty hard to take any of them in earnest now.

I know I'm completely unable to take seriously anybody who's complaining. I felt Sena did a great job with the voice and after that first thread I can't help but think the people who are constantly complaining are just hateful people who know they aren't allowed to complain about what they WANT to complain about.

[Mithron]

This thread and the feedback on X make me realize how many people have a hard time separating VA and character. Wuk Lamat is a genki tomboy who likes food - not very original but absolutely not annoying.

It is very annoying, and this particular one isn't written well either. And has a terrible VA and poorly made face.

[Musashidon]

It is very annoying, and this particular one isn't written well either. And has a terrible VA and poorly made face.

mean if you are lucky they will kill her off like they did with the actual worst character in the game haurchefant who is actually worse in every way.

[Fourbestintoner]

6.0: Varshahn is the most annoying characer ever
6.2: Zero is the most annoying character ever
6.55: Wuk Lamat is the most annoying character ever

never change, official forums, never change

Each worse than the last.

[VictorSpoils]

6.0: Varshahn is the most annoying characer ever

Uh...can't recall seeing any of those threads. Probably because he wasn't annoying.

[Colt47]

I don't know how someone can like or dislike a character that barely exists.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Funnily enough when the trailer shows the character in question for first time, very little actually spoke negatives about her even when her voice was heard.

It's only after her VA actress was revealed then everything went ape$h!t.

Totally not a coincidence. Yep...

[Jeeqbit]

I would've been happier with the lead-in if we'd started seeing escalating conflict from Wuk's adversarial tribe much earlier in the post-EW storyline

I would have preferred the build up to span more patches, but I just try to make the most of however SE tells a story and meet them half way if I can, because they aren't going to tell it 100% the way I want.

But, to me, I was able to meet them half way and they caught me half way by integrating the rushed nature of the build up into the story itself, by acknowledging it's all happening too fast and then giving me a good reason to go off of.

As for whether we would investigate a rumor, you know, if you've done every quest in the game, you've been asked to investigate rumors without much to go on a million times, sometimes to find literal animal droppings. No job is too big, or too small, too informed or uninformed (usually the latter), in WoL lore.

Applying the same question to other quests, why should we do almost any side quest? Why should a busy WoL go to the South Sea Isles because a talking animal said we should? Why should we help the Namazu avoid a calamity that they are imagining and isn't going to happen in reality? Why should we believe all these legendary fish can be caught (that I for sure can't bring myself to fight RNG for to complete the quest)?

The answer tends to be that we are willing to risk wasting our time in case they are telling the truth.

the dialogue options barely allow you to express genuine dissent at all.

I wish the dialogue options were better as well, but I find any game with dialogue options doesn't always have the one I want, even ones that allow disagreement more regularly.

What I have had to do with this game since the beginning is to come up with my own dialogue in my head if, say, I'm skeptical or want to make sure that, in my head, my character has mentioned things. Sometimes SE do give you room to do that by having a scene where your mouth moves lots without any dialogue as well.