Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[CNitsah]

(spoilers in that post)
At first I had no problems with Wuk Lamat. I play in french, so the whole drama about the voice actor and how her VA sounds didn't affect me at all and had no strong feeling one way or the other about her.

During the first half of the msq, she kinda grew on me. The story was lacking stakes, and some of the plotlines had outright bad writing, but I liked how she grew to realise how limited her view were. At the crowning ceremony, I liked her. Not the best character, but at least we got something different from a sharlayan scholar.

Then came the attack on Tuliyollal. I was annoyed by the fact we did not fight Zoraal Ja, because it was meant for Wuk Lamat, while there was story element to explain why he would survive an encounter with us. I felt frustrated.

This is the point where I felt the whole "let's understand each other", "protect the smile and happiness" was wearing thin. It can be a plot point or an ideal for a character, but the moment voice it more than a few times, it becomes ridiculous. It's something really hard to play with, and there is a certain SE/Disney series that achieve to say the most cheesy and corny lines once in a while and make it work, but the FFXIV team does not. Partially because of the tone of the whole game : it's hard to pull that out in a world that build such a grounded political background. It just feels out of place, even disconnected from reality.

It's also the point where I began to feels that she was pushed on me a little too much. As much as it made sense for her to be there with the whole Zoraal Ja thing, at this point I felt we should share the spotlight, like we did with Ysayle and Estinien, or Hien (I would say Lyse too, but I always felt Lyse storyline didn't click and ended being wasted potential). I didn't dislike her, but let me breathe and have my own thing (I'm pretty sure that with the same story for WL, but something in parallel for the WoL, reception of Wuk Lamat would have been better).

The Zoraal Ja fight felt like a good place to end her storyline, and switch back to us. And that's what it felt in the last zone. She was still there, it made sense she was the one that talked the most with sphene, since we are a mute character, yet with the story shifting toward scions teritorry with shard travel and resolving Krile and Erenville storylines, I felt it was going the right way.

Then came the last trial. Sphene lose her humanity, the azem symbol appears on the key, everyone but you get pushed out. It's final confrontation. It's YOUR time at least... But nope, it had to be about Wuk Lamat. She could have appeared after the fight, Sphene could have her last conscious moment after defeating her mindless version, but no, they had to push her down her throat a last time. That's where it broke for me. They nearly achieved to make me bare with her, despite wishing more room to breathe, but that final nudge was too much. Honestly, I don't hate her character, but I don't want her to ever go on an "adventure" with us ever again. For a game praised for making you feel everything you did mattered during EW vanilla, they made a lot of effort to tell you don't matter in the EW patches and in DT.

Fun fact : I don't know what it exactly say in the english version (Once again, I play in french), but if you talk to Raha just before the last dungeon, he tells you a line that ends with "After all, this is your story" (the emphasis on "your" is in the game). And that has to either the less aware line of the whole expension or the biggest troll ever.

[AnimaAnimus]

Finally done. And Mrs. White said it best.

I hated her so much... it it the it fla flame, flames. Flames, on the sides of my face

[Kanotoushi]

For me, Wuk Lamat is bland, and boring but even worse, she's not apt to rule anything! Why am I supposed to root for her, and help her?
Which by the way, until this point has been just standing aside, nodding, and smiling. I don't think I've seen my boy with such a stupid smile on his face so much in all the previous content combined
I didn't know them at the time, and even so, helping Gaius' children in The Sorrow of Werlyt Quests got me more invested than anything in Dawntrail so far, even if I have to do duties as another class (which I hate), and that was an optional side quest
After leaving my previous mmo I should have known better than pre-order anything

[Fluxating]

After 5 days of slowing chipping away at the MSQ, I finally caved and starting skipping cutscenes and mashing through dialog for the first time. This "story" was so awful and I just wanted it to end.

[FlowerMilk]

I'm really hoping and crossing my fingers that at some point we get to go somewhere else and leave Wuk Lamat behind. If someone from Tuliyollal has to join us for some reason, I would rather it be Koana. Spoilers:

It really irked me when we needed to go investigate the robot dudes that Koana was the one chosen to stay behind and reassure the people which he's totally super good at based on the story beforehand, and Wuk Lamat was the one chosen to go investigate because she's going to fight her robot lizard brother, even though the entire time she's like "I have no idea how any of this works" and the whole time I'm thinking "wtf are you even doing here then? why is Koana not here instead???"

Also when people were suggesting that the writers move away from the Scions (not me), you were so so wrong. Every time the Scions show up I am audibly saying to myself "oh thank god", and every time Wuk Lamat suggests we split up and I join her I am in pain. Please god just let me adventure with the Scions again, this is suffering. Whoever suggested it I hope steps on many Legos. I have genuinely never disliked any character in this game at all until now.

[CottonC]

I'm really hoping and crossing my fingers that at some point we get to go somewhere else and leave Wuk Lamat behind. If someone from Tuliyollal has to join us for some reason, I would rather it be Koana. Spoilers:

It really irked me when we needed to go investigate the robot dudes that Koana was the one chosen to stay behind and reassure the people which he's totally super good at based on the story beforehand, and Wuk Lamat was the one chosen to go investigate because she's going to fight her robot lizard brother, even though the entire time she's like "I have no idea how any of this works" and the whole time I'm thinking "wtf are you even doing here then? why is Koana not here instead???"

Honestly. At this point I think that Dawntrail, considering that we want to keep the main story points as is would be much better expansion if there was no Dawnservant trial. Just WoL visiting new lands since we earned some time to rest and see things and we bump into "Golden City" when following in the footsteps of the Dawnservant. Is there anything in this story that requires Wuk Lamat? Honestly no. She has no purpose whatsoever. No problem presented within the story makes her a irreplaceable character - and yet, she is in 95% of the story, no matter if she is wanted, needed or if the thing concerns her at all. If anything our journey could have been chill hanging out with Krile and Erenville until they get mixed up into affairs of exotic Turall by accident "since troubles always seems to find WoL" and both Krile and Erenville are so much more compelling characters with space for development - yet they get a footnote compared to Wuk Lamat the vampire sucking all of the joy from anything that may have happened.

[Fluxating]

I'm really hoping and crossing my fingers that at some point we get to go somewhere else and leave Wuk Lamat behind. If someone from Tuliyollal has to join us for some reason, I would rather it be Koana. Spoilers:

It really irked me when we needed to go investigate the robot dudes that Koana was the one chosen to stay behind and reassure the people which he's totally super good at based on the story beforehand, and Wuk Lamat was the one chosen to go investigate because she's going to fight her robot lizard brother, even though the entire time she's like "I have no idea how any of this works" and the whole time I'm thinking "wtf are you even doing here then? why is Koana not here instead???"

Also when people were suggesting that the writers move away from the Scions (not me), you were so so wrong. Every time the Scions show up I am audibly saying to myself "oh thank god", and every time Wuk Lamat suggests we split up and I join her I am in pain. Please god just let me adventure with the Scions again, this is suffering. Whoever suggested it I hope steps on many Legos. I have genuinely never disliked any character in this game at all until now.

The whole time during the rite of ascension I wanted to switch sides to join Koana. Social awkwardness aside, he was clearly the better candidate over wuk lamat, and even got character development as a bonus.

[FlowerMilk]

Honestly. At this point I think that Dawntrail, considering that we want to keep the main story points as is would be much better expansion if there was no Dawnservant trial. Just WoL visiting new lands since we earned some time to rest and see things and we bump into "Golden City" when following in the footsteps of the Dawnservant. Is there anything in this story that requires Wuk Lamat? Honestly no. She has no purpose whatsoever. No problem presented within the story makes her a irreplaceable character - and yet, she is in 95% of the story, no matter if she is wanted, needed or if the thing concerns her at all. If anything our journey could have been chill hanging out with Krile and Erenville until they get mixed up into affairs of exotic Turall by accident "since troubles always seems to find WoL" and both Krile and Erenville are so much more compelling characters with space for development - yet they get a footnote compared to Wuk Lamat the vampire sucking all of the joy from anything that may have happened.

Yeah the story was built up to involve Krile a lot more, and we've known her for a lot longer. I am very sad that it is so Wuk Lamat heavy instead, extremely disappointed. I would not have minded if we helped Wuk Lamat from the beginning, but once she

becomes the Dawnservant and finds the Golden City, she should stay back and protect her people while the Scions go investigate and fight her brother because we (Scions/WoL) are undoubtedly way better equipped to handle it over her. And then it should shift to a Krile heavy story. Every time Wuk Lamat is on my screen after she became Dawnservant I'm constantly like "Why are you here? Why isn't this more focused on Krile?". We are literally investigating where Krile came from and for some reason Wuk Lamat is here constantly in the spotlight to tell us all about how she doesn't understand anything that is going. Please just go away already!

[Undeadfire]

I'm really hoping and crossing my fingers that at some point we get to go somewhere else and leave Wuk Lamat behind. If someone from Tuliyollal has to join us for some reason, I would rather it be Koana. Spoilers:

It really irked me when we needed to go investigate the robot dudes that Koana was the one chosen to stay behind and reassure the people which he's totally super good at based on the story beforehand, and Wuk Lamat was the one chosen to go investigate because she's going to fight her robot lizard brother, even though the entire time she's like "I have no idea how any of this works" and the whole time I'm thinking "wtf are you even doing here then? why is Koana not here instead???"

"The Garleans were Simpletons"

Gives time for the city to prepare defences. You expect for an invasion to have 10x the military size, not 1 cruiser and a couple transports in a big city and prevent them having means of fighting back. In American Texas town lose to a couple cowboys and Estinien very quickly, was the fastest loss in the west.

For something extremely advanced and alien like, you expect them to put your friends in danger, not out right send them all to the junkyard in less than 10 mins. I can understand Scions and Bakool Ja Ja, but everyone winning so easily is ridiculous.

[CosmoBabylonia]

This bit just about made the veins on my neck pop for real.

My friend, it's much worse. The other guy who knows, or has a rough idea about the float, was in the VanuVanu village all this time. Did he just not say anything?

Or was it like this?

"We got to test some new challengers soon, hey you there don't help us to fix the issue. I'm going to pretend to not know and you are going to pretend to not know, and we will starve for a bit since the crops have to fail in order to start the challenge".