Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ thoughts

[Alenore]

Gosh I knew i shouldn't have included that part. You completely dodged the rest though.

You also tried to avoid answering the question of "Why is Wuk Lamat so disliked?" (see the Steam reviews if you think shes's popular).
I dont wanna hear why you LIKE her.

Apologies, I thought that was a rhetorical question. However my answer still stands, most peopleactually don't care about her and enjoy Dawntrail well enough. For the sake of the argument, I'll answer.

But first, I have to correct something: I don't "like" her, I'm absolutely neutral about her. She's a character I've been following, just like I've been following Ysayle, Estinien and Alphinaud in HW, or Lyse, Gosetsu, Yugiri and Hien in SB. I don't have special ties to her, she's nothing special juste like most of the characters I've mentioned before (bar Alphinaud and Estinien) don't move me a bit.
Why is that? Because she's new. Dawntrail is the start of a new story in unfamiliar land, and new characters are introduced. First and foremost, we get Wuk Lamat. I've described her as growing up, naive, etc... and these are not traits that make me like characters.

You can wonder why I've come at you then? Because while I don't care about her, the reasons you give for disliking her are simply wrong. Just go back to my previous post for a rebutal of your characterization of the character.

But one Wuk Lamat does not Dawntrail make.

The story stands even without her if a random Mamool Ja with 0 lines of dialogue was the one in race to become Dawnservant.
Wuk Lamat is no more annoying than Alphinaud was before he had time to grow, or Ryne, or Zero, or a cast of other FF characters who also, from time to time, take the spotlight and have a lot of dialogue as well.
She's really just a way to drive the story forward, and I can abstract what I think about her and see the bigger picture and the underlying ideas, which I don't feel suffers because of her presence in it.

Without Wuk Lamat, we'd breach the same subject with Bakuul Ja Ja who is misguided, has a terrible father really, but feels like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders because his race feels like they have to create Blessed Siblings. you'll get what you want of that story, for instance that even in a seemingly united society, some people are feeling left out and want to change the status quo even at the cost of their people.

We'd see Zoraal Ja the same way if you pay attention, a misguided son who feels the weight of his father's crown and think he has to prove himself by surpassing his father, and that the ends justify the means.
Or just a big bad with 0 motivation but to be evil if you don't read between the lines.

The same issues would be thrown at us in Alexandria, the same clash of culture about souls and their view on death.

So in the end, Dawntrail wouldn't be really better or worse with or without Wuk Lamat, just like if you removed a character from the previous main cast, you could build around. The story is good, the character is a way to drive it.


Now to answer why I think people dislike her...

I want to her YOUR theory about why other people don't.

Firstly, a lot of people joined during Endwalker or at the end of ShB, so when we were riding on already 6-8 years of story and build up. A bunch of them also either skipped the beginning of the game altogether or skipped cutscenes due to ARR poor reputation.
For a lot of them, this is the first time they experience writers trying to build up something for a new story, and a "summer vacation" expansion obviously feels slooooooow as hell. "Speak to Wuk Lamat" is the "Pray return to the Waking Sands" of the expansion.

Secondly, her english voice actor really doesn't help the character. I know it's more of a voice direction issue, but the fact remains that some scenes are weird. The last fight comes to mind. It doesn't help give a good characterization of the character if she's lifting a giant robotic hand without a hint of strain in her voice. I suspect you had this scene that in a corner of your mind when you said she was a Mary Sue.

Which brings me to: I suspect a large part of the playerbase only follow the MSQ and never either read the secondary quests or speak with NPCs outside of objectives. They're missing on a lot of informations, context, what NPC think about the situations (notably Krile).
But if every quest forced you to speak to every NPC around to see what they thought, people would just quit. The obvious drawback is that people who don't do that are missing on a lot.

Then, there's the (somewhat understandable) feeling she takes a more prominent role in the story compared to the WoL in EW and ShB. I'm not sure I really agree or understand this argument but I've seen it multiple times. This is a MMORPG and the main character will almost always be pointed toward the next big bad to kill, be they lightwardens, primals, ascians or Tural vidraal. I don't feel like my character had less agency in DT than EW or ShB.
So I guess what people mean is "We don't feel like we matter as much as before, it could by anyone else", and while kinda understandable in Endwalker (we go to the First and Elpis on our own), it has never been the case before. We matter when we're slaying gods.

Lastly, and that's more about why people dislike Dawntrail *because* of Wuk Lamat, is that people tend to throw everything to the garbage because they dislike a small part. In this case, Wuk Lamat. For Helldivers 2, Sony accounts. And so on. I daresay most of the reviews (good or bad) were made before people finished MSQ, which the Steam graph would tend to confirm since positive reviews rise way more than negative as time pass and people experience more of the story.



I'll finish with Steam having more positive reviews than negatives, and scrolling through negative review, a lot don't even mention her. So while assuredly divisive, saying that most people hate her is simply wrong. Especially when multiple positive reviews mention how they came to like Wuk Lamat despite being wary at first.
A few comment just from the first page of positive reviews prove people also like her :

the level of vitriol for the main character in ignorance of any other aspects of the story and development of the character over the course of the story lead me to believe a lot of the negativity is not in good faith
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The Vacation and Mentor Role we take on is such a nice palette cleanser!
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Wuk Lamat is the best!
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In my instance, I disliked Wuk Lamat when she first appeared and was overall on the fence. As Dawntrail progresses, Wuk Lamat grew on me overtime as did other new characters.
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Wuk Lamat