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

[Plumerian_Ariadust]

You could get them to level 100 in trusts, unlock their new trust outfits and then hang out in the first dungeon if you're willing to substitute 'beach' for 'muddy river.'

Trusts are fine and all but it's a pain getting them from 71 to 100 even with the boosted exp.

[Morphiana]

Preach nailed the problem with Wuk Lamat on the head. She never leaves your side for more than a hot minute.

She is always there, and always in the spot light. This is the first xpac I feel like the WoL and Scions were side lined from start to finish.

The worst part was, Krile got done dirty with that ending for her origins. They never said why they did what they did. It is implied which is normally fine but if you were Krile, it would be the first question out of your mouth even if you knew the answer because you'd need to hear it from them directly to truly understand why they did that and how it made them feel.

If Wuk Lamat didn't stick to you like glue, if the VA direction for everyone this xpac didn't result in some many flat lines / fake yelling, and if everyone just didn't sit there and watch bad brother kill papi even after he clearly began cheating, this xpac wouldn't be perfect but far better than it is story wise.

[Bananarama]

I'm a little late to this thread because I shudder to even imagine seeing Wuk Lamat again.

I could accept not being the main guy this time around, I could accept that I came across the ocean for Wuk Lamat (not that I could refuse), and a story having lower stakes(at first) than Endwalker was fine by me. I wasn't anywhere near mentally prepared for how obnoxious she became. I don't think I could point anything specific out anymore since it's been a month since release, and I think my mind blanked out on all the Wuk Lamat details.

I was basically dead inside by the time we unlocked the Level 91 dungeon, and even more by the time we hit the 93 one, but I was absolutely elated to be free of Poochie when Erenville decided we'd hit the cowboy zone, and I'm not even a fan of Erenville. I actually groaned so freaking hard when Wuk showed up again, and the rest of the story from there is honestly a blur. I'm just glad I got to have my moments with Krile (the reason I was looking forward to the expansion) as few as they were relative to Mrs. Double-the-lines-of-the-next-most-chatty-character. And the less said about her killstealing and SPEEEENing, the better. This expansion was the first time in my (long) time playing FFXIV where I became a cutscene skipper, usually if the scene wasn't voiced, but ESPECIALLY that scene where she barges in on us at the inn, or if that awful disney-sounding song started playing.

I'd need to hit the expansion again on Newgame plus to get my thoughts together, but I think if I did that in 100 years, it'd still be too soon. Thanks for coming to my horribly put together ted talk.

Rating: 4/10, call me when Poochie dies on the way to her home planet. Give me more Krile.

[Mortex]

DT has writing character writing problems sure, but the base premise of the expansion is fine. Also they called it a summer vacation AS A JOKE at the first fanfest and immeidately said it wouldn't just be a summer vacation. And they advertised S9 and showed invasion stuff in the launch trailer to make it clear it wasn't just a beach vacation. People really overplay that point.



I don't think the game is trying to tell us not to care about the Endless.

Sure. Erenville's mom says not to. But if she really felt that way, why is she making sure to spend those final moments with her son? Why do Krile and Erenville get moments of bonding before they have to say goodbye? Why does the camera linger on the world going gray and the utter silence after shutting one of the terminals off?

Yes one character says not to worry about it but it seems more likey she's trying to convince us to go through with it rather than her actions backing that sentiment up. And everything else about the final zone is trying to make us feel something for them. I wouldn't take one npcs words motivated to getting us to stop all of it at face value there.

Also considering that 'talk no jutsu' failed and wasn't likely to ever have succeeded given Sphene's directives I don't know why it being there bothers you that much.

The premise of the story was finding the golden city. Problem is the city was already found and there was no mystery for it.

And about the endless. The problem is that they try too play both sides, on one hand we can’t be genocidal monster like emet or the Ascian with the endless so they are just Programms and memories but in the other hand pls care about them because they act like real living beings.

There is no moral weight and no right or wrong question. Same as they try to make us feel for freaking sphene, a computer program that even betrayed us 2 times in a row after we did help here and later get the macuffin back. And yes the talk no jutsu didn’t work but it somehow restored a deleted Personality from a program that in the end didn’t do anything anyway just to makes us feel bad again for the genocidal computer program

[LisseyCrowe]

The premise of the story was finding the golden city. Problem is the city was already found and there was no mystery for it.

It's sad that this is unironically one of the bigger disappointment of the story that ends up being completely buried by all the bigger issues. I wonder if people who really wanted more out of Garlemald felt similarly when that was resolved the way it was.

This was a pretty big mystery, all things considered? What it was, how we'd find it, if we'd find it. And the primary (but technically secondary) goal of the Rite of Succession is "FINDING THE CITY OF GOLD" and uhh ... Did we really find it? Actually find it? We stumbled into it, sure, but finding it? Oh we followed the Dawnservant's journey and that's why we found it, is it? Is it? Is it though?

Of course not. It makes sense in retrospect too, of course we learned nothing from the trials, this isn't a society who's development was inherently tied to the city of gold, heck Gulool Ja Ja and Co stumbled unto it themselves. But then why hijack/combine these plots at all?

I'm horrified at the thought that most of Dawntrail is a result of so many rewrites that almost everything left is a relic of a former script. Which Bakool Ja Ja was the initial pitch? The idiot or tragic messiah figure? Was Koana always secretly emotional? The history stones in Tuliyollal tell the story of the journey of the Dawnservant, but then nothing at all happened for 80 years at which point an 8th stone was placed for Wuk and Koana? Were the Trials always the main plot (well, half of)? People still debate over whatever the hell is going on with S9 and souls/endless/etc? Some of this can be explored, but it'll never be a "Let'em cook" and instead the best we can hope is "Well, it wasn't until X patch that it felt like they had a plan with this".

And I can't stress enough how much I hope this key McGuffin somehow breaks before it warps the plot completely.

[Daralii]

The premise of the story was finding the golden city. Problem is the city was already found and there was no mystery for it.

And about the endless. The problem is that they try too play both sides, on one hand we can’t be genocidal monster like emet or the Ascian with the endless so they are just Programms and memories but in the other hand pls care about them because they act like real living beings.

There is no moral weight and no right or wrong question. Same as they try to make us feel for freaking sphene, a computer program that even betrayed us 2 times in a row after we did help here and later get the macuffin back. And yes the talk no jutsu didn’t work but it somehow restored a deleted Personality from a program that in the end didn’t do anything anyway just to makes us feel bad again for the genocidal computer program

The silliest thing about the Sphene emotional drama is that her mind was completely artificial. Otis was one of the first people digitized, and he saw her dead well before that, so she's a replica of how she was perceived of by others. She's arguably less "real" than the phantom Hythlodaeus, but she's the one in particular we're supposed to feel sorry for.

[ApolloGenX]

I just started DT and I dunno about the character, but the accent is a muddled mess.

[MalakRevan]

They put all their eggs in the Wuk basket, almost everyone’s opinion on the story hinges on if they like her or not. The game never really gives you a chance to spend any sort of significant time with characters accompanying you on this journey outside of Wuk with the one singular exception being the lvl 96 quests with Erenville and it doesn’t last. Shadowbringers is the perfect antithesis of this story structure. It moves focus frequently from character to character, every scion in Norvrandt goes through their own arc and if you don’t like a particular character’s story the game usually moves onto another character relatively quickly, it helps things not get stale. Il Mheg alone has significant character moments with Urianger, Thancred, Ryne, and Ardbert. Meanwhile Dawntrail never really moves on from Wuk, she’s constantly the focus of cutscenes and the driving force behind almost the entire journey. It makes me wonder if there were significant rewrites during development. What also makes me thing this is how Krile’s character is handled. Yoshida himself said while on stage at fan fest that she’d be a very pivotal character in Dawntrail and even said “he felt like he owed her one after all these years.” Even not that long after Endwalker came out he stated in an interview that she’d be a very important character for the next expansion. All that came from this was one quick story segment with her parents in Living Memory. We don’t even get to see her real-time reaction to her heritage, Ketenramm tells her offscreen, was this deemed not important enough to show?? Was her screen time lessened to make room for Wuk, what the hell was happening here???

[Bananarama]

It would be funny if EX3 came out and the whole fight revolved around Poochie, with mechanics including but not limited to:

*Players cannot directly attack the boss, as they must instead rely on Wuk's attacks to damage the boss. Instead the boss is just a bunch of looping adds phases where players must kill the adds to prevent them from getting in Wuk's way until she kills the boss herself

*Wuk Lamat has a health bar and if it drops to 0 the raid instantly wipes; players must take turns blocking tethers that attack Wuk and healers must expend consistent GCDs on Wuk to keep her alive

*Players are afflicted with a permanent crippling 99% damage down debuff, the only way to get rid of it is by standing right next to Wuk Lamat at all times

*When Wuk deals 50% of the boss's HP, a 2 minute cutscene plays where Wuk talks to Sphene, reminiscing about how much she learned about Alexandria's culture from her and wishing they can still have peace so she can introduce tacos to Alexandria

*At several intervals a message appears saying "Put your trust in Wuk Lamat!" requiring all 8 players to use the /cheer emote on Wuk to make her do a tank Limit Break, if one player fails to cheer Wuk the party wipes from the next attack

Please look forward to it.

I'd unsub and delete my 13 year old character on the spot.

[Colt47]

I've mostly concluded from this that those games that ascribe to the live service mindset do not really know how to make a good downtime period in a game. I don't think anyone was really expecting jumping into saving the world against another major threat nor were they expecting to have their character literally roped into the mess that is the main story of the expansion. Freaking Godfrey in Elden Ring was more impressive than all the characters in this entire expansion, and he expressed the most important aspects of himself in a single fight with our tarnished. World lore was just amazingly good.