I'm Frustrated with FFXIV's New Direction

[Gaddes]

With Niddhogg and Estinien, it didn't feel unearned to me. With Wuk Lamat and Sphene, the dynamic felt very "awkward girl convinced popular girl, who doesn't even know who she is, is her best friend." There was no connection between them. Lamat only thought there was one.

Yeah, Estinien had the benefit of an entire base Heavensward expansion plus a bit of ARR Dragoon quests to build up that simmering long-term animosity between himself and Nidhogg, so when you finally get to that moment where he can land the killing blow, it's like "all you, pal, this is yours." But with Sphene, we don't even get to meet her until halfway through the expansion, and on top of that there's nowhere near enough time for them to establish a believable connective tissue to Wuk Lamat while we are also suspicious as hell of her at the same time. It just makes it look like Wuk is desperate to make this new leader her friend, when Sphene is really not giving back as much friendliness as Wuk is giving her. Wuk is openly friendly and Sphene has a facade of charm while still holding her cards very close to her chest; these are not the same things, and it makes for a very lopsided "friendship." So when Wuk yells for Sphene and keeps trying to reason with her, I couldn't gel with any of that because you know behind all of that Sphene will vaporize everyone in front of her if it means her people get to live a few days longer.

[Supersnow845]

Yeah, Estinien had the benefit of an entire base Heavensward expansion plus a bit of ARR Dragoon quests to build up that simmering long-term animosity between himself and Nidhogg, so when you finally get to that moment where he can land the killing blow, it's like "all you, pal, this is yours." But with Sphene, we don't even get to meet her until halfway through the expansion, and on top of that there's nowhere near enough time for them to establish a believable connective tissue to Wuk Lamat while we are also suspicious as hell of her at the same time. It just makes it look like Wuk is desperate to make this new leader her friend, when Sphene is really not giving back as much friendliness as Wuk is giving her. Wuk is openly friendly and Sphene has a facade of charm while still holding her cards very close to her chest; these are not the same things, and it makes for a very lopsided "friendship." So when Wuk yells for Sphene and keeps trying to reason with her, I couldn't gel with any of that because you know behind all of that Sphene will vaporize everyone in front of her if it means her people get to live a few days longer.

They intentionally made a scene where sphene refused to tell erenville what happened to cauchia right to his face which was the most blatantly obvious representation that her whole “charming facade” was a crock of shit and then they still wanted us to believe that Sphene and Wuk were forcing some sort of actual bond when they did the final scene

[PercibelTheren]

They intentionally made a scene where sphene refused to tell erenville what happened to cauchia right to his face which was the most blatantly obvious representation that her whole “charming facade” was a crock of shit and then they still wanted us to believe that Sphene and Wuk were forcing some sort of actual bond when they did the final scene

This is a big part of why I found Dawntrail so frustrating. The only way Sphene could have been more obvious would be if she held a giant neon sign saying "I'm this expansion's villain, ask me how".

My ability to suspend my disbelief is pretty strong but I really, REALLY don't like it when the game makes my WoL an idiot. We have been betrayed multiple times. No reasonable person would be this on board with Sphene. Like...you know it's bad when Alisae, of all people, is being the voice of reason.