I'm Frustrated with FFXIV's New Direction

[ovIm]

This is an incredibly crucial point that I think the Wuk Lamat defenders keep forgetting: we've been a side character before. This isn't a new thing. Other people have had the limelight and not copped anywhere near as much flak as Wuk Lamat.

It's how she's written that's the problem, not that she's the protagonist of the expansion.

In regards to the Queen Eternal fight however, things are a bit different.
During the Aery, we storm it together with Estinien, and are very much on equal footing here. Also, the Aery is a mid expansion leveling dungeon, not the grand final fight.

Before the Queen Eternal fight, Queen Eternal kicks out WL and Krile, stating that we are the most dangerous thing and that we need to be exterminated. Only for us to be overwhelmed and saved by WL? This feels like blatant "Wuk Lamat Mary Sue-ism" by the writers, even accompanied with that dreadful debuff how she is inspiring you, and with WL doing so much more damage than the rest of the party.

Personally, I don't think Wuk Lamat is a bad character overall. She just suffers from the bad writing (like pretty much most of the cast on this expansion) that, in this case, constantly puts her on a pedestal, to the detriment of other characters, that has created a lot of resentment.

[Carin-Eri]

In regards to the Queen Eternal fight however, things are a bit different.
During the Aery, we storm it together with Estinien, and are very much on equal footing here. Also, the Aery is a mid expansion leveling dungeon, not the grand final fight.

Before the Queen Eternal fight, Queen Eternal kicks out WL and Krile, stating that we are the most dangerous thing and that we need to be exterminated. Only for us to be overwhelmed and saved by WL? This feels like blatant "Wuk Lamat Mary Sue-ism" by the writers, even accompanied with that dreadful debuff how she is inspiring you, and with WL doing so much more damage than the rest of the party.

Personally, I don't think Wuk Lamat is a bad character overall. She just suffers from the bad writing (like pretty much most of the cast on this expansion) that, in this case, constantly puts her on a pedestal, to the detriment of other characters, that has created a lot of resentment.

Agreed - whilst I'd tolerated her throughout the story, this moment irritated me no end.

There is absolutely NO point in having the big bad say "You are the single greatest threat" if you're going to completely contradict that by dumping a completely unnecessary 'rescue' scene on us.
It felt like they were trying to pull a Zenos (when he appeared to assist us to battle Endsinger) but didn't quite understand why it worked in that scenario.

[Hallarem]

Still think Zenos was a bit of a leftover dishrag with no real reason to be there except fan service. I think it was a bit of an asspull, but it is what it is. Wasnt a huge fan of the "edge of the universe" jump the shark either. It was random, but as rushed as EW was. At least its better written than Dawntrail

[Mondschnee]

It felt like they were trying to pull a Zenos (when he appeared to assist us to battle Endsigner) but didn't quite understand why it worked in that scenario.

^^^
I felt this during Dawntrail a lot.
They kept referencing beloved moments/characters from previous expansion without understanding why these moments worked in the first place, making these moments feel cheap. I didn't like that at all.

Yoshi-P said before Endwalker was released that they didn't want to try and make a second Shadowbringers, they wanted to try and make Endwalker its own.
Where was that ambition in Dawntrail?

[DoomRyder]

Still think Zenos was a bit of a leftover dishrag with no real reason to be there except fan service. I think it was a bit of an asspull, but it is what it is. Wasnt a huge fan of the "edge of the universe" jump the shark either. It was random, but as rushed as EW was. At least its better written than Dawntrail

Endwalker is only happening at all because he teamed up with Fandanny and starting wreaking havoc on Eitherys.

[SerenityIsBae]

I don't really care if Wuk Lamat or anyone else dealt the final blow or something like that. It doesn't change the fact we spent about 10 minutes weakening it, or alternatively holding it off.

Was anyone upset that Estinien got the final blow on Nidhogg in The Aery? I wasn't - that was exactly what I wanted to happen. I didn't need anymore accolades at that point. Estinien had worked his whole life for that moment.

The difference between that and this is that Estinien had a personal score to settle with nidhogg built up over years of his life. Wuk Lamat just met Sphene earlier today.
Also, The Aery isn't the final fight of the expansion against the big bad. A better parallel would be The Final Steps of Faith and we very much handle that fight alone.

[AnnRam]

Here's my personal take on Dawntrail. The Wuk Lamat story arc, is done. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. It was merely to set up for the warrior of light as a possible good memories later down the line. Something we can look back on and say "Yeah we did some good here". Wuk Lamat's story is done. She's going to more than likely be like Lyse, and be busy governing Tural as Dawnservant. We on the other hand, judging by the ending, our journey has only just begun. The side story is over and now, the story is going to be shifting back to us, as we continue our adventuring life. We may be asked to help intervein in Solution nine, as people there have just had their Ishgard moment. Their queen is dead, and now they need to learn to live normal lives, without feeding on others souls. Zoraal Ja used up a majority of the souls in the bank as we saw, there's almost nothing left in their storage. So we will likely be asked to help integrate them into the source and re-introducing them to life here in the source.

There's still going to be a big bad in this story arc. We never found out what our big bad was until endwalker. But we always thought the ascians were the big bad. And I suspect we aren't done with the ascians just yet. Either that, or some new minor villain group will show up we have to deal with. Either way, the game is still solid. Was Wuk over-used in this MSQ? Yes absolutely. SE will have learned a good lesson from this experience. The devs are human. They make mistakes like everyone else, and they take the lesson learned from mistakes and go forward better for the experience. Look at ARR. It was a complete rebirth from the mess that was 1.0. And a few expansions later, they did go back and streamlined the story a lot more, and cut out the bloat and it was made all the better for it.

Overall, dawntrail will get better. The story wasn't bad. We returned to being just another adventurer, who happens to have in their background, the fact we saved the entire planet. But our goal was to return to our roots. DT's MSQ was like ARR, it was setting up this new areas lore for us. Now that that is done, the real story for us begins. That being said, the amount of toxicity I am seeing in this forum... yeah this here is going to be my final post on these forums. I will continue to enjoy FFXIV. It is hands down, the best MMO on the market. Not even WoW can capture the majesty of this game. And that is a fact.

ARR>DT.

DT in my opinion has the worse areas with absolutely nothing to do or explore. Tural it's in fact the worst main city ever created because once again NO MOUNTS ALLOWED but then IT'S so big and tedious to move travel around, isn't even funny.

Solution Nine could've been much better but the design it's just awful and once again "No mount allowed in the most futuristic city ever made"

[Carin-Eri]

ARR>DT.

DT in my opinion has the worse areas with absolutely nothing to do or explore. Tural it's in fact the worst main city ever created because once again NO MOUNTS ALLOWED but then IT'S so big and tedious to move travel around, isn't even funny.

Solution Nine could've been much better but the design it's just awful and once again "No mount allowed in the most futuristic city ever made"

To be honest, I'd argue that Solution 9 is even worse than Tuliyollal. S9 consists of numerous, massive, wide-open spaces with little or nothing in them, and the Aetherytes are not all that well spaced out. It's also particularly disappointing that there are vehicles present around the city as well as an Air-Wheeler A9 sales stand which lets us purchase an A9 but not use it there!

That isn't to say it isn't a gorgeous map - it really is - but being unable to use mounts is definitely disappointing.

[ovIm]

To be honest, I'd argue that Solution 9 is even worse than Tuliyollal. S9 consists of numerous, massive, wide-open spaces with little or nothing in them, and the Aetherytes are not all that well spaced out. It's also particularly disappointing that there are vehicles present around the city as well as an Air-Wheeler A9 sales stand which lets us purchase an A9 but not use it there!

That isn't to say it isn't a gorgeous map - it really is - but being unable to use mounts is definitely disappointing.

There are so many cool shops in there too that definitely need some more. We have a fortune teller shop that looks interesting, and even a Airwheeler tuning garage. Imagine being able to adjust your own Airwheeler with different wheels, colors, parts...
S9 is full of potential, yet people at most chill at the Nexus Arcade.

[Vensaval]

To be honest, I'd argue that Solution 9 is even worse than Tuliyollal. S9 consists of numerous, massive, wide-open spaces with little or nothing in them, and the Aetherytes are not all that well spaced out. It's also particularly disappointing that there are vehicles present around the city as well as an Air-Wheeler A9 sales stand which lets us purchase an A9 but not use it there!

That isn't to say it isn't a gorgeous map - it really is - but being unable to use mounts is definitely disappointing.

I've been very sad since Shadowbringers ended the tradition of having a hub that players could mount up in. I really miss those Idyllshire and Rhalgr's Reach days.