7.1 - More Wuk Lamat

[Jeeqbit]

I would disagree with this assessment if Yoshi's and his team are the same people from 8-10 years ago.

A lot of them actually started moving away during Heavensward and Stormblood. They began just overseeing and training new staff to work on Stormblood onwards, while the rest of them were working on FF16. Yes, they were doing FF16 that long ago, contrary to all who believe they only did this during Endwalker. FF16 was more or less complete by Endwalker and its team largely disbanded during Endwalker leaving a smaller team to make the DLC.

Even if we pad in another 3-5 months to assume the 2.0 developement had begun prior to 1.0 shut down. That's still ~15month for them to create a 40-60h of content that was packed in the 2.0 launch.

That's a wholly unfair comparison:

• They got their best staff from across Square Enix to suspend their other projects to frantically adapt their new engine (meant for Single Player games) to work for an MMORPG.
• They had so many staff working on it that they worked on 2.0 while still making patches for 1.0. In a way they kept up this habit by making patches for expansions while working on the next expansion.
• Yoshi-P kept a spreadsheet of how long they took to do tasks that accounted even for bathroom breaks and mathematically optimized it so they could remake the game in just 2 years (it normally took longer to make a good game, especially an MMORPG). This wasn't healthy for his team (most likely why after 10 years he decided to increase the gap between patches).
• They reused a lot of assets and salvaged lore and designs. Let's be honest - this is what made it possible to finish ARR as quickly as they did. Things like the Twelve were designed going back to 2005. Many of the ARR dungeons, textures, models, area concepts, characters and feature inspirations were salvaged from 1.0.

[Iscah]

Again, you should've told the "past of Zoraal Ja" in the actual story, not the follow up for more of a resonance. This is a case of literally "Who asked" it's too late to flesh him out now in the story.

Lots of people have asked. I think it's one of the biggest common comments on Dawntrail that I've seen: Zoraal Ja needed more context, and yes it should have been given in the 7.0 storyline, but it wasn't – so better late than never.

As for the larger theme of the thread here... whether players like her or not, Wuk Lamat is an important person in the space where the story is currently operating, and I would much rather see her participation brought to a logical conclusion than swept away prematurely in response to complaints.

[Moomba33]

As for the larger theme of the thread here... whether players like her or not, Wuk Lamat is an important person in the space where the story is currently operating, and I would much rather see her participation brought to a logical conclusion than swept away prematurely in response to complaints.

Yeah. It'd be weird for her to not be in the story at all.
I expect she'll follow a similar arc to Lyse, and be around while we're directly dealing with issues in her home land but not for much else.

Edit: Maybe in response to the feedback SE will have us hang out more with other characters instead of just her. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect no interactions with her at all.

[Raven2014]

That's a wholly unfair comparison:

• They got their best staff from across Square Enix to suspend their other projects to frantically adapt their new engine (meant for Single Player games) to work for an MMORPG.
• They had so many staff working on it that they worked on 2.0 while still making patches for 1.0. In a way they kept up this habit by making patches for expansions while working on the next expansion.
• Yoshi-P kept a spreadsheet of how long they took to do tasks that accounted even for bathroom breaks and mathematically optimized it so they could remake the game in just 2 years (it normally took longer to make a good game, especially an MMORPG). This wasn't healthy for his team (most likely why after 10 years he decided to increase the gap between patches).
• They reused a lot of assets and salvaged lore and designs. Let's be honest - this is what made it possible to finish ARR as quickly as they did. Things like the Twelve were designed going back to 2005. Many of the ARR dungeons, textures, models, area concepts, characters and feature inspirations were salvaged from 1.0.

And congratulation you're missing the point ... again, but that's par for the course for you. Sometime I wonder if you just genuinely miss the point or just deflecting it on purpose.

The point is: if they can remodel the whole house (1.0 to 2.0) in the course of 9-15months, they surely can rewrite a 1h story segment in 4-5 months. Sure, they gonna have to re-recording a few line, rebuilding a few scenes but common, you're making it sounds like to change Wuk Lamat they'll have to redesign the combat, building a new system and creating new dungeons or something. And why are you pretending the staffs management is something I'm supposed to care about, that's Yoshi's problem, not mine.

Frankly, I think some of us are looking at this as a litmus test for the game. To see how serious and commit Yoshi is about "making thing right" ... and so far, it's not looking good. You can make any number of excuse on their behalf you want, all I see is the same "business as usual". My sub already ran out, and I'll keep an eyes on the game till the end of this year. Unless I see some real and honest afford putting into the game by that point, I probably won't come back. And I don't care if there are a laundry list of reasons showing how is that a short table or I'm being unfair ... I just don't care, some of us just tired of waiting. This is not when they can continue business usual, this is when they need to go the extra mile, or miles.

Especially now, unlike 5-6 years ago, these days there are A LOT better options out there for that 15$/month. Even if none of what I had said so far really matter to Yoshi and his team, than at the very least this I think they should be waking up to this fact.

[VerdeLuck]

Frankly, I think some of us are looking at this as a litmus test for the game. To see how serious and commit Yoshi is about "making thing right" ... and so far, it's not looking good. You can make any number of excuse on their behalf you want, all I see is the same "business as usual". My sub already ran out, and I'll keep an eyes on the game till the end of this year. Unless I see some real and honest afford putting into the game by that point, I probably won't come back. And I don't care if there are a laundry list of reasons showing how is that a short table or I'm being unfair ... I just don't care, some of us just tired of waiting. This is not when they can continue business usual, this is when they need to go the extra mile, or miles.

Especially now, unlike 5-6 years ago, these days there are A LOT better options out there for that 15$/month. Even if none of what I had said so far really matter to Yoshi and his team, than at the very least this I think they should be waking up to this fact.

What I think people aren't getting is even rewriting a whole story isn't what is expected, you can shuffle lines around, give Wuk's lines to Koana or Krile. If it can't be voiced it can't be voiced but you can definitely shuffle around lines and reduce the amount a character is on screen heavily. They don't have to scrap everything for their 7.1 MSQ but they can remake chunks of it pretty easily in 5 months.
You can also not feature them in marketing material whenever they're an incredibly unpopular character that sparks issues whenever she shows up.
I'm in agreement that SE could make changes if they really wanted to but it seems to be a case where they are personally offended and a bit stubborn about the fact that players didn't like the stuff that they thought would be a home run. It's going to probably take a lot more cancelled subscriptions to get the money people to come down and tell CS3 to stop it, and that's probably going to be in 6-9 months at least.

Something I've said before and I'll say again is if you look at other games like Zenless Zone Zero,
-launched almost the same day as DT
-They had a top-down dungeon crawler section called TV mode
-this was integral to the game and their version of the MSQ
-streamers and youtubers hated it, player base was split but seemed to find it boring
-last month they ripped this TV mode out, and made huge changes to the structure of the game to account for this
Other games are kicking SE's butt at managing live service games. They're more receptive, quicker to give freebies to calm down upset players, make changes faster, and monitor player sentiment on social media to cut off issues before they become a problem.
SE is stuck in the past.

[Kacho_Nacho]

What I think people aren't getting is even rewriting a whole story isn't what is expected, you can shuffle lines around, give Wuk's lines to Koana or Krile. If it can't be voiced it can't be voiced but you can definitely shuffle around lines and reduce the amount a character is on screen heavily. They don't have to scrap everything for their 7.1 MSQ but they can remake chunks of it pretty easily in 5 months.
You can also not feature them in marketing material whenever they're an incredibly unpopular character that sparks issues whenever she shows up.
I'm in agreement that SE could make changes if they really wanted to but it seems to be a case where they are personally offended and a bit stubborn about the fact that players didn't like the stuff that they thought would be a home run. It's going to probably take a lot more cancelled subscriptions to get the money people to come down and tell CS3 to stop it, and that's probably going to be in 6-9 months at least.

Something I've said before and I'll say again is if you look at other games like Zenless Zone Zero,
-launched almost the same day as DT
-They had a top-down dungeon crawler section called TV mode
-this was integral to the game and their version of the MSQ
-streamers and youtubers hated it, player base was split but seemed to find it boring
-last month they ripped this TV mode out, and made huge changes to the structure of the game to account for this
Other games are kicking SE's butt at managing live service games. They're more receptive, quicker to give freebies to calm down upset players, make changes faster, and monitor player sentiment on social media to cut off issues before they become a problem.
SE is stuck in the past.

Exactly. Given Yoshi P's remarks, it is clear things are going to get worse before they get better. I had such high hopes for Dawn Trail; yet, the story has been such a letdown that I've put my main character on the backburner.

I just don't want to play through this expansion. Period.

We could have and should have received something a lot better.

[Jeeqbit]

Sometime I wonder if you just genuinely miss the point

I don't miss the point but rather I respond to specific aspects of posts. So if I didn't quote the other aspect then perhaps I was not particularly disputing that part of the post.

In this case though we've had all sorts of posts being like "oh they could have just remade the whole expansion after the reaction to 6.55". That's ridiculous enough on its own, so it's rather important to clarify how the circumstances aren't the same as 1.0 and nor are the development timeframes.

they surely can rewrite a 1h story segment in 4-5 months.

Well, my personal experience usually isn't just 1 hour, but I don't time it.

In any case, let's say you write Wuk Lamat out of what clearly takes place in Solution Nine / Heritage Found. Who replaces her as the person to talk to Gulool Ja? That could be a difficult void to fill potentially.

The writing of 1 patch can affect the other, and the other after that, so that potentially means rewriting a whole lot more than just that, and then the writing can affect how the assets need to be.

Now let's say they did something drastic and moved us away from the controversial aspects entirely. We never visit Solution Nine or Wuk Lamat ever again and instead go to Othard or Ilsabard to build the new expansion. Then the rewrite and asset creation is even more drastic. But that would be the easiest way to move away from Wuk Lamat.

Sure, they gonna have to re-recording a few line, rebuilding a few scenes but common

I think they are doing this, based on what they said, but not in the way most people here want. They're re-recording lines and rebuilding a few scenes to "make her look more confident" and "explain why she had these complex feelings of inferiority".

So sure, they can re-record a few lines but doing that in a way that removes Wuk Lamat is a whole lot more complicated than just changing her words and expressions a bit.

If you mean you're alright with Wuk Lamat staying but want her to express her lines differently, then how would you suggest she express herself?