The Worst Patch Trailer in FF History?

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

Forreal, it's been over a year, time to take a break if there's still such a visceral hatred for a character that isn't really all that different or worse than the usual shounen anime protagonist.

Wild to me that the vitriol levels are still so actively high. Like most people did the DT story in, what, a couple weeks, tops? Then a few more hours over the next year for patch stories? If you play consistently at all, Wuk Lamat's been a fraction of a single percentage of your play time. Go get some fresh air or something, Christ. It's a fictional cat lady in a video game.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Wild to me that the vitriol levels are still so actively high. Like most people did the DT story in, what, a couple weeks, tops? Then a few more hours over the next year for patch stories? If you play consistently at all, Wuk Lamat's been a fraction of a single percentage of your play time. Go get some fresh air or something, Christ. It's a fictional cat lady in a video game.

Ah yes, the new cope/gaslighting: "We're FFXIV guys, who cares about the story?" "I mean, you only spend a small portion of your time on the MSQ, who cares if it's good or not?"

Tell me you're a raider without showing me your parselogs. When did THIS become the hardcore raider game, where nobody should care about the story? Wasn't that supposed to be WoW?

Havent you ever watched a movie, or TV show, or listened to a song and went, "Okay I REALLY can't stand this character/singer, I'm done here"? If so, why are you surprised anyone feels this way? Yes, I dislike her and no, I'm not going to get over it. Is she literally everything wrong with the expansion? No, but she's simultaneously a canary in the coal mine for DT's problems, a lightning rod for criticism, AND a shield against said critique.

Many people have called her a "shonen anime protagonist", as if that's supposed to magically excuse poor writing.

Let me put it plainly:

I do not voluntarily consume shonen anime/manga, specifically because I do not like this type of character. The idiot Naruto knockoff with no brain who just screams and brute-forces their way through everything and that somehow makes everything work out for them. It's for children. And we are adults and should be treated as such.

To you it's just a "yelling Cat with Axe" and it's no big deal. For many others, myself included, she's as obnoxious as Asta from Black Clover, perhaps worse because she's been strongarmed into the plot of my video game and I cannot voluntarily choose to both not consume her plot and still play this game. Unlike a shonen anime which I can simply... choose not to watch.

[Auro_Seldaris]

As for the actual trailer... I don't feel anything for DT's story, and thus it did nothing for me. Partly because I don't care for this story, partly because I'm already prettty certain how this is going to end, partly because it just wasn't that good. To this day, I still get chills watching the Under the Moonlight, Requiem for Heroes, and Reflections in Crystal trailers. This did nothing for me. It's not going to change my mind about Tural, or S9, or Wuk Lamat, or Annoying Genius, or anything. I'd say I'm excited to see what's next, but since it's becoming clear that the entire MSQ of Dawntrail was inconsequential stalling for time while they figure out what to do next, I'm not that hyped.

Hell, most of Zepla's reaction to it was just "Oh this must be the deep dungeon. Oh, this is the new Cosmic exploration zone. Oh, this is blahblahblah from the Nostalgia Bait Raid". I don't think she even really reacted to the plot of the trailer.

[RedLolly]

It looked fine to me. I'm ready to move on from DT. I'm so tired. I miss the way the community was before. I dearly hope 8.0 is better.

We had ARR, then we got HW. We got Stormblood, then we got ShB. I still have some hope.

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

Ah yes, the new cope/gaslighting: "We're FFXIV guys, who cares about the story?" "I mean, you only spend a small portion of your time on the MSQ, who cares if it's good or not?"

Tell me you're a raider without showing me your parselogs. When did THIS become the hardcore raider game, where nobody should care about the story? Wasn't that supposed to be WoW?

Havent you ever watched a movie, or TV show, or listened to a song and went, "Okay I REALLY can't stand this character/singer, I'm done here"? If so, why are you surprised anyone feels this way? Yes, I dislike her and no, I'm not going to get over it. Is she literally everything wrong with the expansion? No, but she's simultaneously a canary in the coal mine for DT's problems, a lightning rod for criticism, AND a shield against said critique.

Many people have called her a "shonen anime protagonist", as if that's supposed to magically excuse poor writing.

Let me put it plainly:

I do not voluntarily consume shonen anime/manga, specifically because I do not like this type of character. The idiot Naruto knockoff with no brain who just screams and brute-forces their way through everything and that somehow makes everything work out for them. It's for children. And we are adults and should be treated as such.

To you it's just a "yelling Cat with Axe" and it's no big deal. For many others, myself included, she's as obnoxious as Asta from Black Clover, perhaps worse because she's been strongarmed into the plot of my video game and I cannot voluntarily choose to both not consume her plot and still play this game. Unlike a shonen anime which I can simply... choose not to watch.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. I never said Wuk Lamat was good or fine, just that she's a negligible portion of a greater product. Your "I must play FFXIV but I don't want to engage with this piece of it, but I force myself to anyway" situation is entirely self-imposed. If you keep watching Wuk Lamat cutscenes, then you DO voluntarily consume that type of character.

Edit: also, "my video game," good lord. Ain't your video game, ain't my video game. Never will be. It's someone else's video game. We pay them to play it. They can do whatever they want with it. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's not good. Just how it is. You can't let it become a part of your identity as a human being or you end up with, you know...this state of mind.

[Auro_Seldaris]

I'm not sure how to respond to this. I never said Wuk Lamat was good or fine, just that she's a negligible portion of a greater product. Your "I must play FFXIV but I don't want to engage with this piece of it, but I force myself to anyway" situation is entirely self-imposed. If you keep watching Wuk Lamat cutscenes, then you DO voluntarily consume that type of character.

Edit: also, "my video game," good lord. Ain't your video game, ain't my video game. Never will be. It's someone else's video game. We pay them to play it. They can do whatever they want with it. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's not good. Just how it is. You can't let it become a part of your identity as a human being or you end up with, you know...this state of mind.

If I drink Bud Light, that's "my" beer. If I am a fan of the New England Patriots, or Manchester United, that's "my" team. If I like Nissans, that's "my" car. You know precisely what I mean, you're being obtuse about it. First of all, you don't actually know how capitalism works, because once I pay for something, it's mine. Unless you're actually buying the corpo "you don't own nothing" line. It's not a "part of my identity" since I'm not even actively playing or subbed to it anymore, thank you. Even when I was, I have a lot more going on in my life than FFXIV.

As for your silly comment about "Just skip Wuk Lamat lmao" did you miss my point? I mainly play this game for the story. I do occasionally raid, socialize, and craft and such, but my primary focus is on the plot. This isn't p*rn, I'm not going to "fast forward through the plot". We're not talking about Ultimate raids, which I can ignore if I want without effecting the thing I primarily enjoy. We're not talking about Unreal trials, or Blue Mage, and how that's side content I have literally no interest in, but that doesnt effect my enjoyment of the MSQ. How can their insistence on her overbearing presence in the plot be MY fault? Wuk Lamat is forcing me to not engage with the primary element of the game I enjoy, if I do what you suggest. Your "logic" literally makes no sense. "You mainly like the story, so just skip the story lol".

I'm also not solely complaining about Chewtaco the Wukie, as evidenced by my many posts on other aspects of this expansion which I find disappointing. But this is the problem with Wuk... in fact, I'd actually say she was designed with this goal in mind, to immediately invalidate any criticism of the game with "well you just hate Cat with Axe, get over yourself." That was my point in calling her both a lightning rod AND a shield. Any discussion of the plot is invariably going to involve her, and that makes it prime material for people to say "HAVEN'T YOU TALKED ABOUT THIS ENOUGH?! JUST STOP!" and thereby invalidate any other criticism you may have about this game.

As it stands, I'd be willing to accept this as her Final Ride, like all other City Leaders, but if they insist on shoving her into the Scions (as I suspect they do) then I will have lost what little faith I had left in this team.

[Araxes]

Had zero feelings at all watching the Trailer. Kinda was like watching an advertisement.

[Auro_Seldaris]

It looked fine to me. I'm ready to move on from DT. I'm so tired. I miss the way the community was before. I dearly hope 8.0 is better.

We had ARR, then we got HW. We got Stormblood, then we got ShB. I still have some hope.

"Hope is the first step... on the road to disappointment." - Space Marine Librarian, Dawn of War

[RedLolly]

I'm not sure how to respond to this. I never said Wuk Lamat was good or fine, just that she's a negligible portion of a greater product.

I'm gonna stop you right there. She's the center of the entirety of Dawntrail if you follow MSQ, because it's entirely HER story. And some of us really love the story up until it 7.0.

We're here because she asked us to be. Every area we travel to is with her for her challenges to become the new leader. The areas we visit are of her kingdom save an area belonging to *invaders*.. She's a required trust unit in every MSQ dungeon in DT, and the trial. Even that cowboy intermission has us helping her mother-figure. She even interupts the final boss in an unstoppable moment.

You literally cannot remove Wuk Lamat from Dawntrail.

I play FFXIV as a Final Fantasy fan. I do every side quest, I read every bit of dialogue, look up the lore, discuss it, theorize. I am very passionate about that kind of thing in ALL media. And DT's lacks meat on the bone compared to everything before. Wuk Lamat and Tural were too under baked to get passionate about.

She's boring. Dawntrail's boring. Story is my reward for doing content, and I resubbed for 7.3 because I really want to watch how they end this and Alexandria is genuinely interesting. It could be because the Arcadian and new Hildi stuff is really fun. It's probably major sunk cost fallacy.

[Volgia]

Wild to me that the vitriol levels are still so actively high. Like most people did the DT story in, what, a couple weeks, tops? Then a few more hours over the next year for patch stories? If you play consistently at all, Wuk Lamat's been a fraction of a single percentage of your play time. Go get some fresh air or something, Christ. It's a fictional cat lady in a video game.

TBH it's just an unhealthy obsession at this point. It was already weird in the beginning of DT, but now it's just trying to rekindle a hatred for a character you only see once every 5 months.