Please, no more Wuk Lamat

[Valence]

While I'm certainly not gonna pretend that Lamat doesn't have any issues, I do believe they mostly stem from very bad writing and a radical toneshift at the level of the whole storyline rather than just her. I think her character concept is just fine, but badly fleshed out and brought to life in an annoying way. Although I'll be the first one to admit that overall she didn't get on my nerves as certain characters *cough* zenos *cough*.

Or even a certain other one. Let's just remember the degree of cringe this whole MSQ has ever seen with "wE mUsT sAvE tHe hEtTsO" Koana, and it wasn't even base DT, it was 7.1 that was already aware of the bad reception the expansion had received.

Zenos didn't even have this much screentime in three expansions...

I'd rather have Asahi back at this point and I hate Asahi with a burning passion, but I'll welcome him with open arms.

Don't worry we have Calyx to take his place. Surely he's gonna be better, I'm sure of it.

[Kunzite_Lockhart]

Wuk Lamat feels like a symbol of what’s wrong with the current state of FF14.
It’s impossible to remove her, so I really hope that in 8.0 Dawntrail will be optional and the MSQ won’t be forced on everyone.

[Thaciscokidd]

Don't worry we have Calyx to take his place. Surely he's gonna be better, I'm sure of it.

Do not .... besmirch.... my best friend Zenos name by associating it with Calyx.

He wishes that he had 0.001% of the presence that Zenos has.

[Gullis]

Pretty sure we are done with her. from the trailer, we will have a scene with her in Tuliyollal, but she doesn't appear anywhere else, so pretty sure she won't appear much anymore.

[Gwenkatsu]

I'm not a resentful person. The moment Wuk Lamat magically transformed from a pointless annyoing and overly talkative crybaby to our standard run-off-the-mill city state leader, I stopped hating her. And after all, she's just a symptom of the underlying cause, which is the really really REALLY bad writing in DT.

And when they pulled another Asahi at the end of 7.3, I lost all hope for the writing to get any better in the foreseeable future.

[Rueby]

While I'm certainly not gonna pretend that Lamat doesn't have any issues, I do believe they mostly stem from very bad writing and a radical toneshift at the level of the whole storyline rather than just her. I think her character concept is just fine, but badly fleshed out and brought to life in an annoying way. Although I'll be the first one to admit that overall she didn't get on my nerves as certain characters *cough* zenos *cough*.

Her concept would've been fine if she was maybe alittle more competent and knew more about her people, then she'd at least be like 'airhead but at least cares about people/knowledgable', instead I get 'incompetent, airhead, clueless about her people (that she wants to rule)'. Or if she was a child, then I'd say 'okay, she's just a kid' then to me it'd like 'okay makes sense'.

She's not the only problem in DT, but she is a glaring one. I would've liked to be able to spend time with Krile and Koana and Erenville. Perhaps tone down the 'oh god she's annoying' factor there were many times I wanted to sympathize with her then she'd say something stupid and I'd get turned off from even continuing.

They were all like 'oh scions! Divided!' 'oh the rite! the competition' in the end it was all a nothing burger. It was rigged. It wasn't even low stakes, it was no stakes. I felt like my time was wasted, why was I even here? Even Sphene had to be Meteion from Wish, like great, we need another world ending threat.

DT had some nice concepts, grief, what makes someone themselves, the soul, etc....all these interesting ideas squandered because of poor writing.

Or even a certain other one. Let's just remember the degree of cringe this whole MSQ has ever seen with "wE mUsT sAvE tHe hEtTsO" Koana, and it wasn't even base DT, it was 7.1 that was already aware of the bad reception the expansion had received.

Ugh don't even remind me of Koana, I had such high hopes for him but he's just another Wuk Lamat simp. It feels like Wuk Lamat's existence brings the IQ of the whole region down, even the scions became insufferable around her.

If they give into the 'backlash', it'd set a trend, people just need to make a big fuss about not liking something and it'd change, I guess they're pining for the few who love DT. What's impressive is that the story is written this far with so much Wuk Lamat in it, they really believed that everyone would love her.

Don't worry we have Calyx to take his place. Surely he's gonna be better, I'm sure of it.

Don't even know who Calyx is. I stopped caring about the MSQ a long time ago, I only did abit of 7.1 just to unlock custom deliveries. Everytime I saw Wuk Lamat in the screenshots of a new patch I felt like a Dementor sucked my soul out.

[Arrius]

Not my favorite character But l honestly don't get the hate

[UNDEAD10000]

Making wuk Lamat as a main character while making our own character as a side character was biggest mistake they ever made that simply destroying entire story of Dawntrail and i simply hope we will never see Wuk Lamat again after Dawntrail.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]She's not the only problem in DT, but she is a glaring one[...] snip

This is one of the part that people tend to miss when it comes to discussing narrative quality in DT writing. Being a character that's featured unnatural amount of times, it's only natural that it's more likely she'll be present someway or somehow when there's an issue to be discussed. It would be unfair to specifically exclude her character writing from discussion just because.

Speaking of stakes also, IMHO it's not that there wasn't any stakes in the storytelling. The problem is the stakes are wholly unclear and/or inconsistently presented. Few examples that I could think off right now:

• Going back as far as 6.58 where Wuk Lamat tells you that letting Zoraal Ja or Bakool Ja Ja wins was a no-no, and it's obvious from the storytelling that the writers wants the WoL (or us) to care - that this is a threat with severity akin to letting earlier expac Garlemald do whatever they want. Fast forward to 7.0, instantly dissipates that narrative tension by telling us that the Dawnservant can just not pick any successor... which is wise and in-character for Gulool Ja Ja, but depending on how reader take it, this can be taken as muddling the stakes - a charade if you will.
• Bakool Ja Ja releasing Valigarmanda. Said to be a terrible beast that can lay waste many lives but Bakool was not punished for that? Where is the consequences? Fordola and Yotsuyu would've probably cringed if they could see all these firsthand, especially after what these ladies had done to their subjects in the past lmao.
• Endless Sphene announce her motivation & intention to invade the Source in Living Memory but then we run about the space eating popcorns, enact the "I want to be your Canary"-play, and so on. We as the player know that this countdown will wait for us. But what about the characters we play? What about the NPCs? Where is that sense of urgency? Didn't they know that many lives are in their hands right now?

If they give into the 'backlash', it'd set a trend[...]

This is another part that's been bothering me. A tangential point that I'd like to bring up was the fact Yoshi-P himself said in the LL during DT early launch, something along the line of "We're gonna see if people like this DT story, see their feedback, then we'll go from there..."

I don't know about other, but that was such a crazy thing to say by a dev of -the story MMO-, lol.

[Valence]

DT had some nice concepts, grief, what makes someone themselves, the soul, etc....all these interesting ideas squandered because of poor writing.

Yes, my main takeaway of the positive behind the themes and setting brought over by DT was around souls. I genuinely love Origenics for it. This had so many implications and truly felt like a disturbing endgame to get through.