Thread: Patch 6.55 - Growing Light Part II - Story Discussion

The succession candidates

It's painfully obvious that Wuk Lamat with be divisive because well, she's a female character that isn't the player's own insert, she has a personality, which includes flaws that will be blown out of proportion and the plot line will focus at least partially on her growth, and she's entering in politics competing against male characters, at least one of which is the attractive cat-boy race. And there's a more conventionally attractive female character to be added in too. Doomed.

They are writing some optional ambivalence to supporting Wuk Lamat, and as she is framed now is someone who is using bravado and a Yuffie-esque 'genki' attitude to cover up self-doubt and anxiety. And it would be nice the have the arc be that the martial skill she is trying so desperately to project isn't what Tural's ruler needs. The bait-and-switch won't be that she's evil, but that one of the other candidates is better- and one of the other three is worse than initially seems and probably a puppet for something else. That and Wuk has only the sanitized and simplified version of her adopted father's unification efforts and will be disillusioned by the truth but not halted in her efforts to ensure peace. Koana has more bait-and-switch set-up vibes, tbh. But by the end I think it's more likely to have a coalition governance than one winner.

I will be pleasantly surprised if Mamool John isn't our would-be imperialist candidate, just the traditional and isolationist guy.

Originally Posted by Denishia

Wuk Lamat has a refreshing energy. Some of her vibes feel like Yuffie, and while she's an energetic ax-wielding lady jibbing on her more serious childhood friend, she doesn't feel like a direct Moenbryda copy. Or Lyse. Though she does help to fill the personality gap left by them.

Probably a coincidence, but Wuk Lamat also talks like Yuffie, at least in Japanese. Most of her dialogue is "rough tomboyish" in word choice, but she also uses "atashi" pronouns, which is supposed to be more "feminine"/"girly". Which is how Yuffie speaks in FFVII (at least the original).

Originally Posted by BabaM

Really not digging the whole reason for going to Tural. We barely know anything about Wuk Lamat, we don't know who the other 3 claimants are, we don't know their policies aside from that one is a warmonger, we don't know Wuk Lamat's policies at all, and we're asked to just fight for a stranger and play kingmaker and give her the throne...why? Is everyone just blinded by furry thirst that no one is questioning the fact that we're going to fighting to put Wuk Lamat, a complete stranger, on the throne of a foreign country we know nothing about? The whole thing feels strange and forced and G'raha telling me I can just slip away if I'm not interested in supporting her at the end doesn't fill me with confidence because FFXIV is not a game where that level of story choice is a thing. We're basically agreeing to help the first person who asked, not the best person for the job. And the fact that politics are involved makes the whole adventure feel a bit grimey to me.

I'm pretty sure the dialogue is explicit in saying we're going to Tural to see for ourselves what the situation is like. I think that is a very fair and reasonable decision to make.

Also playing as a mid-height FemRoe, Wuk Lamat comes across as, well, short. Not excessively so, but very much a teenage girl who hasn't reached her adult height. The character is probably supposed to be no younger than nineteen, but she has the 'quasi-tomboy princess on a mission underplaying her royalty' that Yuffie did. But I would not be shocked if she introduces herself as the "White Orchid of Tuliyollal" at some point.

The FF X-2 vibes have not dissipated in the slightest, and I will stop myself from relabeling Koana's faction either the Youth League or Catboy-Gippal with great pains.

And I think that we're entering Tural with more hesitancy and willingness to question our proposed actions and alliance than we did helping the Cirina and the Mol win the Nadaam, with Erenville roughly filling in for Gotetsu and Hien in this parallel.

Originally Posted by Denishia

Also playing as a mid-height FemRoe, Wuk Lamat comes across as, well, short. Not excessively so, but very much a teenage girl who hasn't reached her adult height. The character is probably supposed to be no younger than nineteen, but she has the 'quasi-tomboy princess on a mission underplaying her royalty' that Yuffie did. But I would not be shocked if she introduces herself as the "White Orchid of Tuliyollal" at some point.

The FF X-2 vibes have not dissipated in the slightest, and I will stop myself from relabeling Koana's faction either the Youth League or Catboy-Gippal with great pains.

And I think that we're entering Tural with more hesitancy and willingness to question our proposed actions and alliance than we did helping the Cirina and the Mol win the Nadaam, with Erenville roughly filling in for Gotetsu and Hien in this parallel.

You should absolutely embrace that labeling convention. Though that would immediately distance me from a new Yevon faction by default.

Not going to bother adding it to my other post, but I did find it a bit odd that the last Tataru quest makes it feel as though you should be doing it post MSQ as she gets all LoL if you think I won't track your ass down just cause you went to some place new to give out new samples of my wares at the end of it. N I had done it before doing the MSQ and went wait how do you know I'll be going somewhere new hmmm? I am also a little bummed that Estinien doesn't even mention Meracydia as a possible place to go even if we all know that he wouldn't have chosen that as his destination due to the trailer. It will be interesting to see how he and the other two who currently aren't coming end up in Tural. I am glad that he has an adventuring bug. After all he went from sheppard to being a symbol of Ishgard for almost most of his life time and now he is just following his heart. Hopefully this time he will check in with his found family more often than he did between 3.3 and 4.5. I am a bit disappointed in Emet-Selch's journal entry. Sure he gets mentioned in other entries but in his own entry he barely gets anything.

MSQ

I wonder if they'll commit to keeping G'raha and Y'shtola benched for this next expac for a while story-wise. I know they exist in the Dawntrail trailer, but 6.55 seems to set up all of the known players so far, so if G'raha and Yshtola were to be involved, it'd say so in this part. It's definitely an interesting move because it means they can focus on new characters, which so far seems great from the reception that Wuk Lamat is getting from everyone. I'm already excited to see what Koana and the other older sibling set up as the antagonist will be like. And I'd like to think that the 4th Hyur girl in the key art is the 4th claimant/sibling to the throne, since the devs do a good job of not showing their hand too early, if SHB and EW are anything to go by.

Hildibrand

The writers understand very well what characters are popular. I'm extremely happy that Brandihild has a future in the storyline still, and can't wait for them to have more antics. The scene where he and Hildibrand work together was perfect. I'm also happy with how the Relic steps progressed story-wise. Worked very well with the themes of Endwalker.

Allied Tribal Quest

I think this is my personal favorite Allied questline. Wacky Races was not where I was expecting this to go, but it was amazing. And seeing the Nibirun feel frustration at their loss and determination to get better really drives home the lessons learned from Endwalker. It makes me wish we could get a Chocobo Racing version of this though.

Oop, Sanna's reminded me that by the time I'd made my post, I'd slept and evidently forgotten the actual worst part of the patch for me. Which is kind of a good sign, really--if the worst part of a patch is so forgettable that you literally do forget it within the day, it literally just isn't that bad. But it still annoys me.

C'mon, did we have to have that scene of Emet's little sequel hook speech? What is that even doing for anyone aside from going 'hey, remember The Guy?' We didn't need the explicit reminder, an earlier scene in the patch already gave us the dialog option to bring it up, and in my experience people prefer that level of subtlety in their callbacks. Is this just for a possibly-fictional group of players that's so critically Ancient-brained that they'd switch off unless the story wasn't directly linked to one?

I'm not even sure it does much for the Emet-likers; they're mostly there for the complicated emotional and character dynamic, and this is as flatly positive as it gets for him.