Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[Ramiee]

No, this is never okay. We are the playable character in an RPG story. We should be the protagonist. We should never be less than a side character as we are now.

I don't mind being a side character to someone else's story as long as I feel like I'm having an affect on the story. Our character at this point basically had their main story play out, It would of been cool if we took on more of a Gandalf role in the story.

A mentor to Wuk and Krile. While the story would focus on them we are key in their development being a mentor and a protector. I thought this would be how we would fit into the story tbh, They both have to learn something in their story. Wuk has to learn to be a leader while Krile has just entered the adventurer role.
Would of been cool to actually feel like a seasoned adventurer whose passing on knowledge while also seeking adventure.

[CottonC]

I don't mind being a side character to someone else's story as long as I feel like I'm having an affect on the story. Our character at this point basically had their main story play out, It would of been cool if we took on more of a Gandalf role in the story.

A mentor to Wuk and Krile. While the story would focus on them we are key in their development being a mentor and a protector. I thought this would be how we would fit into the story tbh, They both have to learn something in their story. Wuk has to learn to be a leader while Krile has just entered the adventurer role.
Would of been cool to actually feel like a seasoned adventurer whose passing on knowledge while also seeking adventure.

They way you described how it could have been does sound actually like an amazing experience. It's a shame we are a figurehead, smiling and nodding and honestly each time my WoL smiles it felt like it was kinda condescending smile to a child who thinks they know and yet you do not want to correct them, too tired of speaking to someone who won't listen. Perhaps this was just my imagination. Honestly, it may sound like someone saying "they took my toys away from me" but it sort of feels like this, anything fun anything enjoyable that could have happened in the story was in some way taken away, and while I understand the mentoring part, it could have been handled in all sorts of ways where we as a character have things to do, rather then passively watch. The passive part was the opposite of relaxing, it felt like someone forced me to stay put - and this only made the usual not saying much and nodding a lot WoL experience painful. Before Downtrail it was at a times underwhelming, yet good enough but this time around when there was no space for any actions or meaningful interactions, the "voiceless" WoL experience feel not far away from the despair mentioned by the Endsinger.

Honestly, I wish it was just a April fools day

[Turtledeluxe]

I had the very same feeling regarding WoL during 7.0. It's mot as much as we are a side character as much as that we are a smug side character who laughs and condescends at nearly everyone, or approves of things as though beating Endsinger makes them king of the world. I really hated it.

[FlowerMilk]

I was watching my girlfriend play through some cut scenes I have already seen, and I realized where Wuk Lamat's character development is supposed to be.

After Zoraal Ja kills her dad, she has a big monologue about how she thought getting to know people and coming to an understanding with them is how you solve all your problems, but she realizes she can't do that with her warmongering brother, and she has to fight him and kill him.

And I'm like, didn't she literally invite us to help her in her homeland because she straight up told us her brother is a warmonger and wants to do war, and throughout the entire story it's constantly thrown in our face that he's a big warmonger that wants to do war and violence. And she's only now realizing this?! And this is supposed to be her character development?! Oh my god, it was so bad. I'm just praying they either redeem her later somehow or just completely sweep to her the wayside forever. My god she is dumb.

[midnitdragoon]

I'm taking my sweet time in msq at the moment and I'll say this.... When I first saw wuk lamat in the ship... Talking about sea sick this and sea sick that.. I started to get annoyed and tired of her fast. Now I'm in the hanu village.... She's ok but she brought up the sea sick thing again. I exited xiv and will play again tomorrow.

[Argasun]

I beat MSQ and I think I'm going to cancel my sub for the first time in years. That left me completely alienated from the story. I don't want to experience anything like this again and I know they're going to make me interact with Wuk Lamat or hear about Sphene over and over and over in 7.x.

[SirShady]

I don't mind being a side character to someone else's story as long as I feel like I'm having an affect on the story. Our character at this point basically had their main story play out, It would of been cool if we took on more of a Gandalf role in the story.

A mentor to Wuk and Krile. While the story would focus on them we are key in their development being a mentor and a protector. I thought this would be how we would fit into the story tbh, They both have to learn something in their story. Wuk has to learn to be a leader while Krile has just entered the adventurer role.
Would of been cool to actually feel like a seasoned adventurer whose passing on knowledge while also seeking adventure.

This would have been really cool. I'm fine with playing mentor, but we didn't really do ANY mentoring for Wuk Lamat. One of the cardboard cutouts of the twins would go "Friendship and understanding is important" and Wuk Lamat would repeat it to us and we'd nod and smile.

If this expansion split the focus better between our other new travelling companions, Krile and Erenville, and it was more a collective journey of Wuk Lamat learning to ACTUALLY rule and mature into a leader while getting the keystones, Krile learning to adventure and gain self-confidence while searching for answers about her grandfather, and Erenville slowly opening up and sharing his past and plans for the future with us, it would have been an amazing character driven starting arc. Just imagine the awesome dynamics everyone could have bouncing off each other, with us as the pillar of support. Makes me sad thinking about what we could have gotten...

[Malthir]

I beat MSQ and I think I'm going to cancel my sub for the first time in years. That left me completely alienated from the story. I don't want to experience anything like this again and I know they're going to make me interact with Wuk Lamat or hear about Sphene over and over and over in 7.x.

That's exactly how I felt, I just couldn't bring myself to do anything because I just know they'll make it about Wuk, Side quests, role quests, I'm naming the feeling, The Existential Dread of Wuk. The next patch stuff is going to be her big dumb face and annoying attitude front and centre, the raid stuff is gonna have Wuk all over it. Completed the story monday, then just couldn't boot the game again.

I don't mind being a side character to someone else's story as long as I feel like I'm having an affect on the story. Our character at this point basically had their main story play out, It would of been cool if we took on more of a Gandalf role in the story.

A mentor to Wuk and Krile. While the story would focus on them we are key in their development being a mentor and a protector. I thought this would be how we would fit into the story tbh, They both have to learn something in their story. Wuk has to learn to be a leader while Krile has just entered the adventurer role.
Would of been cool to actually feel like a seasoned adventurer whose passing on knowledge while also seeking adventure.

It's another issue the expac had with pacing and story development, they dragged everything out incredibly slowly which wasn't great. Then they also immediately tie up their story threads so the player doesn't have the time to get emotionally invested which means there's no emotional pay off. Take the last zone, I will try and be as spoiler friendly as possible. I didn't care turning off the terminals, not because I'm a monster, because we've just met, you're functionally an invading force and because there's too many asinine cutscenes as mentioned before dragging the story out, the ones that are supposed to make you feel something towards them get lost in the weeds, then they are gone. There's no time to care.

Take Emet, the ancients and Elidibus, Throughout the expac Emet was the antagonist but he wasn't vicious so you felt like maybe this guy can be reasoned with or something, he didn't seem overly cruel. He drops lots of little lines about how the Ascians were the original inhabitants, explains that Hydaelyn and Zodiark are the first primals and our world was built on the sundered version of theirs. This makes you feel bad for the guy, he's not an invader from somewhere else, this was his home and now it's gone. Then you get the hits from Amaurot, how his people were destroyed how he loved them so much he's recreated this illusion of them but it's more of a punishment on himself than a way of bringing them back, like a constant reminder of what he did when he signed up with the sundering plan. Then you get hit with the information that we are all just fragments and he wants to make us whole bring the old world back. While we don't want to give up the world that is for the world that way, his end goal is understandable, he's literally trying to restore paradise.

That was done over an entire expac, it was slowly fed at the start, ramping up to that as the end. Also is that wasn't the emotional payoff, his last line was great and impactful but it was setting up for Elidibus for the true emotional impact to finish out their story.

Meanwhile with

Sphene's people, that was attempted in the equivalent of half a zone. You meet them, you hear their plight, only to be told she is basically sacrificing the living to keep the memory of the dead alive. That's her end goal, she's not even trying to restore them to life. So unlike the Ascians where the suffering of now is paid off by paradise later, a very biblical type story and one that resonates with humans. Her and her people are literally just parasites. Their end goal is functionally, absorb all living souls in the universe then run out of souls and die properly.

There's no emotional pay off to be had, you can't get invested in something like that. Especially when you've literally just met them and their goal is at best stupid and short sighted, and at worst pure selfish and evil. Outside of Wuk being awful, it's like the writers were afraid to set anything up. Everything they introduce, an hour later, resolved. No character development can be done like this and so they keep add new plot thread, then resolve.

If this was the Wuk Lamat expac that's fine have her grow, if you're going to shove her in every damn cutscene then at least write it so she can develop overtime and not just snap between personality trails as and when you need to for you current plotline.

[Miracle_Diva]

I don't know how true is this, but going just by feeling, I prefer to believe it and it's honestly just sad

Also, I think they overused this way of entrance
DT last trial spoilers

[Lieri]

I'm not familiar with this "woke" thing but yesterday I saw a character named Woke Lamat and it broke my laugh box.