I'm Frustrated with FFXIV's New Direction

[Carin-Eri]

In regards to the Queen Eternal fight however, things are a bit different.
During the Aery, we storm it together with Estinien, and are very much on equal footing here. Also, the Aery is a mid expansion leveling dungeon, not the grand final fight.

Before the Queen Eternal fight, Queen Eternal kicks out WL and Krile, stating that we are the most dangerous thing and that we need to be exterminated. Only for us to be overwhelmed and saved by WL? This feels like blatant "Wuk Lamat Mary Sue-ism" by the writers, even accompanied with that dreadful debuff how she is inspiring you, and with WL doing so much more damage than the rest of the party.

Personally, I don't think Wuk Lamat is a bad character overall. She just suffers from the bad writing (like pretty much most of the cast on this expansion) that, in this case, constantly puts her on a pedestal, to the detriment of other characters, that has created a lot of resentment.

Agreed - whilst I'd tolerated her throughout the story, this moment irritated me no end.

There is absolutely NO point in having the big bad say "You are the single greatest threat" if you're going to completely contradict that by dumping a completely unnecessary 'rescue' scene on us.
It felt like they were trying to pull a Zenos (when he appeared to assist us to battle Endsinger) but didn't quite understand why it worked in that scenario.

[Mondschnee]

It felt like they were trying to pull a Zenos (when he appeared to assist us to battle Endsigner) but didn't quite understand why it worked in that scenario.

^^^
I felt this during Dawntrail a lot.
They kept referencing beloved moments/characters from previous expansion without understanding why these moments worked in the first place, making these moments feel cheap. I didn't like that at all.

Yoshi-P said before Endwalker was released that they didn't want to try and make a second Shadowbringers, they wanted to try and make Endwalker its own.
Where was that ambition in Dawntrail?