An open letter to Yoshi P and Dev Team

[Blackweaver]

I don't know who is writing for Dawntrail. But there's one thing every rpg player knows to be true, including Dungeons and Dragons players. And that is: When the DM starts pushing a DM-NPC into the main character role, it 99% of the time, ruins the fun the players are having. This whole Wuk Lamat character, I view as a DM-NPC. And a poorly written one at that.

7.0, you got a ton of feedback. The majority of your players hate the character. And I am talking about the legitimate ones, not the ones that are biggoted who hate the char because of who the voice actress is. And for 7.1, Yoshi P, you did an interview where you said you did not want to give Wuk Lamat the Lyse treatment. To put into context, just how bad we, the community hate that character, I'd rather have Lyse be in the scenes instead of Wuk Lamat at this point. At least Lyse was a much more like-able character.

So, that being said, as long as you keep making this DM-NPC the main character and running our adventure instead of being a good leader, and staying home to govern and simply hire us to go do the actual adventure stuff, you know like how Kan-E-Senna, Merlwyb, Raubahn, etc used to do. As long as you keep making her the main character, I vow to skip every cutscene, and fast click through every dialogue and not see the "hard work" you all put into this expansions story. This is the first time I'm ever feeling like I'm having to do this.

It sucks. Up until now, I never did this, except on alts because I sat through every dialogue, every cutscene of FFXIV up until now. I just can't get through this MSQ otherwise. DM-NPC's suck the fun out of the story. If you want to tell the story of a DM-NPC, then make a single player game with that character. But in an MMO Setting, you are the DM, we the players are the players, the adventurers. We want a fun story to follow through. To experience stuff as a hero that has saved the planet more times than can be counted. We were promised to be fresh adventurers going to this new land, and adventure. Instead you've turned us into nothing more than hired baby sitters.

So here is hoping 7.2, you course correct. Because otherwise your "story" will be unviewed and unread by myself.

[CVXIV]

Honestly I don't see any changes happening to the story, and that eventually she'll be pushed back like other NPCs have during the build up to the next expansion

[Renaclock]

I'm pretty sure she will still be in the story till .3 when this expansions story ends cuz the way .0 and .1 ended it will be silly for her to not be.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't see Wuk Lamat as anymore bland than like... all the scions right now. They're all pretty boring the way they are now. They all just agree and nod their heads. What's the difference?

Personally, I prefer not to be the main character in an MMORPG, but rather "one of many". But if they are going to make us "one of many", then it should be done properly - where we just do beast tribe quests while the real hero saves the world. If we are going to actually be present for the world-saving events, then at that point we should be the actual main character instead of being forced to watch someone else take credit for our work.

Regardless, her time as a main character is almost certainly over and there is A LOT of precedent for this:

• We installed Aymeric as a leader. We saw him regularly for the first few patches of Heavensward, then he was a forgotten leader.
• We installed Hien as a leader. We saw him regularly for Stormblood patches, then he was a forgotten leader.
• We installed Raubahn as a leader of Ala Mhigo and Lyse as a leader of its army. We saw them for the Stormblood patches, and they've been forgotten ever since.
• We installed Chai-Nuzz as a leader of Eulmore. We saw them in the first patches of Shadowbringers, and they've been forgotten ever since.
• My crystall ball tells me that we have installed Wuk Lamat as a leader of Tuliyollal, and will be seen for a few patches then... wait for it... forgotten after that.

Now let's say we become the main character again. I understand people are concerned that after we defeated countless gods and ancient, more powerful versions of ourselves, that struggling with a lizard in a dungeon is a bit strange. But I think this is fine on the basis that even the most famous fighters in boxing and MMA eventually lose, and not necessarily to the best/strongest opponent they faced. Eventually, you just lose a step, or get overconfident, so got to keep your skills sharp and not underestimate even a trash pack in a dungeon. It's a lot like how people can be really good at an ultimate then just get destroyed by a dungeon mechanic, because they see dungeons as below them and underestimate them.

[Gember]

There are a bunch other MMOS where you are just the side character progressing a story, so its not that alien as you make it to be. But- in FFXIV's case; it is. We've always been the "special" one since ARR. Wuk Lamat isn't the worse thing in the world. What really hurt Dawntrail was the pacing of the story and how it was presented. There is a great story underneath all of these issues, but the issues are so jarring that people can't see past it too well. The Dev team did already mention that they are collecting feedback to see where to take the game in the next 10 years, and I'm sure its a beaten dead horse topic to them regarding Wuk Lamat and Dawntrail's expansion as whole. So only time can tell at this point.

[Renaclock]

Same as WoL but they're story has concluded so they can't really grow anymore or it will be repeating their story.
I think its best to leave scions behind for some time from 8.0, make WoL weaker with curse or something can work with powercreep.
Maybe make it so WoL lose their power and face the fear of death to change the tone of the story.

[BunnyReaper]

Wuk Lamat is a terrible character. She is just badly written, she is boring, obnoxious and annoying. Voice acting aside, DT story is really not that great. Even patch quests were completely hollow and showed us things we already knew, except that last part, which was the only good one.
And the overall voice acting this expansion, without including Wuk Lamat... Don't get me started on that.

[Renaclock]

Agree.
Wuk lamat's character wouldn't be so hated if she had more build up.
If we saw her real weakness,and spent time training her or something before beating Bakool instead of cooking contests.

[NegativeS]

Wuk Lamat is just a symptom of a disease. The writing of FFXIV took a very noticeable dive after the end of the main EW MSQ, which unfortunately included how the characters were written.

Surely you noticed how one-note all of the Scions were in DT's story? Alphinaud completely lost all of his development from post-ARR/HW. Krile only got a word in when someone mentioned the golden city. Estinien was unusually distant to the WoL, one of the only people he trusts. Every Scion re-introduced following the appearance of the Plot Device may as well have worn a sign saying 'we're only here because we're the only ones allowed to vomit techno-babble exposition'. Alisaie was the only character where the DT writers even tried to look at how she was characterized in past expansions, and even then 75% of the time she's just red Alphinaud.

And of course, it extends to the setting and characters introduced in DT as well. Galool and Bakool Ja Ja are just big walking plot devices with the one-noteiest personalities on the continent. Koana is the Scion stand-in until they had an excuse to re-introduce them. Every minor character only serves to act as a caricature for whatever Disneyed culture they're trying to force you to enjoy at the time (tacos lmao xd). And of course, Wuk Lamat is someone's Naruto-y self insert.

Erenville and his arc with his mother are the only things they managed to hit the target with, even if it wasn't a bullseye. Pretty obvious when you're playing the story that whoever wrote that part of DT is not the same person who wrote everything else. And even then, they missed the mark. ("Oh, weird people who are technically not alive according to our standards and thus we aren't guilty of genocide by killing them all? Where have I heard this before--ahh it")

Anyway, what I'm saying here is, Wuk Lamat isn't the one that needs to be removed, the writers are.

[Exmo]

Agreed with others that this game has always prominently featured various NPCs over the course of its story. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This is a case of it working for many but not for others.