Wuk Lamat

[Joshbot]

Dear FFXIV Team,
I’ve really enjoyed Dawntrail’s world and story, but I found Wuk Lamat’s constant presence in nearly every cutscene and duty overwhelming, as it left little room for my Warrior of Light or other characters to shine. Its extensive dialogue, often slowed the pacing and made the narrative feel crowded. For example: In “The Feat of Repose” (Heritage Found), Wuk Lamat’s lengthy commentary dominated the cutscenes, making my character feel like a bystander. I’d love to see more input from other NPCs like Erenville or the Warrior of Light.
During The Interphos trial, Wuk Lamat’s frequent voiced lines and central role in the story overshadowed the player’s contributions, reducing the sense of being the hero. Future duties could give the Warrior of Light more spotlight.
In “A Brother’s Duty” (Solution Nine), Wuk Lamat’s monologues took focus away from Krile and others, making the quest feel one-sided. More balanced dialogue would help.

I’d greatly appreciate it if future patches (7.1–7.3) could reduce Wuk Lamat’s screen time, include quieter moments to let the story breathe, and refocus on the Warrior of Light as the protagonist. Thank you for your hard work and for listening to player feedback! Sincerely,


The Feat of Repose” (Level 97, Heritage Found) Issue: Wuk Lamat is heavily featured in cutscenes during this quest, where it comments extensively on the situation in Heritage Found and its inhabitants. Its dialogue often reiterates its optimism or concern, which can feel redundant and slow the pacing, especially when the Warrior of Light is mostly a silent observer.
Why It’s Overbearing: Its lines dominate the scene, leaving little room for other characters like Erenville or the Warrior of Light to contribute meaningfully. The lack of quieter moments makes the sequence feel crowded.

Kozama’uka” (Level 95, Kozama’uka) Issue: Early in the MSQ, Wuk Lamat’s introductions to Kozama’uka’s culture and her interactions with locals feature Wuk Lamat in nearly every cutscene, often explaining things the Warrior of Light could reasonably infer or experience firsthand. Its upbeat commentary can feel repetitive and unnecessary.
Why It’s Overbearing: Lamat's constant explanations slow the pacing and reduce the player’s sense of discovery, as it often narrates what’s happening instead of letting the environment or other NPCs tell the story.

In the final cutscenes of the Dawntrail MSQ (after the level 100 capstone quest), Wuk Lamat delivers multiple speeches about its goals and Tural’s future. These scenes are dialogue-heavy, with Lamat taking center stage while the Warrior of Light and Scions have minimal input.
Why It’s Overbearing: The lack of focus on the player’s role in resolving the expansion’s conflict makes the ending feel like Wuk Lamat’s story, not the Warrior of Light’s. The absence of quieter moments or contributions from other characters adds to the crowded feel.

[Jeeqbit]

For the most part, her talking most of the time didn't bother me, but I did side quests a lot to spread it out. However, I didn't really like that she seemed to be more of an expert on matters than the Scions and the Warrior of Light when, frankly, she seemed like someone that just waved her axe and didn't know these things. Probably what saved Kozama'uka at all for me was Alphinaud offering information scions know at one point, but she still overall had too much knowledge as if we're meant to assume she learned all these things off camera, which isn't impossible, but it's just a stretch when she doesn't seem like a scholar.

My issue with Heritage Found was mostly just how it stated the obvious and repeated things in the most blatant way, with the main difference being that some of it was voice acted and some of it wasn't. Seeing as SE is meeting the devs of Clair Obscur, one thing they can learn from it is to let the environment do the story telling instead of the scions Wuk Lamat having to state the obvious. Heritage Found was an excellent opportunity to just let us walk through it and figure it out without a single word needing to be said:

1. We went to Yyasulani, which was supposed to be the home of someone.
2. Everything was old and abandoned as if 100 years passed suddenly, similar to what we experienced on The First.
3. Either we have been thrown into the future, or this area specifically is in the future or sped up time.

So you can surmise all that just by looking at it. Yet all the characters spend ages slowly explaining it to us.

When we fought Sphene, I have to agree that this was something only we had the believable experience to defeat. We'd defeated ancient Ascians and traveled to the other side of the universe to fight ancient creations - Wuk Lamat had at best slain some Turali vidraal, which is not quite the same, and it's a lot to believe they can hold up the robot hand.

I believe their reason for doing all this was to make sure the story was explained clearly and also probably to help returning players that had forgot the past story, or who even took a break mid-story and continued it later, but the result is all that repetition that feels like it doesn't respect your ability comprehend the story and repeats it to try and drill it in. I think we should just accept that some people will not absorb or understand the story as well as others, and some will interpret it different or rush through it. Everyone's interpretation of the story in a game will be different and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

They said they are going to return to the Warrior of Light being the hero of the world soon, so you don't need to worry about that. This was said quite some time ago now but I expect the change will coincide with the wrapping up of the arc in 7.3 and the beginning of the next one in 7.4.

[Kaurhz]

The only thing that rivalled Wuk Lamat was the aggressive use of fist clenching.

[Atma]

The only thing that rivalled Wuk Lamat was the aggressive use of fist clenching.

Meh it's no different than stoic nodding.

[Garruss]

The only thing that rivalled Wuk Lamat was the aggressive use of fist clenching.

Pray return and fist clench with Wuk Lamat

[OdrN]

I don't mind the character but I agree she's way too prominent in the quests. Every time we visit a new area, we're always paired with her and never with Krile or Erenvile. Our only respite is in Shaaloani. Plus, her intervention in the last trial was clearly not required/desired.

I can imagine people not liking the character much, be quite pissed by the end of Dawntrail.

Concerning the Warrior of Light, it's kinda hard to always focus on a "empty" character with no voice. We need people around us to talk and interact in our stead.

[Auro_Seldaris]

I don't mind the character but I agree she's way too prominent in the quests. Every time we visit a new area, we're always paired with her and never with Krile or Erenvile. Our only respite is in Shaaloani. Plus, her intervention in the last trial was clearly not required/desired.

I can imagine people not liking the character much, be quite pissed by the end of Dawntrail.

Concerning the Warrior of Light, it's kinda hard to always focus on a "empty" character with no voice. We need people around us to talk and interact in our stead.

This is why I always volunteered to run Interphos with people from my Friends groups and FC who were clearing it for the first time. I wanted to see their reactions to Wuk crossing the line and being totally obnoxious in the final trial. It was wonderful salt mining. Literally every single one, to the very last, were shocked, frustrated, and angry by her interrupting. Even people that liked her prior to that felt it was a line that shouldn't have been crossed. And I think mostly everyone can agree with that. It's one of the very few moments in DT that even Wuk fans can believe was a bridge too far. (Not to mention that annoying and insulting "buff" that states she's the one inspiring YOU. You know, the person who defeated the personification of entropy and despair. GTFO with that idiocy.)

Shadowbringers and Endwalker - ESPECIALLY Shadowbringers - found clever ways to give the WoL more personality that didn't involve voice acting. There were many instances of dialogue in ShB/EW where I gave my character a voiceover during the "Silent mouth flaps", just saying what I felt was her appropriate response at the time, and remarkably the NPC's reactions were almost always in line with what I imagined my character saying. So it can be done, just not by this writing team, they don't have the nuance or chops for it.

In another sense, this is why Alphinaud and Alisaie exist. They serve as sort of a proxy speaker for the WoL. That's why they have the most dialogue in the game. Or, well... the second-most amount of dialogue, I suppose, a certain cat notwithstanding.

As for Wuk herself, pairing us with her screamed PLEASE LIKE MY OC DONUT STEEL FURRY WAIFU! She came off less like a cool new friend and more like the "DMPC" that a particularly overbearing Dungeon Master shoehorns into the plot to railroad the PCs or keep them on the "right moral track". An obnoxious self-insert, in other words. We needed a break from her. That's why I enjoyed the Shaaloani segment, Wuk wasn't around and overwhelming everything and everyone else. You can't miss someone if they're always around.

I will also chime in and agree with a couple of other forum posters and say that I think the original plan for 7.2 and 7.3 was to have Wuk bond with Real Sphene just like she bonded with Endless Sphene. It struck me as extremely odd and out-of-character for her to have basically zero interest in getting to know the Real Sphene. After all the backlash against her far too prominent role, I believe they pulled the handbrake on the Wuk train and rewrote the plot to have Sphene and the WoL become friends instead, while Wuk took literally every opportunity to go somewhere else and do anything else than interact with Sphene, which is completely out-of-character for her if. "Oh, so the real Sphene wasn't dead. Neat. Well, bye. I'll be over here, talking to random people in the background." There's even a shot in the cutscene where Sphene is ordering coffee or something, and Wuk Lamat is literally off to the side, staring into the distance blank-faced like she's in Offline mode.

I think they realized they took their creator's pet character a bit too far and, like a middle-schooler creating a new Sonic the Hedgehog character, became totally irritating in how hard they tried to convince people their "edgy Sonic OC" was the BEST THING EVERRRRRRRR and YOU JUST DON'T GET WHY THEY'RE SO AWESOME! I mean, Yoshida almost literally said that in inerviews. Thankfully, they seem to have backed off and decided the best course of action is for her to fade into the background once her role was essentially finished, to the point of potentially cutting it short. We'll never know for sure, but the strange change in her behavior toward Sphene in 7.2 has me believing that's the case.

Disappointed by this. The WoL is almost a non-entity and struggles to serve as a main character within the narrative. I hope feedback like this thread does not discourage the devs from centering their story on other NPCs in future.

You are the only person who thinks this.

[Exmo]

You are the only person who thinks this.

Either you live in a bubble or you're brand new to the internet. People have been talking about the problems with silent protagonists for close to two decades.

[Auro_Seldaris]

Either you live in a bubble or you're brand new to the internet. People have been talking about the problems with silent protagonists for close to two decades.

This must be a Young People thing. Do you get annoyed with your book when it doesn't talk to you? When I was young, ALL video game protagonists were silent. It may surprise you to know we made it through ok, with the power of imagination!

To be less sarcastic, what I mean is that you are the only person who thinks the WoL needs to be permanently sidelined in favor of an ever-rotating cast of Guest Star Main Characters. Some people love that their character is special, and have a lot invested in their WoL. If you get your way, then they lose out on what they want from the game, all to satisfy your own wants. You need to remember that not everyone sees everything the way you do.

The real answer is there's a happy middle ground between having pov characters and having the player character be important.

[Exmo]

This must be a Young People thing. Do you get annoyed with your book when it doesn't talk to you? When I was young, ALL video game protagonists were silent. It may surprise you to know we made it through ok, with the power of imagination!

Unless you consider anyone born after 1970 to be young, this is just not true. Given you're saying "silent protagonist" means "anything that doesn't have audio, such as books", it's clear you're just being rude and asinine for the sake of it. Not engaging with you further.