Dawntrail WTF Is This: Wuk Lamat

[@durantes]

40:48 Shoot. I repeated myself there. Sorry for missing that during editing, folks. I'll be more mindful in the future.

[@fredy2041]

Your atransphobe

[@bellekovac_]

@@fredy2041 How is he a transphobe?

[@yungchimp]

@@fredy2041 your delusional

[@HomicidalBluePikmin]

>Haurchefant should've just believed more. Fuck. The worst part is, you know he believed harder than Wuk Lamat ever could anyway.

[@dragonssweets6841]

Q-Q he believed in you on his dying breath at least man that part still makes ugly cry

[@tylercrissman847]

If Woke Lamat cared more she could've saved her dad.

[@davood123]

A smile better suits a hero

[@TheLoreKeeper-d6t]

​@@davood123 I'm still crying because of that line

[@iwantobeliev9633]

Emet Selch hid this stupid expansion among the other cool foreshadow at the end of EW, he and Hytlo in the after life must be like 'look the fool really went there, stupid sundered'

[@jeremywright9511]

They definitely had a good laugh over it

[@durantes]

Even postmortem, he's still trolling us. What a guy

[@Lyu-Phy]

Someone needs to animate this, @BeneG where are you my dude?!

[@jellydamgood]

PRANK'D

[@Kanamon22]

"I made a fool of myself forgetting, but i'll get the last laught when they go to the golden city" In my head that's cannon and he's being a lovable asshole until the very end.

[@SuperDarknut]

Wuk's LB4 not only does like 8-9% of the boss' HP when the phase transition is around 20%, it also gives you a buff talking about how inspired we are thanks to Wuk Lamat's resolve. It's revolting

[@Ryukai-san]

You forgot to mention how both her motion sickness AND fear of heights ALSO magically vanish when they would interfere with the 'story plot'. For instance how her motion sickness magically vanishes when she's being carried on the Hanu Hanu float, (that's not! a 'smooth' ride you can literally see the thing getting tossed around all over the place like a ship in a storm). And then there's the whole, dragging us up to stand 2 inches from the edge of the palace courtyard/plaza so she can scream about 'peace and happiness' at the top of a vertical cliff face a few hundred FEET high! Then in the literal next quest (you turn that one in and it's the next one you pick up) she's all 'can I hold your hand I don't like heights'. /urgh She's a true Mary Sue, yes she has 'flaws', but those flaws only seemingly exist to try and make her seem 'cuter' (in the mind of the writer), and those same flaws magically disappear if they get in the way of the plot. It makes me wonder if the new writer has only ever written/worked on stories/manga for Shonen Jump or some other publication/publisher for stories for 10+ year old boys.

[@pinkchckn]

You know something else that really aggravates me? Wuk lamat is told as not being the best fighter. But against Sphene, from the moment she joins the fight she deals at minimum double the damage of the WoL. The literal strongest warrior of the universe, who has the power to glimpse into the future (echo - explains the telegraphs), who has an incorruptible soul (traveler's charm + blessing of light), the person with the densest and most powerful soul (8 times rejoined), who fought countless threats canonically alone, traveled to the edge of the universe to save humanity (again, alone); does dramatically less damage than a literal nobody with no training, that never faced any real hardships, and uses lv 91 gear. I know this is a small thing, but it really infuriates me.

[@game-enjoyer13]

That is no small thing, sadly. That is a big thing, a nuclear punch to the testicles to all players and their WoLs. Gameplay does connect to story/lore. The example you used with the Echo, being the lore explanation as to how we see boss telegraphs and AoEs, is just one example So…. Llama Tea having her own epic-big-power up, spawning out of nowhere, and dealing damage on par with A FULL PARTY of WoLs (Summoned across the rift with Azem’s crystal, parties are basically made up of “weaker” WoLs) Is…..canon…. Wuk Lamat, in both gameplay (her DPS) and story (The cutscene of her fending off Sphene’s attacks)…..should logically make her canonically as strong as the WoL….multiplied by 8 lol

[@tyhjyys]

never thought about the echo like that. makes sense that we use it to see telegraphs.

[@tyhjyys]

@@game-enjoyer13it makes it even worse when you remember how much attention to detail there was in older scenes. haurchefant not being able to block magic because paladins don't have a magic mitigation at that level for example. ideally they shouldn't ever cross that path again. we want our characters to be strong, but adhere to the rules of the universe as well or it sucks you right out of the role

[@dragonssweets6841]

Ya that pissed me off too I call wuk Mary sue

[@dhayris160]

"Level 91 gear" has me rolling, because it absolutely is the axe from the 91 dungeon 😂

[@jumanjijoe9198]

Square-Enix literally rushed through the last story beats of the ascian arc to get out a fresh start expansion for new players. They then proceed to fuck that up so spectacularly that both new and old players are pissed off. How this company manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory so many times is mind boggling.

[@Lyu-Phy]

Yeah overall the disaster in DT some people saw coming from some inconsistencies that were already apparent in EW, but the difference is EW got hard carried by being the finale and everything coming together + the scions/WoL at their "peak". It was full of nostalgia, hype and emotions. But all of the wildcards are not there for DT and it shows.

[@fabesey2016]

7 Remake is even more spectacularly this, it goes from brilliant to catastrophic on a dime.

[@RvnWolf]

Actually I don't think it was Square Enix solely, but now you know how the narrative in games are like with companies who have Sweet Baby Inc as a client. I guess that Investor was right to voice concern to the company president.

[@PenguinsAreColdish]

@@RvnWolf ew youre one of those

[@reachinghigher4259]

How do you appeal to new players with an expac that you have to be lvl90 and have played through all prior content to get to?

[@TheKaleidobros]

THANK YOU I'm so glad someone brought up when Yshtola calls Wuk on the linkpearl. She has had basically ZERO interaction with her! Usually in these situations the call either A: Goes to another scion AND us. Or B: goes purely to us, gives us the whole conversation all at once, and then has our character silently explain to others as we sometimes do. At the VERY LEAST the call should have went to Koana, ya know, the other leader who Yshtola has spent the entire expansion with thus far. I was watching this cutscene with a friend while ranting about the stories flaws. As soon as the call came up I said "If this is a scion, it just furthers my point" and not only was it a scion, it was the one with the least interaction! Actually insane how huge of drop in writing quality we got with this expansion.

[@reachinghigher4259]

Dawntrail: Brought to you by the team who wrote the PLD job-story...a story so bad, they stopped halfway through to check on the WARs, except no one stopped them this time.

[@FuyuYuki92]

I'm still baffled that the entire team looked at this, including supervisors, and said "this is ok"

[@Overdoseplus]

the drk experience

[@xiaocheng6643]

In a recent interview with eurogamer Yoshi P. stated that the team is reaching their limits working with a big cast like the scions. Apparently, it was his own idea to focus mostly on one character, namely Wuk Lamat, and gauge the reaction for future updates Paired with the fact that the English VA of Alphinaud recently disclosed they had pretty much 0 voice direction for DT, this reeks of massive budget cuts on the MSQ end in favor of the graphics update, dungeon design and all the side content they promised throughout the expansion

[@FuyuYuki92]

@@xiaocheng6643 I went and read the Eurogamer interview and... big OOF. His decisions lately have really been mind blowing to me. How did he possibly think that was going to go well? Even though granted, the bad writing quality made it infinitely worse on multiple fronts. It's gonna be hard to fix.

[@shivaruka9126]

The elaborate scheme to weed out all the idiots. 300 Iq move. Or just stupid. One headcanon is funnier tho.

[@shivaruka9126]

​@@xiaocheng6643 square would gut CBU 3 before giving them a sliver of the resources Nomura is given. And cbu 3 makes way more money than them.

[@RangerRobin0404]

Justice for King Dad Dad: he was a breath of fresh air and I would've enjoyed him being around for future events.

[@KaedysKor]

3:22 Even _Westworld_ (Shaaloni) involved Wuk, just not directly. The _entire_ plot for that zone was driven by Wuk's nanny and her stupid bracelet. Literally everything we did up until the lightning dome appeared was in service to a Wuk-based plot arc. She had to be the center of the story even when she wasn't effing there.

[@Zaikofortem]

Yeah the Westworld part was meant to make the player miss Wuk Lamat by being completely dull and boring. Nobody missed her. it was just dull and boring for its own sake followed by getting into the babysitting Wuk Lamat treadmill yet again afterwards.

[@Kanamon22]

Oh yeah... i completely forgot about that... honestly in my mind was looking for Erenville mom and that's it. I completely forgot that and the moment you interact with her to return his bracelet, for me was spending time with erenville and finally pressing some skills. Is funny to me that even when people like that zone or not (i personally like it, it's not that bad with jp voices), everyone agree that even when they want you to miss her character, everyone love that you don't have to be around her annoying ass for most of the zone.

[@LegendaryDorkKnight]

Not even after the dome appeared. All of that happened because Zoraal Ja spent 30 years having a hate-boner for Wuk Lamat. Going there was SPECIFICALY so he could have a grudge match with her. His return to Tulliyolal wasn't to fight Gulool Ja Ja because he thought Gulool Ja Ja would be dead. There's not a single plotline in DT that's not tied to Wuk Lamat.

[@DarkDyllon]

someone else said it perfectly, can't remember who but it always stuck with me. "Wuk finally crawls out of our asses, but left her jewerly behind"

[@MissKashira]

I still have nightmares of Wuk bursting into the final trial yelling, "SPPEEEEENNNNNN!!! LISTEN TO MEEEE!!!" And even Sphene is confused as to the point of this and I was most certainly confused. What's the point of trying to assure someone you empathize with them right after you've wiped out their people and are in the process of beating them to death? Imagine yelling at Emet-Selch, "I totally see your point about the rejoinings," as we're throwing an axe through his chest. It was the cherry of ridiculous moments on top of a flavorless sundae of ridiculous moments. Everything from curing racism with seeds to touring a themepark while murdering everyone's parents. Utter absurdity. My expectations for DT were low. The writers had shovels.

[@Bismarck9871]

Lmaoooo that shovel comment was smart you send me laughing from it

[@Lyu-Phy]

That scene is gold. I did play in german and voiceacting was peak there but then I saw everyone talking about the english va and especially that scene. Well that's certainly my favourite sentence now, that's for sure haha. That whole moment and voice acting was so out of the blue lmao, I CANT.

[@durantes]

Damn dude. That's a brutal takedown. I love it!

[@gamermasterL]

I don't have nightmares cause I play in JP.

[@eksporter]

to be fair they were already dead.

[@hypnotic13371337]

I love how when Zoraal Ja kills Galool Ja Ja, The little area you can talk to npcs after, Alisae is like "We tried everything and we couldn't stop it" What the literal, actual fuck

[@jellydamgood]

@@hypnotic13371337 What do you mean you didnt enjoy the scions getting spontaneous lobotomy in service of this hackjob of a story? Not the first time it happened in the expac either.

[@Gr1mTid3]

yes, that more or less solidified the fact that our character is just doing things when people beg them, and I am sure we are just like some sort of evil villain using everything to further our own plot because that is literally the only logical explanation aside from bad writing I can think of to actually make sense of this game

[@iwantobeliev9633]

in my head cannon my Wol was on the side like with either a face 'U know, I'd love to help, but I really dont care' or in a group shell call with Aymeric, Raubahn and Pipin '- yeah this place sucks, Oh that lizard got hit hard, anyway how about another tournament when I come back?'

[@eclipsedark39]

@@iwantobeliev9633 my wol was literally standing there, rolling his eyes and didnt care at all. "Not my monkeys, not my circus." He would rather enjoy to join your wol with their political trash talk surrounding Aymeric and the others.xD At least these people are real leaders that knows hardships and grief.

[@jakemoore5077]

It was about allowing him his honorable duel to the death, interrupting or saving him would dishonor his record. They even say in game.

[@ZanTheFox]

Living Memory would have been an amazing point to effectively put the WoL in Emet's place. "You are holograms. Memories. You may think you're real but you're not. Ergo, it's not muder if I kill you" and then have a major reflection moment in that. The answer to still shut it down is obvious when you have the memories themselves like mombun asking us to do it, but it should have become a collective decision by a whole group that the horror of existing at the suffering of others after their own time had come would be too shameful to be okay with

[@Kamuyy]

Me and my friends are convinced that Wuk Lamat is the lead writer or their lover’s fursona. It would explain the bizarre fixation on her throughout the entirety of Dawntrail. What a disappointment of an expansion story. The post Endwalker story was already shaky but this one is a magnitude 8 levels of shakiness.

[@Grandmaster-Kush]

100%, reminds me of Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth, was the writers self insert daughter surrogate / weird fetisch and he couldn't handle the fans making R34 of her lmao

[@CrispBaker]

Had the stink of "OC Do Not Steal" fanfic the entire time. Miserable character that gets worse every time you see her.

[@proggz39]

@@Grandmaster-Kushat least that one was good

[@threestars2164]

A self-insert

[@DarkDyllon]

it'll make much more sense once you realized that Wuk's VA is nowhere near qualified to have a lead role in FF14, that the VA is also trans and was personally called in by Kate fairly sure. so yeah, self insert along with pushing an agenda and it's painfully obvious. (also, a man stealing a woman's role when you push that thought a bit further)

[@ulibarriL]

Wuk Lamat is a self-insert. The insufferable Mary Sue that is in the middle of a shameless plot that completely revolves around her is a dead giveaway. All the while, her brother, Koana is the true hero. His morality remains intact considering he was not at Living Memory, and it was his efforts that lead to the salvation, protection, preservation, and prosperity of their nation.

[@darkelf505]

I love my friends but they’re all XIV yes men, thank you for making this, I was starting to think it was just me who had problems with DT’s story

[@karenpojar2514]

The only competent writing in the expansion is when the Dawnservant reveals that the trials are bullcrap. He doesn't care who wins. He is examining how they handle themselves during their journey and will choose a successor at the end. If any of them are up to the job. And so far he finds them all lacking, Wukie included. So he is resigning himself to never being able to retire. Someone actually had the balls to lightly critique the writer's waifu, and it didn't get cut.

[@Sazandora635]

I love how they had to make everyone enable Zoraal Ja *again* by making us stand around uselessly after he decides to send his army after Tuliyollal and violates the "honorable" terms Wuk had agreed on. Again, we were presented with another easy opportunity to just kill him and resolve the plot but nope, gotta let the people of Solution Nine suffer for our ineptitude too.

[@qamarqammar7629]

@36:59 you nailed it here - the disregard for the Legacy of this game. Wuk Lamat retraces the story of the WoL from ARR through ShB all in one expac - she starts small, fights her Zenos, confronts her Emet. She pushes the WoL out of the story because she is the WoL - or how the writers envision the WoL's journey as it could have been. It writes the WoL not just out of the current game but out of its past as well. All your victories? Unearned. All your losses? Imaginary. All that conflict you engaged in? Brutal and uneccesary. You're a murder hobo who got lucky. Level that culinarian and smile more. And why explore zones like Shaaloani which is being overrun with ceruleum mining (was this zone underwritten by an oil company?) while devasting the local herding people (whose lumber we take to repair the train, but that's ok because we asked nicely) and corrupt law enforcement when we can instead do more errands for Wuk Lamat. To show how much even her nanny loved her. A servant who exists only to show how much she loves Wuk Lamat. What game am I playing? This is the same game that gave us the class struggles of Ul'dah and Ishgard.

[@IanTheRed1]

It's absolutely AMAZING how simply the Gulool death could have been fixed by the WoL and the Scions being in another part of the city and... I don't know... SEEING HIS DEATH AS AN ECHO VISION AFTER WE GET BACK!?! Did the writer of this expansion forget WoL had the echo for moments exactly like this? Instead it's just used for Krile to signal to the player that Zoraal Ja is EEEEEEVIL (rather than showing it naturally through his own beliefs and actions because they were scared that the player would be too dumb to figure it out before the whole patricide thing).

[@davood123]

Having the wol there was embarrassingly stupid yeah

[@JustinStrife]

I agree with every one of your points in Dawntrail. Easily the worst msq in all of FFXIV, if not all of FF. I do disagree with you about Zodiark in Endwalker however. I knew 10 years ago that he wouldnt be the final boss for the Story. Several reasons of this thinking. 1) Most FF games have you chasing or planning to fight "the main villain of the story", only to reveal the final villain in the later part of the game. 2) There had to be a reason why Zodiark was summoned. Something triggered those events. 3) Better to fight Zodiark in his fractured and weakened state, than full powered, so that the power scaling didnt make us stronger than the strongest Ascians, especially once we learned we are sundered souls of the ancients. EW had its flaws, but most of them were manageable. My main problems were the Scions' sacrifice felt forced in how it tried to dig emotions out of us when we knew they would all come back, and 2, Garlemald was wrapped up too quickly.

[@DyferVolt]

8:57 That's the thing, she didn't believe she was suited to be Dawnservant, the reason she seeks out the strongest guy around specifically is because she feels like she HAS to become Dawnservant no matter what, in order to stop Zoraal Ja, or at least that's the reason we got in 6.55. The problem is that they just fucking forgot about this like instantly. I think she was supposed to learn that she could actually be a good Dawnservant while taking part in the trial that she initially only joins to stop Zoraal Ja, but by the time Dawntrail strats her motivations are completely different, and stopping Zoraal Ja is downgraded to a secondary objective for half the expansion. And if that wasn't enough we also get to learn once we're in Tuliyolal that Wuk just forgot to tell us back in Sharlayan that actually there's 2 people who shouldn't be allowed to become Dawnservant, when Bakool Ja Ja gets introduced. Wich honestly SHOULD make Wuk's motivations stronger, *if they fucking remembered what her motivations were*

[@durantes]

They were too far up Wuk's ass to notice anything wrong. We could make an entire encyclopedia of issues with her writing alone. It's insane.

[@DarkDyllon]

But then we also forget that 1 of the contestants is Koana, who might not be the perfect fit to be fair, but also cares and listens to Wuk, so Wuk could influence him. at the end, Koana would've made a better dawn servant, since he was only missing the "think what the people want" which he learned quite quickly anyway through his journey with Thancred and Urianger. (I know Koana is the dawn servant, but he shouldn't have to share it with Woke Lmao over there)

[@sylverkat9488]

I've never finished an FFXIV expansion with a sense of "WTF" like I did with this one. I went through all of the stages of grief after playing it.

[@TheWickedWizardOfOz1]

I refuse acceptance.

[@youtousim]

I remember feeling actual relief when we get a moment of respite with Erenville and his mom, away from Wuk Lamat. And audibly asking the screen "What the actual fuck?!" in that final trial's cutscene. It was just too much. Again. And again. And again.

[@marrlethefirst]

Leaving a comment for the algorithm, because the criticism for this absolute slop of a story can't be overstated and needs to be heard as much as possible. Great video, too

[@durantes]

Ah, thanks very much!

[@SilverNightbane]

This is why the whole "We need Ishikawa back" thing rings doubly true. She crafted a masterwork that made it so we cared about the characters and the world. While I get you need to let new writers cut their teeth upon bigger portions of the narrative pie, did no one vet their ideas or even go "that seems stupid, got anything to back it up?", was it all just an afterthought because the new direction is to "start fresh and new"? Did nobody notice they created a narrative black hole that everything just had to bend over for her???

[@xiaocheng6643]

Oh, do I have news for you... According to a recent eurogamer interview, focussing on Wuk Lamat was Yoshi P.'s idea in the first place. Add to that his the fact that he mentioned consuming a ton of One Piece and loving it not too long ago and it becomes painfully obvious WHY we got what we got... Also, lo and behold, the English VA of Alphinaud disclosed they had almost 0 voice direction for DT - which was the reason why ARR with English VO was so bad they changed from NA to a UK studio with Heavensward - which is an indicator of huge budget cuts on the MSQ end

[@SilverNightbane]

@@xiaocheng6643 ... All of a sudden my joke of Wuk Lamat collecting the pieces of the Everlasting Gobstopper to stuff into the Egyptian God Cards, which allows them to find the One Piece then becoming the bestest Hokage ever is turning out to be less of a parody and what they were actually going for.

[@Caribbean-Man]

@@xiaocheng6643 i knew it! woke lamats mannerisms IS NOT naruto at all. as everyone loves to parrot. its another shonen jump rubber man. she is a bad copy of pre-timeskip Luffy who just left his home town. always cheers and wide eyed and happy, loving to eat and always pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. if you watch the 1st few arcs of One Piece you can see the resemblance!, plus yoshidas done this before, copying shows he marathons and tries to incorporate them into his project. example? the 1st few seaons of Game of Thrones and Final Fantasy 16

[@lynxlynx8125]

It was Yoshi P's decision to have one man show for msq. In the Eurogamer interview he mentioned that it was hard to manage the whole scion ensemble. It was his conscious decision and we saw the result of it in msq. He also said that he wanted to try this story format for quite some time . Eh lol he should have left main story decision making to Ishikawa or writers.

[@DarkDyllon]

@@xiaocheng6643 honestly, I think it's just Yoshi-P being the "leader" he thinks that is needed here. whenever something gets messed up, even though it's very clearly NOT his fault, he still takes the blame for it, this sounds like that again. also apparently Ishikawa was a supervisor for the story, so she at the end also greenlit this disaster of a story, but Yoshi-P saying that Wuk was his idea sounds to me that he sees that his team messed up and as the "leader" of the project, he think it's his responsibility to shift blame to him, which I can admire, but at the same time, take care of it instead of saying "I take full responsibility" and then continue like nothing happened.

[@KemonomimiCafe]

Legends say that Meteion met Wuk Lamat...

[@durantes]

No wonder she got depressed....

[@BiscuitsV2]

When you were talking about the fight with Bakool, I thought back to Thancred's fight with Ranjit. Thancred was completely outmatched, but used his wits and took himself to the brink of death to defeat Ranjit. What a wasted opportunity to have her actually make some kind of sacrifice or, god forbid, actually struggle against an opponent.

[@NatCr3w]

36:16 is too impossibly based and true. All of this past world building and story that highlights sufferign and the resolve to continue. Throw away for some writer's shitty OC. I would have preferred Dawntrail if it had been a massive nothingburger vacation. Adding any stakes then so absolutely destroying them is a dissservice to the legacy that FFXIV has built in its writing.

[@jemm113]

Should have been an ACTUAL HUNT for an ACTUALLY LOST city of gold. Dawnservant never found it, only the key or a clue. Expeditions pop up left and right as the underlying issues of each autonomous tribe (NOT under the Dawnservant, Tuliyolal is only a city state with outlying vassals) aren’t getting resolved or are hitting a fever pitch (like with Mamook’s food and forestry problems). The promises of the Golden City could reflect what the people THINK they need to solve their problems, the WoL and co step in to ACTUALLY solve the problem. Wuk can be a secondary character that is actually well traveled and can help us connect socially to local customs of some places we visit. Cut out the succession till the patch content. The Dawnservant dying is what sparks the need for finding a successor in Koana and Wuk. Make Koana the obvious successor due to competency, Wuk is a people person and helps balance his antisocial tendencies. Also as a secondary character she can just be martially competent, only losing to her father and Zoraal Ja, and is the natural fit to lead the guard as the second Dawnservant. Have Koana come with us to Alexandria and Living Memory, Thancred and Raha can fill in as tanks, or Urianger as healer, etc. With the invadion, have Zoraal Ja think that its what brought the people of Tural together, but since he missed our group actually solving their problems beforehand, he doesn’t realize that his way would only lead to ruin when the people are divided, reflecting what happened in 1.0 and ARR when the Eorzean Alliance wasn’t yet formed or broke apart and were almost crushed by Garlemald because of it.

[@amilliontwisteddream]

You made such a good point that she never contributed anything of worth to her people before the right of succession. My biggest issue with Wuk Lamat was that her motivations seemed to superficial! She loves her people so much that she never bothered learning about them before she had a throne to gain? Okay sis, sounds like you love your comfy princess life a lot more.

[@marcokukuk3042]

Exactly my thought on the character. You forgot one point, the point that totally freaked me out. I like Krille and I was happy to finally find out more about her in this addon. Unfortunately, that doesn't get enough attention, and when we finally find out something about her, it's via an attraction in the Living Memory... and what happens. Wuk doesn't play the main role. So she constantly complains about how tiring this attraction is and actually spoils Krille's backstory. I mean, a character we accompany through what feels like a century of go-fetch quests and cutscenes complains that a single quest granted to another character is exhausting? Clear. Wuk is an asshole.

[@KuMikuPa]

During my playthrough I thought Gulool Ja Ja is my fav character in the expansion, but at the end I had the questions for him as well, such as: How could he not notice such darkness in Zoraal Ja? Did we even seen two of them interacting with each other before Zoraal Ja’s attack? Did Gulool cared about his only biological son, whose birth was “a miracle”, at all? Were Koana and Wuk more important to him? And more questions to Wuk/WoL/Scions as well - why we just shrug off Krile while she twice warns us about darkness in Zoraal Ja? Why we do nothing to help / understand him and just “he’s bad, can’t help it”? Why is he disqualified after one mistake during Rite of Succession, while Bakool Ja Ja has done so much shit and even gets “some” redemption? It may look like I’m protecting Zoraal Ja… well, guess I kinda am cause “strong silent type” of character was always a weakness of mine. Ultimately, all those questions are for writers, of course. For the game that always had its story as one of strengths, they’ve done it a giant disservice.

[@durantes]

Oh, I'm with you. Zoraal Ja got shafted with his writing. No development at all, so they throw in daddy issues and called it a day. I've a lot to say about him in the next video.

[@milf0rd]

I also liked Gulool Ja Ja and found it surprising that his kids turned out so extreme. Sure, parents aren't fully responsible for how their kids turn out, but the Princess, the Psychopath, and the Pushover seem to have too little in common with him - or with each other. Wuk was carefree, Zoral Ja took on everything alone and went a bit mad, while Koana, clearly the sanest of the bunch, still seemed rather quick to entrust important decisions to others.

[@DarkDyllon]

it's kinda funny since it doesn't make much sense for Zarool Ja to be so "evil" and war hungry. he blames it on "the expectations of being the "miracle" son" but Wuk constantly says that Zarool Ja got the same love from Galool as the rest did, so why did Koana and Wuk turn out completely fine, but Zarool being a warmonger? I kinda get his philosophie of "people have become complacent in peace" but to then plunge it into war is just stupid. Also that he claims that Eorzea is also Complacent in this, meanwhile Ishgard just recently got out of the dragonsong war, Eorzea recently got out of the war against Garlamald, Garlamald is being rebuild after being plunged into war and also just outright brainwashing, Ala Mhigo and even Doma were ruled by the Garleans for a long time. really? the rest is complacent in peace? what peace, Eorzea was constantly also battling the beast tribes because of territorial disputes and summoning. But he thinks he can handle not only the 3 Grand Companies, but also Ishgard, Ala Mhigo AND Doma at the same time? good luck buddy, they got enough troops and methods to flatten Tural 1000 times over.

[@rayc1602]

This video is a form of therapy

[@durantes]

I'm pleased to be of assistance.

[@Quacking-Goose]

Whoever wished for Zenos to get killed off used a Monkey's Paw...SHE IS WORSE! I actually want Zenos back chasing me around to fight me I'll take him over this black hole Mary Sue princess

[@lostvayne9146]

zenos had a unique relationship with wol

[@Caribbean-Man]

Im GAR for Zenos. Seriously that man is my favorite character in ALL of Final Fantasy. To go from him to this """"wuk creature"""""" FF is cooked man. its over bros. the quality is gone.

[@Quacking-Goose]

@@Caribbean-Man I agree, and with SE hiding the criticism of DQIII. I feel by 8.0 FFXIV will become body type 1 & 2 and the female races uglified into androgynous blobs and the males made into effeminate soy boys, and all the "skimpy" armor the DQIII remake treatment.

[@ulibarriL]

It also comforts me to think and know just how easily he would mop the floor with Zoraal Ja. Like if he was there when him and Gulool Ja Ja were clashing, my WoL would have had a look on her face that said, "I'm bounded by oath to stand by, but you're under no such obligation." and he would have just ended the one head without even breaking a sweat.

[@davood123]

Zenos kun

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

The story handled erasing Living Memory nonchalantly because it knew that it was not a huge deal; they were just AI constructs using souls with artificially-imprinted memories, but this is exactly why I have a huge problem with the final arc of DT. If even the game itself acknowledges that pulling the plug is not really that big of a deal, then why have that be the big climax of your expansion? There was no moral ambiguity because the story needs to make Wuk Lamat's choice the "objectively correct" one, one that has no teeth, no consequences, and ultimately no real meaning. Very disappointing story despite my expectations already being tempered as a result of it being the start of a new journey.

[@nny156]

The biggest issue I always had with ff14 is that the player character loves to just sit around in cut scenes and drool on himself. They did it from ARR to EW. Big bad guy would run off and youd just stand there and watch them do it. Or someone gets killed or the bad guy finds their McGuffin and you just stare off into space in the cutscene. Then DT comes along and makes the entire game just that. Just letting bad things happen for no reason.

[@CorvinQrow]

and as a person who has never been outside her city walls other then heading out east, her fake dad(a real chad that one) ask us to basically be her babysitter after we bested him in combat, when we should've been on vacation taking it easy from saving the world went from warrior of light to savior of the star to a glorified babysitter/nanny.

[@hopscotch_]

Was really convinced this expansion was going to have ffx vibes. Boy was I wrong 😂😅

[@RMD00]

Holy shit Durantes, that line delivery from Wuk Lemat "Leave that burden with us now. We will bear it in your stead!" felt like something from House of the Dead 2. I'm suffering like G did.

[@kyoai]

17:00 The issue I see in this scene is : Did none of the bird people ever notice the magical ship firing laser beams, flowing and providing good crops before? Everyone acted as if the ship delivering a good harvest was complete myth and hearsay, when we can clearly see, once it's being used, its magical properties when it begins to glow and shoot laser beams, as should anyone else. It is totally unreasonable to expect to have such events and properties of an idol (the ship) becoming myth in the course of a single year (aka since the last harvest festival). Did no one remember last year's ship firing laser beams and making the crops glow? I think this situation, when we had our first encounter with Bakool Ja Ja during our meeting with the bird people, it would have been a great opportunity for us, the player, to have a solo duty fight with Bakool, where he could completely dominate us, kinda like Zenos in Stormblood. It could set up how strong Bakool actually is and set up some kind of rivalry between the player and him, but they didn't do it.

[@durantes]

@@kyoai I guess chowing on reeds causes Alzheimers …

[@grivus98]

Err no, after so many expansions and the shit we went through, our accomplished feats alone. Unless its Zenos or some otherworldly God, no one should be able to completely dominate us, especially some mortal shmuck. And sure you can argue that is boring but that is the reality when you make the player character eat gods for breakfast.

[@darkendbeing]

The big difference between bakool and Zeno's is bakool is just a mamool ja, Zeno's is a monster that's the result of experiments and became obsessed with hunting stronger and stronger opponents bakool showed none of these traits. Zeno's absorbed a literal summon.

[@donimmortal7692]

It was clearly stated that the older people knew about the festival, but it hasn't been producing result since their heyday. But I guess a skim reader at best, watching youtube plot summary at worse like you wouldn't know. 🙄 Also if you think Bakool should be strong enough to rival the player, maybe you are even worse than the writers of Dawntrail.

[@gokkiyoutube]

I disagree, one of the main plot points relating to WOL is how powerful he is over anyone else. A duel with Bakool could only end with the WOL winning.

[@nephilimmg2916]

The writers really are the true villains of DT

[@mrdarkstar3756]

Honestly, I thought the Wuk Lamat thing would be 1/3 of the game. After the 95 dungeon, I thought ok she's wrapped up time to enjoy our WoL story now.. Sadly, it's Wuk Lamat 2 the return of the dawn servant. Smh, that final trial with her breaking in was cringe.

[@yaska7762]

Your two reviews of Dawntrail are spot on. Looking forward to the third.

[@hunterharris5929]

I finished dawntrail recently and people talking about how bad the story is along with the memes have felt like therapy (the dawntrail light bulb meme is particularly good) I played this game in early access and took over a month to finished even though I was ready to go in a gamer coma because I kept finding other things to do due to how much I hate the story The specific thing that just fully killed the story for me early on was Wuk Lamat getting kidnapped walking back to a village in eyesight of the player character and scions, being taken by bandits weaker than most mobs in the game

[@kelvinguo9780]

44:15 Fucking thank you. I've been saying this since I finished the expac. The most infuriating thing about Wuk's character is that she has done nothing to deserve what she now has. It's so antithetical to character development and it makes her naivety so maddening. She needs a moment like Alphinaud had with the Crystal Braves, something to challenge her preconceived notions on the world and show her the reality of how hard it is to actually maintain peace. I hope the future story patches will do something about this. But I know they won't.

[@KendaraDark]

I said it once, and I'll say it for the rest of my life: I didn't pay good money to play a background character to cat girl NARUTO. (just replace her const statement of becoming Dawn Servant with: I'm going to be Hokage! Believe it!) But don't worry, 'the scary adventurer won't interfere.' 40 hrs of me fighting with a server all weekend only to wonder constantly why I'm even there... Also on a side note: the fact that Wuk is strong enough to block the arm of the final boss and hold her own made me feel like they were trying to say she was on par with us. Ew. Excuse me while I New Game+ the other expansions to get the taste of this one out of my mouth.

[@TheKaleidobros]

Literally. I haven't bothered with NG+ at all but I'm about to go play Shadowbringers again lmfao

[@Hammer1987]

About your point that Koana did the same thing as Wuk Lmao when they travelled to Sharlean to recruit help for the contest, Koana returned to the place he spent years studying and learning. During that time he undoubtedly became familiar with the people there, maybe even specifically the Students of Baldesion. Koana made an informed decision based on knowledge and experience to recruit people from an institution he was very familiar with and knew he could trust. Wuk simply copied her brother's homework. It's bad enough that the Scones of the Disbanded Dawn did not in any meaningful way vet Wuk, but it was completely irresponsible for Wuk to travel alone to somewhere she had never been before, where she knew nobody except for Erenville, and recruit a bunch of complete strangers just because Erenville gave her the good old "trust me, bro". And how well does she really know Erenville? They have apparently been apart for years. And given how cold and standoffish Erenville often acts towards Wuk they seem more like acquaintances, or at best, childhood friends that drifted apart long ago. So her complete trust in him is entirely unfounded when it comes to something as important as choosing the people who will help her attain rulership of a continent spanning empire. So on his recommendation she recruits the WoL, and at this point it is important to note that the only thing she really knows about us is that we're really good at killing things. It is insufferable how she is never punished for being so naïve or for being so inappropriately forgiving towards legitimately evil people.

[@KaedysKor]

What gets me is that scene from the we're-sailing-out-of-Sharlayan cutscene, right at the start of the MSQ, where Wuk is standing up on the prow of the ship declaring her intent of becoming the dawn servant. It was shown multiple times in this video. Wuk, the character that falls to her knees and pounds the ground at even the _thought_ of boarding a barge again to go down river (lol what are Aetherytes), standing on this slim, rounded, and most like sea-spray slick log over _open ocean_ as we're sailing away. So much for that sea sickness. Yet again another trait that's only limiting when it's not _actually_ limiting and can be abused for cheap sympathy or something instead. Classic freakin' Mary Sue.

[@MaverickhunterXZero]

@@KaedysKor That is another thing with Mary Sues. They only show their "quirkiness" when it does not impede them of looking cool.

[@hawgacrux]

Good video. On Wuk Lamat: She is the equivalent of the first created character of a new DnD player who is also the spouse of the DM. They get all the best rolls, no one get's to criticize her and they always win just like that. On another note: Have you thought about putting japanese subtitles in your videos? Maybe then we could have the slightest, smallest chance of the devs watching that.

[@durantes]

Hmm. It might be worth looking into. I wonder how receptive they'd be...

[@darkendbeing]

Yoshida does speak English so there's a chance.

[@qamarqammar7629]

@@durantes Do it. They watch content creators in the west. They are probably trying to watch right now.

[@bolladragon]

If it makes you feel better, those that have translated the Japanese comments about DT to English show that the negative opinions are global. Japanese fans are just as baffled and frustrated.

[@WalkerRileyMC]

The one nice scene this expansion was ruined because I was so terrified Wuk Lamat was going to come in to ruin it that it ruined it anyways. Having a nice gondola ride with my cat buddy and he's talking about the meaning of life and what it means to live and all I can do is question when Wuk Lamat is going to jump in and start rambling on in the middle of it. She doesn't, and yet she's still present because the writer's forced her in so much that you expect her and it just takes away from a nice scene. Onwards... How could the party birbs NOT know what their festival does when it's incredibly obvious what happens at the end of the party? It's not like the aether that burst from the ark of the birbament was hidden or anything. It's not like we didn't watch it regen the mudflats. eghghgh....the expansion insulted the players at every turn. And I swear if they use "that's a story for another time" one more time.....no....fuck them if they use that phrase once more.

[@MajinStickybuns]

this was supposed to be a recovery from what happened in endwalker beach party and tacos vacation not a babysitting a spoiled child mission 😕 now we can only hope the post story actually does something good

[@sh1yo7]

I thought I'd travel through fantasy South America and not land in cyber the world ends with you lol

[@elrilmoonweaver4723]

When you highlighted in the section "She's Suddenly Super Strong" the fact that the way she was written buldozed everything that came before it, the suffering and deaths that occurred in previous expansions, I was furious. It is a very valid point, it make the way she was written in DT akin to retroactive narrative vandalism of the many many MANY poignant moments in the previous expansions, where characters had to suffer, deal with defeat and potentially die as a consequence of their actions.

[@MEAD3MAYNE]

like when we are suddenly strong when we beat Zenos and Ranjit.

[@yanipheonu]

@MEAD3MAYNE we levelled our character. We don't play as Wuk Lamat or train them.

[@SilverNightbane]

@@MEAD3MAYNE We also have this super macguffin called "being strong in the Echo", a power that allows us to transcend our limits, but it doesn't become the end all be all every single time. You can't multiply what doesn't get better overtime.

[@JustinStrife]

​@@MEAD3MAYNEI realize that you arent very smart, and you dont remember those stories. We not only were leveling up thriughout those expansions, but it took multiple fights before we finally beat Zenos AT THE END OF THE STORY. We kept losing but were making progress as time went on. Jesus the Wuk Lamat apologists are dumber than rocks. Just like their favorite orange cat

[@NotRealAkira]

It's the same issue as Dynamis

[@4mb127]

Pretty good. The whole character of Wuk Lamat just felt so off. You vocalized quite well what went wrong. It all felt extremely childish. For the finale they just put Final Fantasy 9, Shadowbringers and Endwalker into a blender and hoped something good comes out. Luckily the main Ascian storyline is done and it's still great. We can just ignore what happens after.

[@PainInTheAstrologian]

35:30 To adapt something from Spoony when reviewing FF13: All those people who died, who left behind loved ones, parents, children, and families...you know....FUCK IT....I Guess those people didn't WANT IT bad enough. I GUESS HAURCHEFANT DIDN'T WANT IT BAD ENOUGH! All that suffering Emet-Selch did...maybe he should have wanted his goals harder.

[@H4zardWarning]

yea when wuk askes us to stay in tuliolyal with her i straight up laughed, fuck no man. I'd rather go back to garlemald than stay in tuliolyal.

[@AshP210]

Like the previous part I'm in agreement with most of your points but I did like the little side adventure with Erenville because we got to actually see more of him not having to babysit Wuk and because it felt more like we were allowed to have some fun instead of being a nodding yesman, it really sucked that even then we weren't allowed to be away having doing something for someone else for too long before Wuk dragged us back. I was definitely let down by us not being able to intervene on Gulool Ja Ja's death, I just feel like if there's *one* thing we'd do when someone like him is about to be killed in front of us it would be to throw any kind of tradition out the window and save him. I'm glad others noticed how for someone who "loves her people" so much she was so dense on what their culture was actually like. I wouldn't have minded if she knew about their cultures from the get-go and explained to us what she had to do once she figured it out, but instead it was all explained by regional NPCs as if both Wuk and WoL were foreign to Tural. And lastly Living Memory was a dropped ball of opportunity, all so the writers could cram in a story tie-up for Erenville and Krile, even so I did appreciate that the change made once you shut the terminals down was permanent. The emptiness of the area and the dead mall feel shows just how farsical and unsustainable the whole thing was.

[@MalganisLefay]

I hate that most of wild wild west revolves around wuk again because of her dumb (only used for so blatant emotional Manipulation) handmaiden and her stolen bracelet. I looked Up and a total of 3 Quest have wuk Not involved in the whole msq

[@AshP210]

@@MalganisLefay I'd blocked out that part of the Shaaloani quests, thank you for reminding me that even when I think we've escaped Wuk Lamat, her influence lingers.

[@italian504]

One issue too with the characters is that they didn't do a revolving door of the cast to get to know them better or have them come in when nessicary. They just forced you through one door and that contained Wuk Lamat. In all prior expansions, you had a decent time with each characters that comes and goes. Even the scions. You get a few quests here with say uriange, then some with Thancred and Y'shtola, maybe a quest with the twins or one of them back and forth before handed back to a new character and so on. This has been a case for many moments. They give you time away from the characters before bringing them back because that is what a good writer should do. They make you crave or lament being with someone for a bit but you never outright 'hate' the character because they have time to sit with you in the mental mindscape or you have anticipation of when they show up again. Dawntrail didn't install a revolving door. It's just Wuk standing in the hallway preventing you from talking to the other characters behind the doors so you can hear her nonsense for hours, only for a brief reprise without her in Texas land but only for like 50 minutes before bringing her back in as a critical role. There wasn't time to break from her and she was overused to the point people got sick of her presence entirely. Krile kept trying to get involved but no, like the spoiled brat she is, Wuk shoved Krile to the side whenever attention was away from her and made sure your eyes were only on her face and no one else. I'm sick and tired of thinking it's anything other than whoever's self insert Fanfiction Furry OC won a writing contest in Japan. I am not commenting on the writing cause you already did that for us. I merely wanted to share the other facet of the problem on top of it being that the character is 90% the screen time. Wuk Lamat? More like What a Lame ass...

[@needingmorepatience]

100% spot on. So many defenders try to write this travesty off as it's just one small aspect of the game. There are so many positive for the whole expansion. However, they ignore the fact that the msq is the single driving force to contextualize your hero. Writing can and did assassinate your character. There's no point in playing a lame weak failed coward. Sure, there are many msq skippers, but the msq is what differentiates our personal wol from impersonal hero shooter games. What a shame dawntrail is.

[@pastaboy1338]

Anger is one of the emotions I got after finishing Dawntrail because of how the writer abused his privilege to ruin the expansion just because he loved his OC too much. "I love this character so much that I might get married to my Wuk Lamat body pillow next week so you will have to". The fact that she was described as a weak fighter who lacks combat experience and need our help to win the throne then suddenly, for some reasons she could beat a battle hardened 2-head lizard just because she believes, that's not how it works my guy. What about we jumped in the last second before she got killed to teach Bakool Ja Ja to stay in his fucking line because clearly, he's cheating. She could somehow be able to let 7 other guys to help defeating her dad's shade and not counted as cheating. Lastly, she could somehow break the dimension (which she was effortlessly removed from by magic), jump in and survive the giant robot's hand and talk with her scream in lowercase. The Universe aligned for her; everything was so convenient, and she could somehow befriend anyone, even the enemies. We're promised the fights with other Scions but what we got was Thancred did the friendly dirty trick in the first dungeon. We're promised an expansion with Krile and Erenville but they got totally sidelined just like us. She couldn't even open the fucking door with her earrings which was the key to the door because of a super unnecessary excuse. For that part I even lowkey thought this writer hated Krile so much that he had to make up an excuse to make her look as useless as possible. They could have introduced the problem much earlier like we found those people losing memories, the device on their head and the whole Heritage Found halfway through the Rite, so we could have more works for the Scions going back and forth, maybe asking Cid/Nero for help because obviously they are the tech guys, but no! By doing this, they could keep us engaged in the first half, like we keep helping WL but also wonder why these phenomena happened. They introduced Sphene way too late and made the 2nd half feels disconnected. 1 minor detail with the boy who suffered the aetheric imbalance which also the case for the boy in the 1st. We could have Aliaise looked into this yet somehow, we went like "Oh? we sorry you had to suffer this way?" *Leave* Dawntrail has good ideas and the potential to be a great expansion, but this 1 fucking incompetent moron decided to make it not.

[@MalganisLefay]

A good amount of local issues could have been linked to a growing aether inbalance caused by leaking lightning aether through the golden City Gate. Creating some overarchig mystery in the First half. The devistating storm and crops Not growing: lightning inbalance, valigarmando awakening: lightning inBalance as that Thing is ice fire and lightning: mutated glowing plant and animal Wildlife in Lizard vale: Lightning inbalance and we literal see similar creature when we storm the Vanguard. The Puzzle pieces are there and I cannot shake Off the feeling that the Story was rewritten drasticly at somepoint for the worst.

[@qamarqammar7629]

Good ideas aren't enough to make a great story. Unfortunately. Many of us have speculated and outlined what would make a few good expansions going forward, but that's a whole different matter than writing them convincingly. Plus I'd argue that some of the ideas here are downright bad. Smiles don't resolve serious conflicts even if they do better suit a Hero :).

[@stuperman117]

Oh, god, the Levin Sickness moment. I was legit staring at it and going ‘we could totally modify the tempering cure spell to re-balance the ambient aether of the folk affected by this’. For me, when I started in August of 2024, and got to the first proper Ifrit fight.. and afterwards? Learning that the only way to cure, at the time, those who were tempered, was literally putting them to death? The beast tribe of the Thanalan, the Amaalj’aa Brotherhood of Ash has a cutscene showing off how badly damaged those who become tempered are, and if it goes far enough, a permanent transformation, which we see in Garlemad as well as the Ancient Allagan’s experiments with primals. My character had been torn between the Maelstrom and the Immortal Flames. But due to his survivor’s guilt, spurred on by Alphinaud’s words of ‘that business with Ifrit.’ So being unable to even suggest that? I actually was starting to get annoyed by a lot of things, and how incompatible I was with the Alexandrian’s society, but being told ‘we must learn their culture more.’ As much as I would like to learn the culture… I will have to be like Emet-Selch. Once again, I’m being a villain, because my world is under attack. At least the Arcadian is more entertaining, and I feel like I actually have more of a voice.

[@kyoai]

About the trial here Wuk's biological father was the referee : Personally I don't see an issue with him being the refereee, however I think a) they really made the "I am Wuk's father" subplot extremely short, there is a lot that could have been explored and revealed much more and b) I find it rather weird that, for the food baking contest, the native residents prepared ovens that are above the ground, when it was made clear during the quests of how to prepare the food that the baking process happens underground, which never came up again. I expected some "Ah ha! You tricked us by preparing these ovens above ground, but we know now that it has to be done underground, buried in the earth!"

[@durantes]

You're right. It was so rushed; they would lose almost nothing cutting Wuk's baby daddy out of the final product. Also, good point about the baking itself. They really dropped the ball.

[@MissKashira]

It really doesn't matter who the judges are given that if Gulool Ja Ja isn't happy with the winner he's not giving up the throne anyway. So we go through most of the content knowing at least two of the contestants have zero chance of becoming ruler even if they do win the contest.

[@cjqnsnyc]

For some reason, I was skeptical about Dawntrail. I didn't preorder, even though I bought every expansion before it as soon as I could. Having seen MANY reviews echoing most of what you've stated, I can't ever see myself suffering through hours of Dawntrail, it will be skipped as soon as the next expansion is released. I hope SE goes back to the REAL writers. The story was always the main selling point for me. Dawntrail style writing moving forward would absolutely end my devotion to the game.

[@ph4se2]

that's a good strat

[@DeadlyWandererVT]

Yawntrail was the only expac where I skipped 95% of cutscenes during MSQ, I speedran it in the prepatch just to get rid of it ASAP

[@abbysaito5348]

Quest: 154 Talk to wuk lamat.

[@durantes]

Damn. Feels like I've gotten that 153 times already...

[@Misaki-lq6ih]

😭 please don't remind me

[@kyoai]

Don't forget about the quest objectives literally called: - Talk to Wuk Lamat again. - Talk to Wuk Lamat yet again.

[@moonkiitty]

The fact that G'raha--G'RAHA--doesn't break out of the cage just broke the last part of me that was clinging to hope. Why? Because G'RAHA HAS EIGHT PARTS OF HIS SOUL LIKE WE DO!!! Elidibus LITERALLY pointed it out that his soul is denser than normal. G'raha went through one more Calamity than everyone else, so he is LITERALLY on par with wol. He's been fighting for more than a hundred years between his life on the Source and the First. And you're telling me this brat made it out but not him?!?! Goodbye.

[@NogginNogs]

It was written for modern women. "Good for you, you failed but you tried and so you did just as good as the winner!"

[@utopiandystopia1383]

youll never touch a woman who is not your mother

[@gokkiyoutube]

This is a children's fairy-tale. baby logic. I expected better.

[@TheWickedWizardOfOz1]

If we were to be brought in for the Rite of Succession, it should have been at the request of Gulool Ja Ja. He could ask for advisors to observe the Rite and judge the merits of the claimants. This would give all four room to develop, and wouldn't violate our stance of neutrality. The common rebuttal to this is "but it's a shonen story!" but (a.) shonen still has to be good, and (b.) nothing in the game prior to this point has ever been this simplistic. The entire section in the box was pretty much echoed by you, so I'm noting that there's nothing new to say here... I was just pissed and wrote it out before I got there. [Furthermore, Wuk Lamat is a Mary Sue that has the whole universe contort to help her. She does nothing to help with the crops, she wants people to be haaaappy! And what luck, this is exactly what is needed. The Giants want to kill her, and WOW, a monster shows up to attack them and she helps the poor giants... so she's not that bad after all. What. Luck. Bakool Ja Ja sets a TURAL VIDRAAL loose to get a head start on the next keystone, and WHAT LUCK, the elector won't start the competition until everybody is there. Gods help her when she has to raise taxes to get the mamool ja their crops, or rebuild Tuliyollal. We've had a Mary Sue in the game before. His name was Alphinaud Leveilleur. Everything that boy did worked out on his favor, the world bent over backwards to help him, and his arrogance was unbearable. The difference is that Alphinaud was being *manipulated* because he was a fool. The game acknowledged this by *having him fail* and having *people get hurt* because of this failure. He has to learn to be a better man, but Wuk Lamat never has to learn anything. She's perfect just the way she is.] We haven't touched on Sphene or Ketenramm here, but it looks like you'll reach that point. I am especially baffled by Cahciua and how the world's nicest tyrant who not only allows a rebellion movement to run free in her realm, but literally points us to its leader and tells us that we should learn more directly from the source. But it's Ketenramm that pissed me off. There is no explanation given for why he is so young. This guy is FAMOUS. He's Christopher Freaking Columbus, every schoolchild in Eorzea knows what he did and when, so why do none of the ARCHONS FROM SHARLAYAN ever notice that this 100+ year old man is hale and healthy and fighting robots? I don't care if a twist is being planned for him: there is no excuse for making our characters into morons to make a twist functional. I'm seriously considering unsubscribing. I love Heavensward. I love the Stormblood patch quests. I love sections of ShB and EW. I love this game, which is why I'm so angry about it. Somebody once said that how much you love Doctor Who can be measured by how much you can hate Doctor Who and keep watching. I have really liked the gameplay of normal difficulty DT so far... but this is my first current raid tier and I'm not really digging the harder difficulty fights, which is where most of the replayability would come from. (It's a lot of rote memorization from what I've done, which isn't something I care for very much.) This is a story-based game. That is what was sold to me, and that is what I fell in love with. This abomination is by far the worst FFXIV has been. Worse than ARR, which was the worst FF has been.

[@NatCr3w]

I feel this comment a lot and it makes me feel sad for more story focused players. In Endwalker I made the transition from story only to a high end raider and a much more content focused player. For me the story can be mediocre but I still have a bunch of battle content that keeps it alive for me. Even if I could care less for the story I still have gotten a lot from the expac. But it worries me a lot for the future of the game. Even as someone who loves Savage and Ultimates those bits of content alone do not keep this game alive without a flourishing medcore and casual base. Endwalkers failures were mainly in the lack of midcore content. But if the story. The easiest win the game can have for casual players sucks going forward. I don't see the game making it to 10 more years.

[@MagiusNecros]

Taco Cat is a bad parody of Yuna's Pilgrimage from FFX and it's really sad to see. Made Lyse a better character in retrospect.

[@coconutz11]

at least Yuna is a total babe, especially in the eyes of the main character she is. I would have loved a story where instead of the most boring political campaign ever, we get a summoner's journey like Yuna. Wuk Lamat has to summon Tural's holy Aeons to become the dawnservant or something like that, Valigarmanda being one of them. This process divides the scions and the wol because we see them as primals. You get a little bit of culture clash, throw in Yevon there as well. And you also give the Solution 9 guys a moral reason to kill the Tural faction.

[@MagiusNecros]

@@coconutz11 The Tural Vidraal introduced in 7.0 were vastly underused. Unless they are more prominent with Beastmaster it's a missed opportunity. Even Viper quests don't go into much detail around them. You just fight Teostra from MH.

[@yanipheonu]

Just add something like Sin existing and Wuk Lamat possibly dying in order to defeat sin and the character is instantly better. Now she can be optimistic but in the face of an actual problem she might not be able to overcome, and she actually has to challenge her beliefs.

[@coconutz11]

@@MagiusNecros You are absolutely right, they are presented to us as nothing more than brain dead monsters that are evil and need to be killed. Teostra (because fuck his real name) even after he kills his mistress, he is nothing different. Just an evil monster. These are like Tural's original inhabitants, their version of dragons and we just kill them. Again, why not have the story revolve more if not all about them as part of the ritual, instead of doing Masterchef and fixing a boat that shoots lasers? All of which you are watching in cutscene after another fucking cutscene. With bare amounts of gameplay, primarily walking to, and right clicking on Wuk Lamat to do everything instead of you.

[@Euronicles]

Lyse at the very least wasn't a complete Mary-Sue. Her lofty ideals of an all-out revolution get crushed over and over again when faced with the harsh reality of people's resolve having been broken by decades spent living under Garlemald's rule, forcing her to reevaluate things and grow (a bit) as a person. Wuk's ideals are never questioned, never challenged. The writers squandered every single opportunity they had to make Wuk grow as a character. I rolled my eyes so hard when she got paired with Koana for the cooking trial. God forbid Poochie the Hrothgar's ideals ever get confronted, what a great ruler she's going to be...

[@triumph_cv]

Well stated, 100% agree. This xpac was a fumble. Ready for part 3 my guy!

[@WonderBlubber]

Excellent poonts. Inreally like your section on how now there is canon evidence that just being super confident makes you invincible. Guess Emet's entire pathos was fake because if he really believed it, hed have won. This expac is a joke.

[@Komushi]

How can you make the best ingame story like Shadowbringers and Endwalker, and then come up with this?!

[@MalganisLefay]

I think the most wasted Potential was during the cooking Contest, (which was an idiotic Trial but that ist another Story) by not pairing zuraal ja with wuk, giving zuraal a good Chance for characterization, a Clash of idiologies, and you know, the whole Thing of Peace between Cat and lizard people the Tacos represent? Afterwards we have to Deal with the fact that zoraal only need the final Stone, than during the final Trial he goes for the Pot instead of the illusion, Something a smart ressourceful Warrior would do. The judge unfairly uses it as reasons to disqualify him, which actual gives him reasons to Go full thronrobber later, and also Go for lizard judge instead of kettenram for that final Stone that was denied to him, heck maybe frame the hrothgars for the death of there leader in the process, creating discord and war in the process to spiet wuks naive view of things

[@KaedysKor]

I was _baffled_ when they paired Wuk and Koana for that. What was even the _point_ of emphasizing that it was pairs by lots and shit when they just ended up pairing her with the same person she would have naturally paired with if left to choice?

[@durantes]

It seemed like they paired her and Koana together to make it easier for the writers. Like a lot of other BS in this game. All your ideas are instantly better than the crap we got. I especially like adding more context to Zuraal Ja. He needed it.

[@dood52751]

Because by pairing Wuk to either Zoraal and Bakool, the story will force Wuk to actually grow as a character which is something Wuk's writers don't like. Also, the way Wuk currently are is probably the best character in the writer eyes, that should tell you something about this writer's ideal of "best character".

[@krisztinapinter2449]

You forgot the part in the story when we went with the Scions to the gate of the Golden City, left them there to find a way to open it while we went back with Wuk Lamat to Tuliyollal only for her to recap the past few quests to her brother while we followed her around like a lost puppy.... Like what was the purpose of that quest? Are we so dumb that we forget what happened five quests ago? Why could i not stay with the Scions and find a way to open the gate? That is at least interesting, and even for that they could not even find a better solution... This whole expansion is a massive stinking turd. I paid 70e to see someone's fanfiction that was equivalent of what a 15 yo girl on Tumblr would come up with.

[@LittleTodd123]

Drop the third part my goat.

[@ShooterPat]

Something I had been thinking of as I went through the expac was a bit of an alternative take on the whole premise that wouldn't quite violate what I think the writers were going for. Massive TL:DR(Like seriously, don't read unless you want rambling): Wuk Lamat should have failed more, but so should have everyone. A few premise alterations may have helped in the long run too. For example: I feel like the idea behind Wuk Lamat and something that should have been emphasized with her is that she was always second best. She was sheltered, she was coddled, and her people would have noticed. Sure, she may have a few friends, but none of her people would recognize her as leadership material. However, something that should have been emphasized early would be her ability to network. Let's say that she contacted her brother in Sharlyan in order to garner and introduction to Krile, who after happening upon the letter, would be more conducive to a big adventure if it meant she learned more about her grandfather. Seeing Krile isn't really a combatant, and most of her expertise is in aetherial research and history, it would make sense for her to contact us because she would know we are interested in a new adventure. We are brought on, and we are introduced to Wuk Lamat. We are shown that she is naïve and fairly childish, given her upbringing, but it would be explained early that her instinct led her to reaching out to her resources to get things done. Skip ahead to the trials. Rather than it being a wash in Wuk Lamat's favor, it would have been more interesting to make it to where there are just challenges that certain pledges just are unable to accomplish, including Wuk Lamat. This would allow for each contestant to be reamed with defeat at least once or twice, but also push those contestants who would be particularly evil to do drastic things in order to rule. Heck, could even have Wuk Lamat become hopeless about the endeavors since it would make sense she would have a harder time. To have a greater impact, I'd think it'd require these trials to be more thought out in terms of complexity, but I do agree that each should be still rooted in the culture of the race they represent. Not saying I'd have an immediate idea towards what the trials should be, but perhaps just an expansion on what we have currently. Within these trials, one or two of the pledges will show their strengths. I.e. Koana perhaps being the only one able to help with the Reeds, Wuk Lamat being the only one to succeed with the cooking challenge since she's a foody, or Zoraal Ja being particularly good at any of the combat trials and succeeding there. It could be a really good story beat of Wuk Lamat seeing where the other contestants succeed in order to learn what she needs to do to improve herself and it'd keep to the theme of her always being second best. On the topic of Bakool Ja Ja, it would have made alot more sense for him to wear the sorrows of his people on his sleeve rather than just being a cartoon mustache twirling bad guy. Sure, have the more forward facing head be the one who makes all the demands etc, and keep his underhanded tactics but tone them down to give him plausible deniability to avoid be kicked. Have him be the sole individual to succeed in the take with the mamool ja, but make it ring hollow since it means that regardless, nothing will change unless something new happens. Obviously, would need to nix the whole summoning a literal calamity to help make him more sympathetic - perhaps making an easier excuse for the fight being that the wards of eld wore away under the power of the monster. Since by that point, he would have been shown as underhanded but not entirely lost in the sauce, the reveal of his birth would be much more impactful in his favor and could lead to more interesting interactions between Wuk Lamat and Bakool Ja Ja as a means of hitting Wuk Lamat with a dose of reality when she sees why Bakool is so messed up. Then we get back to how I think Wuk Lamat's edge should be networking. All the pledges get back to the main city where none of them have the tablet completed. Disappointed, Gulool Ja Ja laments that none were worthy. This sparks Zoraal Ja to go down the dark path and gives a bit of a sad edge to everything. By this point, she would have seen all the strengths and weaknesses of the pledges and she would surmise that this might be a final test, considering no one pledge could have completed all the tasks. In response, Wuk Lamat gets the idea that if the pledges work together, they could piece a tablet together with everyone's help. That happens, with the understanding that they'd only have enough to ensure one person has a complete tablet - and the idea is floated that the rest will join as a fellowship. Could have Zoraal Ja, mad about the outcome, just throw his tablet at her and walk away to hype up him going bad while the others concede to her idea and decide to stand by her. Then we find the city, the new fellowship returns with the one who had completed the tablet being named leader, and we end the first half on the cliffhanger of the key to the golden city being stolen by Zoraal Ja. What happens with sphene and the like is patch content. Sure, it would eliminate the cowboy zone, but it would give a bit more time for each of the contestants to be fleshed out and to have their failings and strengths made known. It would make it to where Wuk Lamat fails time and time again because the things she's challenging herself with are not her strength. Then she is given the opportunity to rise above that failure by calling upon the people she knows in order to compensate(like a leader should be able to do).

[@immersion9880]

I truly don’t understand how anyone can walk away from dawntrail and think Wuk Lamat was well written or even decently written. It’s like FF14 suddenly became a game for kids, not teens or adults.

[@youtubeuser4221]

The issue I had the most was that they didn't just funnel you into this expansion, they waved a nonexistent "You can leave Wuk to do the rest of this herself" in your face like two or three times not counting the Post EW story quest that introduced her. At least in Stormblood, the "I don't know if this is my fight" dialogue option was followed by a hook that suddenly gave you stakes in the conflict when Zenos showed up. You pretty much nailed everything I disliked about Wuk. Even after the smidge of character development I /thought/ she had in the story. The worst part is that, in the giant wave of Wuk hate that followed the expansion drop, they pretty much spilled the beans that this walking avatar of toxic positivity is basically going to be a Hien/Yugiri style NPC of the entire next story arc which instantly shoots the whole thing in the leg unless they do something drastic. I can't stress enough how little I care about keeping my sub going after this expansion is over and I'm only still playing because I paid for this piece of crap already. Don't even get me started on Solution 9 or Living Memory. Repeatedly they say that the soul system was optional, and I believe that they never explain why Wuk's caretaker started using it other than giving Wuk a reason to be one of the people to shut down a tower. Like, for real, your character is the only person who even questions the morality of using it because the entirety of Alexandria has generational trauma from loss. Maybe just an eyebrow raise when Zoraal Ja corrupted it's use to channel beast souls? Maybe?

[@fujiyamapanic]

Holy Based Video. I was angry for the entire duration and it was great. I seriously hope we do not have to see this kind of story ever again or I will permanently activate my story skip mods. Jesus christ.

[@shawnscouten5184]

In terms of the murder of the Endless, even Emet Selch was very reluctant to kill us, even well aware we would die in a hundred years anyway, it was one of the main reasons he didn’t just teleport away when he was about to lose, or why he left a shade to help us out against Elidibus. In comparison, when we have to kill the Endless, nobody seems to care in the slightest. “I do not see you as human therefore it is not murder if I kill you” Is something even Emet Selch didn’t really believe, yet the scions take it as gospel, showing not the slightest care for beings who have proved beyond any objective measure they are alive, simply because they do not have something as arbitrary as a soul.

[@samsa84]

Koana was so much more interesting in personal conflicts and motivations as main focus on this atrocity of a story, and he gets mopped off the plot halfway there because the writer's OC has to be there. What a shame.

[@twocatsyelling723]

I was poking fun at the full cinematic trailer at how every time Wuk speaks, it's about how "I WILL BECOME THE NEXT DAWN SERVANT!" I had no idea it was foreshadowing for how she'd be in the entire expansion. Completely one dimensional.

[@durantes]

I don't think any of us expected DT to be this bad. It's insane how the quality has dropped since Shadowbringers.

[@NotRealAkira]

​@@durantesGuess it's what happens when you swap lead writers for the guy who wrote stuff nobody really cares about (HW Alliance Raids, StB Alliance Raids, Bard job quests, etc)

[@grimmdul9808]

I unironically knew that this will happen the moment Wuk Lamat stepped into the game. Way before DT. And I made fun about it to a friend of mine. Told him I don't know if I really want to play DT because Wuk Lamat will be annoying as hell.

[@twocatsyelling723]

​@@grimmdul9808 I liked her in the post EW story. I liked the sorta goofy/comedic personality. I like whimsical characters. And I think that still could have worked out in DT, if they'd developed her more so we could watch her grow from that goofy, naive character into a more realistic, wiser one... worthy of leadership. Through failure, challenge, death, etc. Still vowing to bring happiness and unity to her country... but through a more mature, realistic, grounded lens. Instead she's in this state of arrested development throughout, with only a couple exceptions.

[@lyndina8492]

Wuk doesnt even make sense. She hasnt left the city, was sheltered, didnt explore Tural at all. But sails around the globe from basically Mexico to Europe(Sharlayan) to get outside help.

[@stevenalvarez2924]

I've said it in other locations and will say it here. Even keeping the same exact story beats, DT would of been a far better story if the Claiments were forced to travel together instead of separate. There are no drawbacks to this since each traveling "alone" did nothing impactful for the story. We could of gotten so many banter and points of view talk between the claiments to see how each tackles a situation. Since this was done so well in Heavensward, it baffles me that the writers dropped such an important plot device of seeing different points of view on a subject matter.

[@kaimvalentine]

I am glad to see and hear someone who can properly dissect a story and its characters. A big chunk of the fans making reviews about the game are not able to fully put their blind love to the side and be cold-headed, and inevitably end up giving it more than just a benefit of the doubt when trying to judge anything. Glad to see you are not afraid and don't give a shit like many of us. I believe that one, as a fan, should always properly address the issues in the game, or mistakes will start to take place. Unfortunately, those mistakes took place in this whole expansion and became a mark of shame for yoshi p and his team in their work that took years to build, and I am afraid that this will end up burning its future, a hole in the story of the game too ridiculous to ignore and too big to be filled. I never expected that the reasons that will make me be done with 14 was going to be itself, now that indeed was a ridiculous idea.

[@pastaboy1338]

i think for people who only care about the story, post msq is gonna be the make or break. Imagine waiting 2.5 years for this and another 2.5 years to see if they can make it right.

[@Jowain92]

Oh Lyse, how I wish you were here instead of Wuk Lamat...

[@Preaplanes]

23:40 Remind me to start a Stellaris run with the Crafted Smiles trait on all my species. Surely that means everyone is happy as slaves, right?

[@carolinemccall2608]

I agree with you 100%. I thought I would not have ever disliked as much as I dislike Lyse. But then we got Wuk Lamat. I can barely finish the story. She did not deserve to be the ruler. She didn't deserve to even join the race for it. At least I looked good while nodding in the cutscenes.

[@mr.i1463]

Good video, but I have a big problem with one point! You don't kill the people in the undying memory. They are long gone! They are only copied memories, used by a computer system to play with them. They know they are dead, they get modified to do not suffer and get more and more reduced to the perfect idea the system developer. For me this was a sick joke somebody has and it was a horrible experience. But that are mostly only experience i have, because i know of concept of afterlife from many sources, this afterlife was a joke in matter of world building. Lets take ghost in the shell, with the ability to store your "ghost" aka "soul" in a machine and make you eternal. They add a form a degenerative sickness that nothing can be eternal and they make a whole plot around it. Square Enix do absolutly nothing with it, only to end this sick joke of a afterlife. No greater implication, also no implication from the usage of souls to get revived. And it only needed one simple change. That souls are mass produced by them. The mass production of souls with aether would be enough to switch the focus from "afterlife" to "consume". To waste souls and you only have one life you must honor, aka YOLO, would be far better moral question.

[@liahknight56]

What kills Wuk Lamat for me, is that despite this whole rite being meant to prepare the unworthy leaders, she, along with Zoraal Ja dont develop at all. Zoraal Ja is always at 0%, never understanding or learning anything. Wuk Lamat is already at the finish line. She has the correct answers to all the problems, never doubts herself in a serious way (she brings up an inferiority complex but it never informs any of her actions in the story) and never changes. She learns "information" about Tural, but she doesn't actually have any flaws to overcome, or lessons to learn. Her not knowing her own culture is ripe for interesting character growth opportunities but they never happen, because shes already won. I wish I was part of Koana's bid for the throne instead, as even tho he found solutions for things, he understood that there was a line he crosses where he knows his cultural insensitivity can get in the way of actual progress. Learning to introduce societal progress while respecting cultural traditions was actually done decent, but is hamstrung by it being shoved aside like every other potential character story, and he only reached that conclusion because of Wuk Lamat. I was so angry when he dropped out of the race because the cool scene in the moment removed Tural's most promising candidate.

[@ThisismineIguess]

You and Alphinaud deduce the float's purpose(if you choose you can comment on it - Alphinaud agrees, having figured out the same thing) and Wuk just repeats this to Wuk Evu - who praises her intelligence. She lights up like a Christmas Tree and leaves out that she had no fucking clue whatsoever. Also, Hiroi(main writer, also wrote Werlyt) is literally a failed theater kid. His Theater company went under - in his SE slideshow history he lists it as "Experienced a life-changing event." l m a o They also try to reuse "Hear, Feel, Think" in a number of stupid fucking ways.

[@leonardobuenoantunes9138]

Jar Jar Binks of FFXIV

[@am.9206]

going through this slogfest of an MSQ is physically painful and honestly depressing because how did we get from shadowbringers to this...I genuinely hope they don't bring wuk lamat back. I don't care if it was the writer's fault. She has tainted the story for me so if she even appears as a cameo in the Post patch quests I don't think I'll stick around..holy fuck imagine killing your own playerbase like this

[@coryaustin7379]

I find it hard to believe that Ishikawa wrote this, and that Yoshida green lit it. I really hope that the exploration zone fuckin slaps, in terms of gameplay and story. We really need it.

[@HonestPhil]

she didnt. They changed the writers to two other people who worked on "Four Lords, Weapons Storyline (Werlyt)" and "Dwarf, Pixie Beast tribes".

[@coryaustin7379]

@@HonestPhil Jesus that's even worse, fucking beast tribe stories are basically bottom of the barrel.

[@OizenX]

I really don't know how XIV salvages itself after Dawntrail.

[@omensoffate]

It’s been bad since endwalker

[@Locaneo]

It's Woke Lament's world and we're all just living in it, being dragged by the nose by it.

[@mrverminski7914]

This is the same timeline in which we got Shadowbringer. Uninstalled, unsubscribed, I can’t be fucked to wait 6 years tilll it gets good again.

[@swadbando3639]

Excellllent criticism, and basically the exact same way I felt about DT as whole. I still managed to deal with the EW main quest just fine (patch quests, not so much) , but god damn was DT an unmitigated disaster.

[@Scerttle]

Honestly, I really do try to live by the "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" but I feel like making my own "DT was less than we deserved" video.

[@elrilmoonweaver4723]

That is not a good mindset to have when it comes to a product you paid for, as it leads to stagnation in the product and promotes toxic positivity. FF14 players who care about the product are the ones who are the most vocal about the failings in how the Dawntrail MSQ was handled. No work of art is inscrutable, and if you want improvement in a product you pay for, you need to speak up and many have.

[@Scerttle]

@@elrilmoonweaver4723I agree that's why I wanna make a video lol

[@durantes]

You should do it. We all make enough noise, they may hear us out. Plus, creating videos is a decent hobby to have.

[@SpencerMepham]

Her over the top friendliness killed msq for me im so tired of peace and happiness. I miss the Garlean Empire.

[@lindthechaoticheretic8708]

I unsubbed after playing the 6.55 MSQ. By the look of things it seems like I dodged a bullet. What made me duck out was how in your face Wuk was right away. You could feel the writters begging you to like this character and I just didn't. Biggest issue was whenever they tried to make her seem "cute." That said, I'm glad more people are being way more critical of the story after all the praise Endwalker got for it's trainwreak of a narritive.

[@omensoffate]

The scions and your character had to be stupid for dawn trail to start. It’s really silly

[@NinaNoHime]

Wuk is such a terrible character. Grotesque in every aspect. Her personality is childish, she is overpowered out of the blue and her look is... dull, to be polite. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense for SE to focus the whole expansion entirely on her. Sure we had Zero being the main focus in EW patches, but she wasn't nearly as bad. Your mention of Rey has me wonder... Was it really the plan all along? Did SE really made this choice on their own? Could it be that they were incentivized to makes her the sole focus of their game and to give her those specific traits to please outside forces? If not, I fear SE is now simply full of absolutly terrible writters and Yoshida has lost his touch. Frankly, I don't know which is worse...

[@Sazandora635]

There's been some rather strong hints that the new head lore consultant has been trying to flex their influence more and more since they came into the picture back in ShB and DT was the (extremely questionable) culmination of it.

[@dood52751]

Lemme guess, S B I OR D E I ?

[@omensoffate]

Zero wasn’t good as well