Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company
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Golfing on the Moon 1971
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2022
Main issue is that there is just nothing to get invested in or excited over.
Alphinaud and friends are still ostensibly here, but they are background characters who only exist to blah blah blah magick this aether that. The samey cast of white haired island academics who go on on and their moral grandstanding should have been left behind with the end of their story 3.5 years ago. We should have gotten a brand new cast of much more varied and less irritating characters. Our character has been with these people for several years and has probably absorbed a lot of knowledge. The black hourglass artifact we got that can enable travel between worlds can be written so that the WoL could activate it on his own to go to future expansion worlds without needing to call up the Scions again.
I do not think Wuk Lamat is "bad". There have been prior characters spouting nonsense but that gets overlooked because of their overall likeability in terms of voice and design. Wuk is mainly sabotaged by her broadchested physique which makes her unattractive as a woman, and being dubbed by a unwell 40 year old man. Her Japanese voice sounds okay but you're still stuck with the broadchested physique that doesn't make her appealing to look at onscreen. Also she is a local sovereign and thus we are spending a lot of screentime with this character who will probably not be coming with us.
The other new character re-introduced in 7.2 has both the good looks and the good voice, so ofcourse people are willing to overlook the effective resurrection. She could replace Alisaie as the cute young girl in the cast. Maybe she will be a summoner and get a unique summon model for use in trusts and solo duties. Unfortunately she also politely pontificates a lot, and it doesn't look like we are getting any curt or businessy new party members.
It is unclear what the point of Preservation and the new villain is. When I beat Dawntrail I thought that Preservation was just some long dead background fluff and wouldn't be relevant going forward, while it seems the fanbase have headcannoned them as this new interdimensional villain group we will be fighting against for the rest of this second saga. Maybe Yoshida doesn't think that the player will care if the player just grabs that hourglass and presses a button to teleport to another shard and get entangled a random selfcontained adventure there for an expac, and instead thinks we need some multidimensional threat to justify the WoL+ Scions to go shard hopping again to protect Eorzea.
It is hard to be excited about future expacs if the current low energy formula since ShB is going to remain the same. Entire 4+ hour long playsessions where you come home from work, sit down hopping to go exploring cool places or get into thrilling fights, instead get 4+ hours of nonstop blah blah blah that could be cut with almost no actual loss to the real story, running to a purple cloud and bursting down two quest mobs in two seconds, unvoiced canned animation cutscenes, etc. New expac land devoid of conflict and tension. Apocalypse birds that don't wipe out any villages, no one dying, etc. CBU3 have learned to make the pitch exciting arc ideas like the apocalypse and a climatic showdown with your archenemy, travelling to a demon world, travelling to medieval America, etc, but making it so incredibly boring to experience. The next expac announce could look so cool, but deep down I'd know the actual moment to moment experience of playing through it would be a long and tedious chore.
Alphinaud and friends are still ostensibly here, but they are background characters who only exist to blah blah blah magick this aether that. The samey cast of white haired island academics who go on on and their moral grandstanding should have been left behind with the end of their story 3.5 years ago. We should have gotten a brand new cast of much more varied and less irritating characters. Our character has been with these people for several years and has probably absorbed a lot of knowledge. The black hourglass artifact we got that can enable travel between worlds can be written so that the WoL could activate it on his own to go to future expansion worlds without needing to call up the Scions again.
I do not think Wuk Lamat is "bad". There have been prior characters spouting nonsense but that gets overlooked because of their overall likeability in terms of voice and design. Wuk is mainly sabotaged by her broadchested physique which makes her unattractive as a woman, and being dubbed by a unwell 40 year old man. Her Japanese voice sounds okay but you're still stuck with the broadchested physique that doesn't make her appealing to look at onscreen. Also she is a local sovereign and thus we are spending a lot of screentime with this character who will probably not be coming with us.
The other new character re-introduced in 7.2 has both the good looks and the good voice, so ofcourse people are willing to overlook the effective resurrection. She could replace Alisaie as the cute young girl in the cast. Maybe she will be a summoner and get a unique summon model for use in trusts and solo duties. Unfortunately she also politely pontificates a lot, and it doesn't look like we are getting any curt or businessy new party members.
It is unclear what the point of Preservation and the new villain is. When I beat Dawntrail I thought that Preservation was just some long dead background fluff and wouldn't be relevant going forward, while it seems the fanbase have headcannoned them as this new interdimensional villain group we will be fighting against for the rest of this second saga. Maybe Yoshida doesn't think that the player will care if the player just grabs that hourglass and presses a button to teleport to another shard and get entangled a random selfcontained adventure there for an expac, and instead thinks we need some multidimensional threat to justify the WoL+ Scions to go shard hopping again to protect Eorzea.
It is hard to be excited about future expacs if the current low energy formula since ShB is going to remain the same. Entire 4+ hour long playsessions where you come home from work, sit down hopping to go exploring cool places or get into thrilling fights, instead get 4+ hours of nonstop blah blah blah that could be cut with almost no actual loss to the real story, running to a purple cloud and bursting down two quest mobs in two seconds, unvoiced canned animation cutscenes, etc. New expac land devoid of conflict and tension. Apocalypse birds that don't wipe out any villages, no one dying, etc. CBU3 have learned to make the pitch exciting arc ideas like the apocalypse and a climatic showdown with your archenemy, travelling to a demon world, travelling to medieval America, etc, but making it so incredibly boring to experience. The next expac announce could look so cool, but deep down I'd know the actual moment to moment experience of playing through it would be a long and tedious chore.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
If square had balls, they would kill off one of the Scions in the coming expansion. Maybe that will start to get me to give a fuck about the story.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2020
I've said it before in the thread, but they should have done that back in endwalker.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
Huh? Where?
Why the fuck would they bring that character back?
For fuck's sake. Don't tell me they are bringing him back because his VA is nonbinary.
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2015
To be fair, I'm mostly just assuming this is the same viera. But there are only so many viera that Erenville talks to in Dawntrail, and it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that they wouldn't voice an NPC without the intent to bring them back at some point. I remember that initial cutscene, it was so incredibly jarring having an absolutely no room for error woman's voice come out of the dude's face.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
Tbf, there have been true and honest women who have voiced boys before. Usually they're very young or their voices are deep enough that they could pass as young men.
But in this case, yes. I had to double take when I heard a very obvious female voice come out of a man's mouth. I mean, she didn't even try to sound deeper or more masculine or anything. Nonbinary huh? Sounds like a broad to me.
This is even funnier considering how male viera/shetona are incredibly masculine in their duties with their purpose being mostly for reproduction.
As a fem viera, I can tell you that hearing a man sound like his balls are in perpetual torsion is in fact a turn off.
![Brandy [◉'']](http://uploads.embed.kiwifarms.st/data/avatars/l/184/184149.jpg?1762172560){kind=avatar}
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2024
I like the Scions and if they weren't part of the MSQ any longer I doubt I'd stick with the game. Imagining the crew of DT to be my new adventuring party for the next 10 years the game would be fucked beyond believe.
What they absolutely need to do is give those characters some way of shining outside of the MSQ and let the player bond with them in a non-Worldending setting, it is really no surprise Yoshida keeps getting asked about Dating the Scions. What I really detest is this 'gacha mentality' when it comes to the cast of a game. Release a new character, try and get as many people attached as possible, drop the character because the next new one is around the corner and we need to sell that. Fuck that...
He did mention they would rotate the core cast going forwards though, so next one might only be the twins in his example, so I assume they will try to get a middle ground.
It would have made most sense for the WoL to be the only one not to return home in EW.
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2019
They had a chance to swap out the core cast in DT: with Krille, Erenville and one of the future leaders duo, Koana or (ugh) Wuk Lamat. They proceeded to make Wuk absolutely unlikeable, Koana retarded, and forgot that Krille and Erenville even existed.
No wonder they fell back to the Scions, because people remembered that they're far better characters before.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
I guess is time for Lyse to come back from character death to save the franchise.
Well Intentioned
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
I'm not saying that they have to, and I'm also not saying that they need to be 'super anime expressive' (how about just 'regular expressive' like most of the cast?) just that it's boring having to listen to someone dully read out lines. I'd rather no VA (which is part of why I think she's going to play a greater role, kinda weird to have a bit character to get voiced lines) and just have text, especially if you're going to have the new main antagonist also talk like that (which is another reason why I think she's going to betray the party.)
It's not the 'spouting nonsense' that's the issue, it's that you spend virtually every waking moment with the character in base Dawntrail.
I actually like the character design. I dislike having to fucking 'speak with Wuk Lamat.' The shitty-ass performance from the VA is just icing on top.
Tanner Glass
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2016
Wuk is bad right from the start because it's a trope they've severely beaten to death. A young, naive, idealistic leader of a nation finding their legs after being thrust into the position early. You do it with Lyse, Hein, Aymeric, Nanamo, Alphinaud, and countless other people. The idea of starting a new chapter in Dawntrail and them going "guess what you're going to do? That's right - mainly interact with a young leader of a nation who's naive and idealistic!" was really a poor idea, no matter who that leader turned out to be.
So Wuk basically had to be amazing for the expansion MSQ to be any good and she's awful on top of it. Not only her, but a lot of the characters just aren't that interesting. Having Krile and Erenville both have a similar "mysterious parent/grandparent" arc is just a weird admission that they're out of ideas. Erenville is massively wasted just by virtue of them constantly having him be present for dangerous situations and then go "Oh no I don't fight I'll be in town until this blows over". Krile is wasted by virtue of having someone learning how to be combatant and not dealing with it in any way is another waste.
- Joined
- May 12, 2020
Wuk Lamat is flat out worse than other characters, they could've made her the most colonizable non-furry Amazon princess possible for people to goon over and she would still be obnoxious. The idea of "sheltered princess learns to be a leader" is completely fine in my opinion, but it doesn't excuse how incredibly fucking over-represented she is for how little development she gets.
People will say Lyse is less hated because she's fuckable and - yeah, that doesn't hurt - but it's more because she gets out of the way most of the time (and isn't voiced by a troon). Whereas Wuk shimmies her way onto screen every 5 minutes just to reiterate her basic bitch "muh self esteem" character arc despite her self esteem issues never actually causing any problems in the first place.
King Of Braves
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2021
Not gonna lie, I didn't actually know this happened because I've skipped so many cutscenes after the end of 7.0. I think it was 7.1 where I made a game of skipping any cutscenes the moment trooncat appeared so I saw a grand total of about thirty seconds of MSQ cutscenes for that entire patch.
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2024
Wuk could have worked if they played heavily into her being very, very sheltered and needing advise by the WoL how to handle setbacks. From ARR to EW both WoL and Scions had to deal with many, many setbacks, put Wuk in similar but less world ending situations and when she falls and is hurt, WoL-Senpai is there to spit some wisdom and grow. Sadly, the MSQ never even reaches a point where she is even falling at all. As a matter of fact, she (along with every other party member if you speak with them between cutscenes) is lecturing the WoL most of the time.
I want to go so far and say that they have gotten the absolutely wrong message from the player feedback. Some JP forum poster noticed that they went back and silently changed some cutscenes from the 7.0 MSQ in 7.2.
Mainly that
-A lot of fist clenching scenes were removed
-during the baloon right to Yak Tel, her tearing up was removed
-during the stealth quest, the NPC you are shadowing won't look back that much any more
To me, removing vulnerability from Wuk is the opposite of what you should do. People don't like Naruto because he is loud and bashful and succeeds at everything and everyone tells him they love him, they like him because he has been dealt a horrid hand in life with his heritage, no one liked him but he still chased his dream of becoming Hokage and earned the respect and friendship of his peers.
Tanner Glass
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2016
Wuk generally couldn't have worked (and this story generally doesn't work) because your main character, while talented at many things, has no experience running a nation. Generally speaking when this comes up prior - the character you're working with already has a mentor (Nanamo has Raubahn, Manderville, and even Teledji. Aymeric has the lords, including Edmond. Hein has Gotestsu and company. Lyse has Raubahn and Conrad and so on).
The story would have taken a massive shift for the better if Wuk was instead Captain of the Vowsguard for Koana and you could mentor her about that instead. You could much tie in plot points from your WoL that would directly impact her and still keep many of the same themes (aka having to come to blows with her brother) ultimately ending with her being effectively being the second Vow (without literally doing it). You could have several scenes where you're talking to her about grappling with difficult concepts as, effectively, a soldier.
There's tons of wasted potential as there are several things you could just have be a scene with her that would really give the player the chance to contextualize their past. Talking to her about how it felt dealing with Gaius (a man driven by vision and conquest) and relate it to her brother (a man driven by vision and conquest) or even fucking having Gaius tag in for a bit. You could relate about how it was when Minfilia disappeared/died/raptured and how the Scions fared with Alphinaud essentially in the leader's spot.
Essentially your character has years worth of stories and lessons to give Wuk, but you actually give her 0 of them and have very little insight into what it's like to be a nation leader.
It would also be neat if they leaned into the "mentor" concept a bit more and gave you some agency to actually influence how Wuk Lamat fights. You could have the role quests just be mentor quests where it's you showing Wuk a different way of fighting - even if she doesn't stick with it she should know how it works. Her army isn't just full of Warriors - there's going to be healers, melee fighters, gunners and archers, and spell casters. You could even go a step further and tie each one to one of the lands that Wuk has to learn about and/or tie it to specific characters. Melee could focus on her as a Viper (like her brother is and father was), Ranged pDPS could be tied to Koana, and so on. Have her learn how to craft things and tie it to the Pelupelu - have a fun fishing adventuer, etc.
There's a myriad of things they could have done but they really just had kind of a loose concept and ran with it. But in the end you don't really mentor Wuk - she's already is firmly established in her mindset, character, and actions before you show up and you're just kind of along for the ride. Ironically it seems like Thancred/Urianger actually do a better job of mentoring Koana as there's a few scenes of them teaching him lessons and him changing his worldview as a result.
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2025
To add to the fact that she basically just has the same character arc we saw repeatedly through several expansions...
The main difference in the writing of this is that at no point does it ever take a bad turn or go wrong, and none of the blindly naive idealism ever bites her in the ass the way it did Alphinaud or Lyse or anyone else.
Alphinaud's entire ARR arc revolves around his childlike naivete and culminates in having his illusions shattered by the events with the Crystal Braves, an event that becomes foundational to his character development in Heavensward and beyond.
Lyse in Stormblood was... well frankly, pretty terribly written, but she literally comes in thinking she's ready to lead, gets told to fuck off because the Ala Mhigans are not at all interested in being lead to their deaths by a girl who was hiding in safety while they bled and died for two decades,, and gets a front row seat to events that shows her exactly why she's not suited to lead, and when leadership is thrust upon her by events anyway, she ultimately proves that she's grown as a character by relinquishing it as soon as she can.
With Wuk Lamat, the entire narrative bends to validate her idealism in a way it didn't for anyone else. Everything just always comes up Wuk. It's practically the inverse of Lyse's arc - Lyse thought she was entitled to lead and events proved her wrong. Wuk Lamat thinks she's entitled to lead, and the narrative agrees. This is on top of the fact that the player's role in the narrative is "use your WoL powers to punch Wuk onto the throne, no matter how unsuitable she is", something that should have ended in disaster because she's plainly unfit to rule, and the only reason it doesn't is narrative fiat.
She could have been a significantly better character, albeit one that would still be beating a dead horse trope until it could be used to glue together a new wooden horse, if at any point in the narrative her complete ignorance of the world, crippling naivete, and blind idealism bit her in the ass and actually had to deal with real setbacks that forced her to reconsider her worldview and learn something.
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2020
God forbid she show even a single recognizably human vulnerability
I hate this expansion for ruining a perfectly good mesoamerican setting. Tural could have been so cool if they'd ever actually done anything besides Speak To Wuk Lamat with it.
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2022
Doesn't help that it feels like we got lied to on the lead-up; it was supposed to be a lighter and more relaxed plotline of simply exploring a new world, but instead we get dragged into ANOTHER world-threatening plot, this time with no proper build-up or even development. The worldbuilding and history of Tural comes across as outright parodic after the solid and consistent development of the rest of the setting, with the Texas/Western parts of the story being particularly bad from what I've heard.
Not looking forward to eventually going through the MSQ when I hop back into FFXIV; I'm going to be trying to finish up all of my prior goals, but DT just sounds like it's getting worse as time goes on...
Well Intentioned
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
It is slowly getting better, although the base MSQ in Dawntrail was an annoying slog.