Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

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Originally Posted by Firlont

I never allowed any irritation with the need to return to Vesper Bay to blossom into a hatred of Minfilia Warde, and I never wanted her to leave, even after Shadowbringers made the desire for her return into a moral enormity.

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Hating Minfillia because she was the quest NPC is just really bizarre and petty.
She wasn't a bad character at all.

I also don't buy into this bs about how she was '' useless '', just because she wasn't a fighter doesn't mean she was useless and ofc she'd be the target for kidnapping as essentially the leader...
It's true I think to some extent that we didn't see her do much on screen, but if you paid attention to the story it was clear that she did do stuff.
Getting mad at her for making you '' do stuff '' instead is just dumb too, ofc she did rofl?
You're the fighter out in the field and she's not why the hell would she put herself at risk?

It's like getting mad at a general for sending soldiers out to do stuff or not going scouting themselves.
It makes no sense.

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Originally Posted by Firlont

I never allowed any irritation with the need to return to Vesper Bay to blossom into a hatred of Minfilia Warde, and I never wanted her to leave, even after Shadowbringers made the desire for her return into a moral enormity.

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Same. Meanwhile people go crazy over Zenos (evil goku) and yshtola (haha little sun! now brb coming back from the dead again!). At least Minfilia got a proper end and farewell (ShB and that one dungeon in EW), Zenos was just a tool to send the player to Garlamand and yshtola has become nothing but a mascot for XIV. Feels real good to be a minfilia fan imo.

Magnai is a better character than Y'shtola.

Another hot take I have is that while I loved the stories of Endwalker and Shadowbringers, constantly being told to move on makes me miss the thematics of Stormblood. There's a point where acceptance starts to taste like surrender, and if we had chosen in that instance to meekly accept that the past was past we'd never have freed Doma or Ala Mhigo from the Empire.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Hating Minfillia because she was the quest NPC is just really bizarre and petty.
She wasn't a bad character at all.

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Eh she was kind of a damsel in distress, got a disproportionate amount of screentime to her actual impact on the story, and generally lacked for character traits. I think her character rested too much on being well-intentioned and pretty, and it does read like the writers expected her to just skate by on being your in-game girlfriend.

I don't really hate Minfilia so much as the fact that she was poorly handled. I am disappointed in how she was written, when if we *had* to have that archetype in FFXIV she could have been given more agency and personality. Leaving the plot like she did was probably the best thing that could have happened to her.

I find it funny that lore wise Amdapor White Mages sound awesome but we get the Job crystal memories of a person who was just given a trial pamphlet of the incantations and dropped out early on.

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Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse

Eh she was kind of a damsel in distress, got a disproportionate amount of screentime to her actual impact on the story, and generally lacked for character traits. I think her character rested too much on being well-intentioned and pretty, and it does read like the writers expected her to just skate by on being your in-game girlfriend.

I don't really hate Minfilia so much as the fact that she was poorly handled. I am disappointed in how she was written, when if we *had* to have that archetype in FFXIV she could have been given more agency and personality. Leaving the plot like she did was probably the best thing that could have happened to her.

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Ofc when she's essentially the quest giver she'll get a lot of screentime.
Being a damsel in distress doesn't make you inherently a bad character either, and like I said it makes sense why she'd be put in that position.
The whole waifu thing really applies significantly more to Y'shtola and tbh she's less of a character than Minfillia at this point.

In regards to the damsel part I would've found it even dumber if she suddenly became some badass and got out herself.
It made perfect sense why she'd become a target and the first time she also wasn't the only one who was captured.
But much like Y'shtola and the whole '' fake death '' thing people have a tendency to ignore the other characters in the scene or who the same thing happens to.

Endwalker may have had a good to great story and finality to it but the sheer lack of non-instance end game content at launch (WHERE IS MY DAMN ISLAND SANCTUARY) has soured me on the game completely.

Some people need to learn the difference between tackling an argument and tackling the arguer.

No, I'm not aiming this at any one person or thread in particular, just a general observation.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Magnai is a better character than Y'shtola.

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The resident of the Steppes are more interesting



We got 10 more years of Cataracts Shtola - I foresee a few quest in later expansion which we have to take Shtola to Specsavers (a UK Glasses Shop franchise)


Its a shame that Shtola has become so vague , her English VA Robyn Addison is a great actor , and has great range , if anyone played Dragon Age Inquisition and loved Sera the crazy Elf you will know what I mean , yet she is slowly becoming explanation'Shtola at key moments and not much else. I hope they can write a better character over the next few years.

Please Shtola find a way to get back to Runar its the only thing you ever seemed to really care about

I'd rather get a new cast than continue tolerating the current state of the scions' character arcs which are currently going nowhere at the speed of lightning! At this point I do not trust the writers to somehow add meaningful depth to characters like Y'shtola given the fact that they've refused to do so over the past 10 years.

She's this community's Sylvanas and her fans are the only the ones who I struggle to understand more than fans of her WoW counterpart. Kept around only for their looks, combined with uninspired and unimpactful writing, void of any nuance or actual consequences for their actions.

Hot take : It's easier to save the world than to buy a house. I might be famous but I'm homeless.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Ofc when she's essentially the quest giver she'll get a lot of screentime.

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It was a bad creative decision that affected her character.

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Being a damsel in distress doesn't make you inherently a bad character either, and like I said it makes sense why she'd be put in that position.

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Not inherently, but combined with a lot of disproportionate screentime wherein you don't really develop...it just highlights that you're written to be just a waifu macguffin.

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The whole waifu thing really applies significantly more to Y'shtola and tbh she's less of a character than Minfillia at this point.

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It absolutely does not. For one, it's unfair to compare Y'Shtola now, after four more expansions by herself, to how Minfilia was written when they were both in the cast through ARR. Even with 80% less screentime Minfilia quickly wore out her welcome. But for two, even if Y'Shtola is underwritten as a character, she still, on average, exerts more agency and capability and intrigue as a character than Minfilia ever did. One sassy zinger and one badass near-death experience per expac is still more than Minfilia ever got.

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In regards to the damsel part I would've found it even dumber if she suddenly became some badass and got out herself.

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This is a non-argument. She could have always had some combat/field experience from the beginning. She could have undergone training like Tataru which would have given her an actual character arc. Or she could have just not been written into the focal point of so many scenes. But there were many non-dumb ways that she could have been written and interacting more with the plot as anything more than a waifu macguffin.

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It made perfect sense why she'd become a target and the first time she also wasn't the only one who was captured.

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As you observed, she was the focal point of that capture to the near total exclusion of everyone else we might have cared about. Also just because things are written to "make sense" doesn't mean they are particularly compelling or respect the characters very well.

Everyone over hypes Y'shtola as the best waifu in the game and shows no love to Urianger's girlfriend Moenbrdya.

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Originally Posted by Solebound

Everyone over hypes Y'shtola as the best waifu in the game and shows no love to Urianger's girlfriend Moenbrdya.

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I never got the appeal of Moenbrdya. She was around for, what? 3 quests before she was gone. Admittedly, she did better than any of the EW characters in terms of story but that's it really.

Personally, I preferred Ysayle to Y'shtola.

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Originally Posted by Solebound

Everyone over hypes Y'shtola as the best waifu in the game and shows no love to Urianger's girlfriend Moenbrdya.

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Femroes are S tier waifus. At least, that's the word on the street.

Let's not forget that Merlwyb exists as well.

The only femroe whose presence I could actually stand was Misija, and a significant factor of that is the fact that she doesn't have such large arms after transforming into her Queen form. Moenbrdya was an oddly-designed character and I could not care less about her involvement in Urianger's childhood bullying backstory when you have characters like Estinien who have endured far greater traumas.

I loved Moenbryda, but I feel like she might've worn out her welcome if she'd stuck around too long.

As for Y'shtola, I like her, but she'd a big part of why I'm hoping the Archons fade into the background for a while. Frankly, their arcs are done. Give us a break from them.

We need more of Aenor and her thirst for the Boulder bros [and G'raha, apparently]. Give the "B team" Scions more spotlight!

Endwalker is the least enjoyable expansion with the worst story.

Can already hear the mob.

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Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

Endwalker is the least enjoyable expansion with the worst story.

Can already hear the mob.

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Yep, you're not the only person who thinks that. I posted pretty much the same exact thing on page 2 of this thread.

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Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

Endwalker is the least enjoyable expansion with the worst story.

Can already hear the mob.

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I'd 100% agree with this if ARR didn't exist.

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

I'd 100% agree with this if ARR didn't exist.

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I would actually take ARR over EW. With ARR the whole thing felt new outside of unanswered questions from 1.0. EW had a lot of baggage 3 expansions and ARR it had to address and I think it fumbled near the goal. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination but some of EW's plot points really felt like they were just phoning it in rather than in ARR where they had to actually try in comparison.

I do not get the fascination with Miquote, maybe it is due to not liking cats IRL, but maybe thats not it cause i like Hrothgar.

Stormblood is my favorite expansion, after i got to HW, i seriously thought about if i wanted to get through it or not, but then stormblood sealed me playing this. (note i do not think HW has a bad story, I would still rate it 7/10, I just did not care for the locations or questlines, i had enough dragons and snow in a previous game)

FFXIV is a MMORPG in name only. Game wont survive another 10 years if they keep pushing towards the super casual, single player experience.

Here is a hot take. The convenience of being able to change to any job on your character at any time has made it impossible for your character to have any real identity. You are forever just the generic WoL.

Square Enix's hands off approach to third party tools is going to cost them and FFXIV ultimately needs an anti-cheat like any other online game. The ability to model/texture swap your character is fine on paper but it ultimately gives you the ability to change anything. Just because nobody has seemingly done it, there's nothing stopping you from making a third party tool that could end up trivialising high-end raid content such as ultimates. Likewise you could probably find ways to make ranked PvP unfair via the use of third party tools also.

I appreciate that large parts of the modding community self-moderate but at the end of the day, if you can do something in an MMO then people will do it. There's enough areas of optimisations that can be made with third party tools, the game should really have proper mechanisms to detect this and actually moderate this with warnings and suspensions. You'd catch some of the "innocent" modding in the crossfire but it's entirely fair to do so as it's already against the terms of services.

More so, the game should actually generate exportable combat logs to upload onto FFLogs by the default. While parsing is also a third party tool, the implications are entirely an opt in experience. Players that don't care just don't have to look. Players that do care just look at their logs to see how well they're executing their rotation or comparing to the performance of other players that also care. In the circumstances that people are being harassed for parsing badly, you just report them because it's already against the terms of service to do that.

I guess there's multiple hot takes here, an anti-cheat is needed to ensure the integrity of the online environment with "innocent" modders not being victims of the bans they could end up with afterwards and logging/parsing is actually fine because any negative implications are harassment and can be reported as such already.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Here is a hot take. The convenience of being able to change to any job on your character at any time has made it impossible for your character to have any real identity. You are forever just the generic WoL.

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I think that attitude of "impossibility" only applies to people who have no restraint. Since some 3/4 of the jobs add very little to my enjoyment of the game or how I envision my character, I simply don't play them.

There are a lot of jobs I don't play since I also don't have any interest, but that does not change the fact that I was a WHM for ARR, AST for HW, and then RDM for StB and ShB and now Summoner. There is just no consistent identity for your character since in RPGs and MMOs so much of it is tied to character class or job and for us that is constantly changing.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

There are a lot of jobs I don't play since I also don't have any interest, but that does not change the fact that I was a WHM for ARR, AST for HW, and then RDM for StB and ShB and now Summoner. There is just no consistent identity for your character since in RPGs and MMOs so much of it is tied to character class or job and for us that is constantly changing.

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The identity is only as consistent as you make it. My character went PLD -> DRK -> GNB, then picked up RDM and SAM to become a sword generalist. And even now, after I dropped a couple of those and picked up a few, I still am playing jobs that I feel all work within a kind of theme I set for my character.

At any rate, I don't think it's the game's fault for following a job system that has been around since 1994. If you don't like that your character doesn't feel consistent, be choosier about which new jobs you pick up--which you are clearly capable of doing if you skipped the ShB jobs. I would further argue that your character does have at least some higher degree of internal consistency than a lot of other players' characters, since you seem to be sticking primarily to mage archetypes--add a BLM and maybe a SGE and your character could just identify as a master of magic.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Here is a hot take. The convenience of being able to change to any job on your character at any time has made it impossible for your character to have any real identity. You are forever just the generic WoL.

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I think the opposite, since you don't need a separate random alt you don't identify to to play something different. It's all on the same and you mold it to your liking.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Here is a hot take. The convenience of being able to change to any job on your character at any time has made it impossible for your character to have any real identity. You are forever just the generic WoL.

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Completely disagree as a roleplayer. Being able to change jobs has made my character quite Unique. Note that I do not actually have my WoL learn every job in the game for RP purposes - as I can separate that out and it would be quite the Mary-Sue (more than they already are) if they were adept at literally everything.

He began as a White Mage for reasons I came up with for his backstory. Due to something important that happens in Shadowbringers, he found himself taking up the Axe as a Warrior. By Endwalker, due to how much he's been through he took a liking to being a Reaper.

In other MMOs I cannot have my character grow or express other talents without rerolling- in which case they then have forgotten their entire prior history since I had to reroll to change classes.

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Even narratively having all classes makes sense. The WoL is written to be an "Adventurer" who befriends and interacts with people and cultures all over the world. That he or she is willing to maybe learn from these diverse peoples and adopt parts of their styles here and there IS the character.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Completely disagree as a roleplayer. Being able to change jobs has made my character quite Unique. Note that I do not actually have my WoL learn every job in the game for RP purposes - as I can separate that out and it would be quite the Mary-Sue (more than they already are) if they were adept at literally everything.

He began as a White Mage for reasons I came up with for his backstory. Due to something important that happens in Shadowbringers, he found himself taking up the Axe as a Warrior. By Endwalker, due to how much he's been through he took a liking to being a Reaper.

In other MMOs I cannot have my character grow or express other talents without rerolling- in which case they then have forgotten their entire prior history since I had to reroll to change classes.

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Even narratively having all classes makes sense. The WoL is written to be an "Adventurer" who befriends and interacts with people and cultures all over the world. That he or she is willing to maybe learn from these diverse peoples and adopt parts of their styles here and there IS the character.

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The disconnect for me is that I am never really anything if I can be everything. Right now my job is Summoner but I can be an Astrologian in the very next scene. The only other MMO I can really compare to is EQ since it is the only other one I played at length, but in there my character was an Enchanter through and through. I began as one and everything I did in that world was as one. Sure I can practice discipline and restrict myself as I want but that doesn't do much to change the world around my character since they all have to treat me like I am any possible job at any time.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

The disconnect for me is that I am never really anything if I can be everything. Right now my job is Summoner but I can be an Astrologian in the very next scene. The only other MMO I can really compare to is EQ since it is the only other one I played at length, but in there my character was an Enchanter through and through. I began as one and everything I did in that world was as one. Sure I can practice discipline and restrict myself as I want but that doesn't do much to change the world around my character since they all have to treat me like I am any possible job at any time.

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It's really your choice to play like that, and easily fixed in performing story quests as a specific class if you want some level of coherency.

Having access to many class options as the same character just means you have to take more ownership as to how you craft your character's journey. If anything this really offers more storytelling opportunities for your character than less, as in other MMOs where you are one class. Not everyone can handle that well, though.

As far as MMO stories go, most are not designed around a class if the game offers like 12+ classes. The story is typically written generic enough for the player to insert their version of the Hero into them. Elder Scrolls Online for example doesn't even have class-specific story quests like we get in FFXIV (nor does your char even need to use any of their class skills at all either).

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Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

Endwalker is the least enjoyable expansion with the worst story.

Can already hear the mob.

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Storywise... I can't really agree cuz arr and stormblood exist.

Gameplaywise I feel like so far its just been shadowbringers 2 which wasn't exactly good either...

This is kind of a warm take for me but I understand where you're coming from.

Dark Knight quests are some of the most cringe-inducing quests I've had to sit through. I actually think the core lore part of them being kind of a force of justice where the institution of justice itself fails is actually cool, though the way your character is portrayed doesn't sit well with me.

I don't feel that way about my WoL at all. Yeah she puts herself into danger a lot, yeah she has almost died a lot, yeah she is doing chores a lot... Something like PTSD from combat scenario I don't think any of us can really fully appreciate unless you actively find yourself in life-and-death situations every day. That said as someone who seems pretty comfortable going to a foreign land to become an adventurer (an extremely dangerous job), who from the start of the game is remarkably gleeful and relaxed, up until now, I really don't think that weighs on her. Tedium of being everyone's errand girl? I mean you are getting paid pretty well, have Tataru to wipe your arse for you and take care of your accounting, get to travel more than almost anyone in the world. I really don't see any of what the DRK quests presents as being merited.

Won't say it's the worst; it at least had the gall to try to say something. Some job quests couldn't do even that much, and in the context of how much story there is in FFXIV I rather have something that didn't sit well with me but is interesting than something that is boring.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Here is a hot take. The convenience of being able to change to any job on your character at any time has made it impossible for your character to have any real identity. You are forever just the generic WoL.

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One of the best QoL that I personally don't really want to do without.... Though I suppose I can see how some people might have that turn into an identity crisis lol.

I do wonder how well an alt, star wars-like, system could do though. With the system designed from the ground up to be very smooth between 'alt's to the point it's not really logging in and out. Can use the family tree like concept or you might even have a more of Planescape Torment / Numenera nameless one / multi-faced god kind of concept, story, inventory, and such being a smooth transition between them.

Then again that seems like a lot of work to force identity, I wonder how many have this problem (I don't feel that way and generally have a hard time wanting to level alternate jobs in other mmos that require multiple accounts because I know I will be forced to do the progression steps I've already done and dont want to do again).

The game has atrocious game design in terms of content and the only reason why the community tolerates it is because of two reasons: their irrational attachment to the game and yoship as a patron saint & playing a game where it’s flawed is better than addressing said flaws as it destroys the immersive experience of playing a “good game”

Content is stagnate and they literally haven’t done anything new with trials/dungeons/raids in a very long time and in some cases like dungeons they've regressed. And their highly lucrative position of accessibility will destroy the games staying power in the future as these enormous waste of creativity poured into each instance is moot when the content itself barely tickles you

Sometimes, it is okay to gatekeep.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

It's really your choice to play like that, and easily fixed in performing story quests as a specific class if you want some level of coherency.

Having access to many class options as the same character just means you have to take more ownership as to how you craft your character's journey. If anything this really offers more storytelling opportunities for your character than less, as in other MMOs where you are one class. Not everyone can handle that well, though.

As far as MMO stories go, most are not designed around a class if the game offers like 12+ classes. The story is typically written generic enough for the player to insert their version of the Hero into them. Elder Scrolls Online for example doesn't even have class-specific story quests like we get in FFXIV (nor does your char even need to use any of their class skills at all either).

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The other barrier this system places is that some jobs you cannot be for your entire journey. If you go back and do New Game+ you can, but there are a lot of jobs now that just are not available until you reach an expansion. Thinking a little more it's also about feeling like my character really worked to reach the level they are at in their class or job. For instance when you changed jobs for the next expansion, you didn't start at level 1 and work your way up from there in the perspective of the narrative, you showed up as a level 50 or 60 job with a slew of skills and abilities that as far as anyone in the MSQ is concerned you just knew. When I became and AST for HW I had to be level 50 before starting any story content and my journey getting there with that job was a disconnected roulette spam that was completely removed from how I arrived in Ishgard.