What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by Reap00

This is a very small forum. I guarantee you the amount of players that loved the Endwalker story vastly surpasses the number here that had issues with it.

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You cannot prove this. Even if you could, being the minority would not make an opinion less valid.

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Originally Posted by Tama-Kanzashi

You cannot prove this. Even if you could, being the minority would not make an opinion less valid.

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I don't have to prove it. You know it is true.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

This is a very small forum. I guarantee you the amount of players that loved the Endwalker story vastly surpasses the number here that had issues with it.

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I wanna know how that makes this *checks numbers* 626 (Dang it my post made it 627) page thread any less valid? I do believe many good arguments have been presented here and probably taken into account in some regard given statements like "Magical Girl Y'shtola was too much" from 6.1's Q&A after it's released.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I don't have to prove it. You know it is true.

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Which means you can't prove it, or you can't be bothered because you know the results would not be to your liking.

And with that, this exchange is over.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I don't have to prove it. You know it is true.

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While I'm in the boat that enjoyed Endwalker, neither side can prove which side is in the minority and which side is in the majority.

Yeah. Either way, there's a decent amount of players who weren't all that thrilled by how certain characters and factions were handled during the big finale. So they're expressing their thoughts in the hope that something may be done about it. Maybe nothing will happen but it's better to try than to remain silent, I reckon. Certainly, I think World of Warcraft would be doing much better for itself at present if it hadn't mishandled many beloved characters in the quest to prop up a select few at the expense of others.

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Originally Posted by Seera1024

While I'm in the boat that enjoyed Endwalker, neither side can prove which side is in the minority and which side is in the majority.

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Excuse me, I'm going to have to ask you to leave this establishment. We don't permit such maturity here.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

I wanna know how that makes this *checks numbers* 626 (Dang it my post made it 627) page thread any less valid? I do believe many good arguments have been presented here and probably taken into account in some regard given statements like "Magical Girl Y'shtola was too much" from 6.1's Q&A after it's released.

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It's simple numbers and human nature. This thread has been going for a long time, but the actual number of unique posters is still small, and smaller still the subset within that group complaining about the game. There are hundreds of thousands of active players at the moment in just the NA servers; the forums make up the tiniest speck of the smallest sliver of the actual playerbase. Then you factor in human nature, where people who are satisfied with something are much less likely to actively comment about it compared to people wanting to complain. Meaning many of those hundreds of thousands that we're not hearing from are much more likely to be happy with EW. Add to it traveling to other places such as Youtube videos of the story or the music, and you'll see a wide variety of people commenting almost universal praise and enjoyment of EW. Heck, even Reddit - usually a cesspool of negativity - waxes positive when it comes to FFXIV and EW.

On topic, I seriously hope they didn't take the Y'shtola thing and actually listen to the stiffed up whiners. That was awesome!

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Originally Posted by Striker44

It's simple numbers and human nature. This thread has been going for a long time, but the actual number of unique posters is still small, and smaller still the subset within that group complaining about the game. There are hundreds of thousands of active players at the moment in just the NA servers; the forums make up the tiniest speck of the smallest sliver of the actual playerbase. Then you factor in human nature, where people who are satisfied with something are much less likely to actively comment about it compared to people wanting to complain. Meaning many of those hundreds of thousands that we're not hearing from are much more likely to be happy with EW. Add to it traveling to other places such as Youtube videos of the story or the music, and you'll see a wide variety of people commenting almost universal praise and enjoyment of EW. Heck, even Reddit - usually a cesspool of negativity - waxes positive when it comes to FFXIV and EW.

On topic, I seriously hope they didn't take the Y'shtola thing and actually listen to the stiffed up whiners. That was awesome!

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Then maybe take that issue up with Yoshi P himself or this slide from GDC 2014 about ARR.

https://i.imgur.com/cYOb1sR.png

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Originally Posted by Striker44

It's simple numbers and human nature. This thread has been going for a long time, but the actual number of unique posters is still small, and smaller still the subset within that group complaining about the game. There are hundreds of thousands of active players at the moment in just the NA servers; the forums make up the tiniest speck of the smallest sliver of the actual playerbase. Then you factor in human nature, where people who are satisfied with something are much less likely to actively comment about it compared to people wanting to complain. Meaning many of those hundreds of thousands that we're not hearing from are much more likely to be happy with EW. Add to it traveling to other places such as Youtube videos of the story or the music, and you'll see a wide variety of people commenting almost universal praise and enjoyment of EW. Heck, even Reddit - usually a cesspool of negativity - waxes positive when it comes to FFXIV and EW.

On topic, I seriously hope they didn't take the Y'shtola thing and actually listen to the stiffed up whiners. That was awesome!

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But thats the gist of it. We will never have a clear indication where the true feeling of the player base is unless its in game.

Its one of the reasons I think that one Omega side quest is the way it is. What better way to poll the player base than to poll them without them knowing. Those who skip story and complain will miss the prompt and those who read and have an opinion will pick there opinion.

You could argue one way but there's always a counterpoint. With your reddits/twitter you have the Chans which go in the opposite direction. That's probably why you have more lurkers than participators in threads like this. You have people who come here and get labeled trolls for negative criticism just as fast as someone with positive criticism being labeled as white knights.

This is a forum. Everyone has the right to say what they want to say. I wish more would participate because with this forums the bigger the page count the more likely someone will look at it(the main reason the JP forums use mega threads and will quickly point new threads to there appropriate spot.) More discussion (good or bad) helps out everyone in the end.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

Then maybe take that issue up with Yoshi P himself or this slide from GDC 2014 about ARR.

https://i.imgur.com/cYOb1sR.png

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so judging from this statement and that nothing has changed, can we make the conclusion that the number of people who are happy with EW outnumbers the ones who aren't? xD

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Originally Posted by hagare

so judging from this statement and that nothing has changed, can we make the conclusion that the number of people who are happy with EW outnumbers the ones who aren't? xD

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I was more citing complaints are worth twice a compliment and that as said there and the silent leave first. Funny how in the last live letters I don't recall them having celebrations about higher player base numbers like every live letter leading up to EW.

How good a story is is subjective. I enjoyed the story and I'm sure many others did as well. Your opinion that it was lackluster is valid, yes, but so is the opinion of those who found nothing wrong with it. You have the right to complain about it, but just know your opinion is subjective and there are people who view otherwise and can challenge that opinion. There are plenty of stories I feel are bad and I felt Endwalker was one of the best compared to the thousands of anime shows/video games I have played. So yeah... that's my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Certainly, I think World of Warcraft would be doing much better for itself at present if it hadn't mishandled many beloved characters in the quest to prop up a select few at the expense of others.

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I don't know about you, but *I* liked it when they turned Thrall into ork Jesus and then brushed him aside for Garrosh before Vol'jinn took over for an afternoon. The whole situation felt like that one episode of Futurama where Fry was the king of that planet of water people, lol.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

I really enjoyed Endwalker, like a lot. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and was consistently thinking myself how much I loved this game every time something happened.
It really wasn't until reading these forums til I started to deep think about things that I otherwise thought was fine. Some stuff I think are valid points that even I would like answers to. Other stuff I have read feels like it has kind of removed my own enjoyment from the story the more I see people expressing how disappointed they were.

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I've seen this sentiment expressed a lot. (I've also noticed that the OP's upvotes have been consistently increasing as well.) PawPaw (who's since unsubbed and can no longer post) shared her story of how much she loved EW and Venat, so much she watched the cutscenes repeatedly and that's when she starting noticing the cracks in the veneer. Unfortunately, I wasn't someone who was able to enjoy it the first playthrough. The Kairos mind wiping device combined with Venat deciding she wasn't going to do anything differently was the death knell of the MSQ for me. I could've overlooked everything else (even though I hated how Zodiark and Elidibus were handled), but not that.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Typically when you've just enjoyed a good story, when you think back to it the memory of it becomes better and more positive as you analyse and appreciate all its intricacies. Endwalker however proved to be the complete opposite. By merely applying common sense, the whole plot began to unravel. Thus here we find ourselves in a 626 page megathread.

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It's even more laughable when you consider that the Omega quest chain further undermined Venat's motives, but I appreciated finally having nuance after it was sorely lacking throughout 6.0 (even though it still wasn't enough).

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Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

Its one of the reasons I think that one Omega side quest is the way it is. What better way to poll the player base than to poll them without them knowing. Those who skip story and complain will miss the prompt and those who read and have an opinion will pick there opinion.

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I'm somewhat morbidly fascinated by the difficulty some people have had answering that question. I watched a JP streamer spend a solid 6 minutes trying to decide which option to choose before they finally went with "no one". I've also seen quite a few Venat fans on Reddit begrudgingly have to admit what she did was wrong, although, I think Omega's comparison of her to Hermes flew over a lot of heads. This is one of the problems with not addressing her actions appropriately in the MSQ. She is only ever portrayed as being 100% in the right, supported by the entire Scion cast who act as our moral paragons, and there's just never any reason to question what she did.

Honestly, I enjoyed Endwalker, but in the same way I enjoyed Stormblood or A Realm Reborn's story. It's not bad, but it's not *AMAZING* as a story either. I think one of the biggest disappointments to me about EW was that Shadowbringers seemed as if it was setting the story up for even further heights in Endwalker, and it didn't deliver on that for me. Shadowbringers made me feel invested in the story and Endwalker made me realize "yeah its been kinda not good more than its been good" and it made me stop caring again. In a way, the blame is on me for getting invested into an MMO storyline to begin with, but I still feel as if the story was being led somewhere and instead they changed it to be a very banal feel-good "never give up and give in to despair!" anime message because of COVID and what everyone in the world has been dealing with since 2020. And you know, that's fair, I can understand not wanting to make something super depressing and instead wanting to make something 'positive' but that's not what Shadowbringers felt like it was leading to. Had this expansion come after another expansion with a Stormblood tier level of writing/worldbuilding, I don't think I would've been disappointed with how it ultimately concluded.

I think the worst part to me about Endwalker's story is that it makes me feel a bit stupid for having cared or put any thought into it, discussing it with others, talking about "clues" or "it looks like lore is leading to this" when it feels very evident especially after the liveletter Yoshida did on the story that it was never really that deep to the developers. I feel bad for all of the people who have been truly invested in this story for years because I can and have easily just gone back to not really caring about the story and I'm okay with that. I don't have the same level of aversion to some of the characters that a lot of you do or the Slice of Life scenes etc, so it's not really going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me (that will be healer gameplay continuing down this path) but it is unfortunate that the story ever got to a place that made me invested to begin with. I just feel a little bit silly having ever cared, you know?

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I think the worst part to me about Endwalker's story is that it makes me feel a bit stupid for having cared or put any thought into it, discussing it with others, talking about "clues" or "it looks like lore is leading to this" when it feels very evident especially after the liveletter Yoshida did on the story that it was never really that deep to the developers. I feel bad for all of the people who have been truly invested in this story for years because I can and have easily just gone back to not really caring about the story and I'm okay with that. I don't have the same level of aversion to some of the characters that a lot of you do or the Slice of Life scenes etc, so it's not really going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me (that will be healer gameplay continuing down this path) but it is unfortunate that the story ever got to a place that made me invested to begin with. I just feel a little bit silly having ever cared, you know?

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Their admittance that they're plenty willing to shelve plot elements the moment they've lost interest in them and that they were surprised about how deeply people were thinking about the story was a bit...disheartening, to say in the least.

It's made me feel like it's really better to just take things at face value because chances are, whatever you think is going to happen or where they're going to go with something is going to be less interesting/satisfying then it turns out in practice, assuming they decide to go anywhere with it at all.

One of the things I was most disappointed by was the fact that Zenos having visions of the Final Days amounted to literally nothing in the end and it felt like a particularly egregious example of them dangling a plot thread in front of our faces then cutting it because they didn't know what to do with it.

Seems to be a curse with creative types. "ooh shiny new idea, gonna abandon everything I built up to this point to focus on this now".

The danger of being a fan of anything. The creator cares less about it than you. This wasn't some grand vision and story they wanted to tell. It was a way to make money.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

In a way, the blame is on me for getting invested into an MMO storyline to begin with, but I still feel as if the story was being led somewhere and instead they changed it to be a very banal feel-good "never give up and give in to despair!" anime message because of COVID and what everyone in the world has been dealing with since 2020.

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I frequently wonder what we would've gotten had it not been for covid and Yoshi-P's bizarre need to conclude the story in 6.0, especially after learning internally there's still a lot of interest in exploring the Ancients. Ishikawa said in an interview she was "fine with ending the story at around patch 7.0 or 8.0".

One person I talked with who writes for a living said, "Writing takes a long time and that's not considering the bureaucratic process. So tell me that my story has to be scrapped and rewritten, that my time has been cut in half (the moving of the ending to 6.0 as opposed to 7.0) and that it has to be compressed in far lesser time (No longer than 6.1 to kick things off there) and that the ending has to be something I didn't plan for at all? Yeah, I promise you. I'm going to offer you garbage and you're a fool for expecting anything more."

I still like to think that Ishikawa cares about the story, but her hands are tied. Yoshi-P certainly seems to be the one making all of the decisions to finish up with the Ancients and move onto something else when the writers, JP VAs, various other internal staff, and of course the fans wanted more. I don't know what the deal is.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Their admittance that they're plenty willing to shelve plot elements the moment they've lost interest in them and that they were surprised about how deeply people were thinking about the story was a bit...disheartening, to say in the least.

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Yeah, at this point I'm not sure why I should care about the story or characters anymore. Yoshi-P is the polar opposite of me in personality, so I don't feel I have much to look forward to if what we'll be getting from now on is only what interests him.

By the way, did you try joining the thread discord as Alijana?

Endwalker didn't ruin FFXIV's story for me, overall. It did, however, undercut a lot of the Ascians' story arc. Their wind up. The thing I'd been wondering about them ever since they were moustache twirlingly evil.

My guess had been, without taking interviews outside of the game into account, that the developers hadn't really realized all that had been setup for the Ascians. Like, Shadowbringers was made with the intent to write sympathetic backstory for them, but it was supposed to be something easily dismissed come 6.0. Or at least come the finale. The setup was definitely taking the slow but steady approach, fully willing, originally, to give us all of the details.

I guess I'm getting at, not only did they rush it in my eyes, but writer vs. development team expectations were vastly different. It could be the other way around, too.

Of course, I'm the type of person who isn't really wow'd by the game's story on the first go around anyway. I playthrough again on alts, and when I pick up on little things I didn't the first time, I enjoy it more. Endwalker was the opposite. Every expansion beforehand? Every sort of nuance in the book. From subtle facial gestures or pauses in CS dialogue, to showcasing character lore in instanced battles... Endwalker somewhat failed to deliver on every front. I think it's the first expansion where I can confidently say I am going to enjoy the x.1-x.55 of it more than the main story arc of it, as a whole (well other than ARR, but that's because the game was getting its footing then).

Hey maybe if this thread reaches a thousand pages, we can get a half-decent storyline in 7.0 :)

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Originally Posted by Lustre

Hey maybe if this thread reaches a thousand pages, we can get a half-decent storyline in 7.0 :)

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No, see, that's actually when the thread gets deleted because "it is affecting the forum load times".

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Originally Posted by Lustre

Hey maybe if this thread reaches a thousand pages, we can get a half-decent storyline in 7.0 :)

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The story was actually fantastic. Opinions are neat aren't they?

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Originally Posted by Reap00

The story was actually fantastic. Opinions are neat aren't they?

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Glad that you enjoyed a story which was almost inconsequential, had tons of plot armor, deus ex machina, jump the shark moments, gary stus, actively eliminated any little bit of upcoming tension and of course plot holes.

But yeah to each their own

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Originally Posted by Reap00

The story was actually fantastic. Opinions are neat aren't they?

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What point are you actually trying to make? That my opinion is "just an opinion"? Because I never said it was anything else...

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Originally Posted by BRVV

Glad that you enjoyed a story which was almost inconsequential, had tons of plot armor, deus ex machina, jump the shark moments, gary stus, actively eliminated any little bit of upcoming tension and of course plot holes.

But yeah to each their own

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I actually LOVED the story. i thought it was phenomenal.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Their admittance that they're plenty willing to shelve plot elements the moment they've lost interest in them and that they were surprised about how deeply people were thinking about the story was a bit...disheartening, to say in the least.

It's made me feel like it's really better to just take things at face value because chances are, whatever you think is going to happen or where they're going to go with something is going to be less interesting/satisfying then it turns out in practice, assuming they decide to go anywhere with it at all.

One of the things I was most disappointed by was the fact that Zenos having visions of the Final Days amounted to literally nothing in the end and it felt like a particularly egregious example of them dangling a plot thread in front of our faces then cutting it because they didn't know what to do with it.

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Yeah, as someone who once enjoyed doing every side quest in order to soak up every last bit of world building I have to say my enthusiasm began to decline with the increasing amount of dropped plot threads that amounted to very little. I think it's important in an ongoing story to keep things consistent because when it comes to MMO's, there's a broad range of players who invest in different aspects of the story and cast.

I remain baffled by the decision to artificially end the focus on the Ancients and Garleans in order to supposedly move on to something new only for the story to go right back to pulling at plot threads that have existed since the days of 1.0 and 2.0 once again.

I'm actually pleased that the likes of Sil'dih and the Thirteenth aren't being forgotten but I really hope that the game doesn't neglect the places mentioned in the Return to Ivalice/Save the Queen storyline. Ilsabard in general is a huge landmass that I'd rather not see remain covered in clouds.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Yeah, as someone who once enjoyed doing every side quest in order to soak up every last bit of world building I have to say my enthusiasm began to decline with the increasing amount of dropped plot threads that amounted to very little. I think it's important in an ongoing story to keep things consistent because when it comes to MMO's, there's a broad range of players who invest in different aspects of the story and cast.

I remain baffled by the decision to artificially end the focus on the Ancients and Garleans in order to supposedly move on to something new only for the story to go right back to pulling at plot threads that have existed since the days of 1.0 and 2.0 once again.

I'm actually pleased that the likes of Sil'dih and the Thirteenth aren't being forgotten but I really hope that the game doesn't neglect the places mentioned in the Return to Ivalice/Save the Queen storyline. Ilsabard in general is a huge landmass that I'd rather not see remain covered in clouds.

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Sadly, I wouldn't hold your breath friend. They seem to have absolutely no interest in continuing that after Matsuno either left or got pushed out. Those plot threads were explained away in the post-Bozja field reports. Incredibly disappointing. Maybe we'll get to go there some day, but for some reason I find myself doubting.

It feels like they might be trying to set up plot threads again by having the lesser Scions scattering all about the world and promising they'll let us know if anything interesting comes up, with Nagxia, Aerslaent, Meracydia, and Corvos all being mentioned.

Hopefully they're not just misdirecting and we get word from one or more of those regions in the lead-up to 7.x...though I'd really rather not have another expansion that spans multiple continents.

I think they would rather write a scenario that has us going to Wendy's on the 13th than have us return to Ilsabard. The Garlemald role quest and the underwhelming way in which the provinces were handled has done nothing to further my confidence in any future settings. This, paired with a community that is all too eager to repeat "not everything has to be so serious!" whenever challenged on the continuous encroach of slice of life and attempts at comedy, doesn't seem like it'll make for a worthwhile story. It certainly doesn't help when we have influencers like Meoni who went out of their way to double down on justifying Hildibrand being ok to tie into the relic while misrepresenting and belittling other people's complaints, no matter how nice he went about it.

Obviously I'd like to be proven wrong, but what evidence is there to suggest that things will be handled better moving forward? How do I know that the Void won't be made a mockery of? If we take Alphinaud et co over there, then if we follow on from previous trends they'll have a fully functioning republic by the end of 7.0, after a journey full of more fakeouts and "funny" moments. How do I know that the same won't happen to Meracydia and the New World as well? No matter where we go from here, if these same trends continue then we'll have anything but a story of Heavensward's caliber again - because at this point it's clear there will never be another Shadowbringers.

For an mmorpg whose story is supposed to be the main attractor, most of the writing that has come out since the launch of 6.0 has been nothing I could recommend to other people. A story whose take on suffering is disconnected at best combined with a total lack of respect for long-awaited reveals like Zodiark, a bloated cast incapable of retaining previous growth and character development, and a budget blown on pizza and burgers while leaving epic moments unshown. The fact that someone even tried to argue against the inclusion of scenes such as Hydaelyn’s or Zodiark’s transformation is ridiculous – they told me that they wouldn’t have remembered such a scene and that the comedy bits were more memorable.

I have to ask, why are such individuals playing a Final Fantasy game? Why are they playing a Final Fantasy game when they readily admit to preferring that instead of moments on par with the summoning of Alexander in FFIX, or the intense character arcs for characters like Vanille in FFXIII? Why must FFXIV cede territory to people who by their own admission are not here for what makes these RPGs different from a TV sitcom? Because comedy will only carry a game so far. Why are they not playing visual novels instead? Why was the story that I was invested in since 2013 ruined for the sake of their tastes?

I honestly have to wonder whether I should have become the type that watches shows like Big Brother and Love Island instead of purchasing FFXIV all those years ago.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I think they would rather write a scenario that has us going to Wendy's on the 13th than have us return to Ilsabard. The Garlemald role quest and the underwhelming way in which the provinces were handled has done nothing to further my confidence in any future settings. This, paired with a community that is all too eager to repeat "not everything has to be so serious!" whenever challenged on the continuous encroach of slice of life and attempts at comedy

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The story still has a lot of problems, but this argument is still hyperbolic. As I've mentioned before, in that seven minute cutscene, G'raha eats a burger for about 15 seconds of it, while the rest is recounting the events of the plot. The comparisons to slice of life and "Persona" and whatnot just don't work. Comedy in FFXIV has never been something that's "landed" for me, but compared to the problems with the themes of "suffering" and whatnot that fell forth in the expansion, "slice of life" is at the bottom of what they need to work on fixing, IMO.

You're right in that the comparisons to Persona are inaccurate in this regard because at least Persona games have stakes and the characters actually grow up over the course of the game without going backwards like Alphinaud does each expansion. If you want a story that handles "end of the world" sort of vibes, I would recommend someone go play Persona instead of FFXIV.

I cannot wait for what sort of new themes they try to impart on us in the Void, who knows maybe they'll even go further than they did with them in Endwalker, assuming that's even possible. Imagine if they actually focused on entertaining first and moralizing second. Then perhaps we'd have a story that imparts its messages more naturally instead of the forced manner that Endwalker did.

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Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus

The story still has a lot of problems, but this argument is still hyperbolic. As I've mentioned before, in that seven minute cutscene, G'raha eats a burger for about 15 seconds of it, while the rest is recounting the events of the plot. *snip*

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I guess it annoyed so many because of the weird pacing of EW and the forced goofy times during a universe wide threat. The eating is actually not that long. You are right on that.

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Originally Posted by Jagick

Sadly, I wouldn't hold your breath friend. They seem to have absolutely no interest in continuing that after Matsuno either left or got pushed out. Those plot threads were explained away in the post-Bozja field reports. Incredibly disappointing. Maybe we'll get to go there some day, but for some reason I find myself doubting.

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I think it's far too late to salvage it now, unfortunately - though the game itself is simply a stepping stone to me until something better comes along. I've mostly been playing other games in my backlog and keeping an eye on some of the upcoming titles. They're thankfully being designed in such a way as to not really appeal to the 'Second Life' and 'Twitter Enthusiasts' that this game has unfortunately come to attract in droves. Generally speaking, they're the same crowd who turn everything into black and white morality, strip away nuance and make bizarre insinuations about anyone who can actually separate reality from fiction.

Matsuno being invited to work on FFXIV was a dream come true for me and it's bitterly disappointing that he wasn't given the opportunity to complete his work here. I feel for Ishikawa, too, since it seems like she was forced to suddenly change course as well.

We'll see how 6.2 fares, I suppose. Maybe it'll renew my interest, maybe it won't - but either way I at least intend to continue posting my thoughts about what I'd like to see until that point.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

You're right in that the comparisons to Persona are inaccurate in this regard because at least Persona games have stakes and the characters actually grow up over the course of the game without going backwards like Alphinaud does each expansion. If you want a story that handles "end of the world" sort of vibes, I would recommend someone go play Persona instead of FFXIV.

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It's possible to play both, dude. And really, the Persona games (especially 4 and 5) have their own hangups and repetitive tropes that hinder writing. Especially when it comes to making the female leads different varieties of "waifu bait".

Every game has its positives and negatives. And even if someone feels one game is better than another, that doesn't mean they can't play and enjoy both on different merits.

Personally, I'd rather FFXIV keep doing its own thing in terms of tone and worry more about contradicting itself less in its main plot and themes.

the only thing i didnt care for was the returning of people after they sacrifice themselves. I was happy to get rid of certain people...then they were back. *attempts to shove the annoying scion into a freezer*

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I think it's far too late to salvage it now, unfortunately - though the game itself is simply a stepping stone to me until something better comes along. I've mostly been playing other games in my backlog and keeping an eye on some of the upcoming titles. They're thankfully being designed in such a way as to not really appeal to the 'Second Life' and 'Twitter Enthusiasts' that this game has unfortunately come to attract in droves. Generally speaking, they're the same crowd who turn everything into black and white morality, strip away nuance and make bizarre insinuations about anyone who can actually separate reality from fiction.

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History has shown us that when the rot has become this bad then there is very little chance of the devs to fix it, doubly so if the income is still there. In hindsight I feel like I got bamboozled by buying the two encyclopedia eoreza books since the lore seems to change from expansion to expansion. At this point it feels like i'm playing WoW again and seeing everyone go "No, cata's story is actually pretty good!" while those that point out how cata is stretching the lore at best and flat out breaking it at worst are just "haters". XVI looks pretty good but it is a SE product so I do worry that half of the story will be broken up and sold as dlc and I do worry about what "online features" the game will come with, and let's not forget SE's ethics department. The worrying part is that I am playing less and less of XIV and more of my backlog but that backlog is starting to dry up. I need to expand my horizons, lol.

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Originally Posted by BRVV

I guess it annoyed so many because of the weird pacing of EW and the forced goofy times during a universe wide threat. The eating is actually not that long. You are right on that.

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The eating on that scene is honestly not that big a deal. They had the budget for new animations, why not make use of it? I don't even think it came at the detriment of the script itself. You can still have a game with amazing animations and a game with the world's worst animations and on both have a script that either works or doesn't. They'd still eat during the calamity, and likely need to use the toilet during the calamity. I don't suppose your body stops all its functions just because the world's going to hell around you. It being animated was just a quirky thing to add, what's really important is the script and the dialogue.

For me, what bothered me is less the impact these things have on the plot, but rather the impact they'd have in other stuff related to visuals and gameplay. Because ah yes, I clearly needed to see G'raha and Krile eating in the 7th Heaven with animated sugar cubes after being told my hairstyles would not have any ears because it was "too hard™". Like, you can knock yourself right out with that excuse.

I totally needed to know they could animate sugar cubes when Housing blew up on Day 1 and Data Center Travel wasn't prepared for the very obvious influx of players they'd have. I'd rather them pouring the money they gave Miqo'te NPC animations into stuff players would actually make use of.

It wouldn't ordinarily be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that we were missing not only an entire expansion but were getting the conclusion to two major decade long story points within the base batch of MSQ's. Every second of screen time was precious as a result and so much of it was arguably wasted on things that really could have been showcased in side quests...which they are doing in addition to the increasing amount of 'fluff' in the MSQ's.

Let's not forget that the game didn't even show the Sundering in an authentic manner. It simply created a misleading cutscene that was entirely based around non-existent strawmen Ancients and a stylised, biased retelling that neglected to show exactly how messed up an act Venat's genocidal rampage actually was. It's rather baffling, given that they were prepared to show a baby almost drown, a kid get stamped on and victims of a chemical weapon.

So, yeah - I completely understand where people are coming from.

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History has shown us that when the rot has become this bad then there is very little chance of the devs to fix it, doubly so if the income is still there

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This is where the disconnect lies, I feel. The income is still there because there isn't this "rot" or need to "fix" things that you claim. The overwhelming majority of the playerbase has had a very positive reception to EW. It's perfectly fine for you to not feel that way - it becomes an issue when you declare your sliver minority of an opinion must be "right" and the other hundreds of thousands of people must somehow be "wrong" for thoroughly enjoying the game and the story. Have your disagreements, but ensconce them within the reality that they are far and away the anomalous response. Don't fix what isn't broken to most people.