Thoughts about 8.0 MSQ

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Originally Posted by Atma

Respectfully, those are reasons why we have connections to the plot, not the world. Similar concepts are just as viable in justifying us going literally anywhere. It took a heck of a lot of worldbuilding to justify our characters having any meaningful connection to the actual world of the first.

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Kind of my point really. With Dawntrail we barely have any connections to anything and it doesn't work. All there is, is Krile's letter, but they barely touch on it.
Which is why DT feels off, it doesn't feel like it's part of the world we know, while The First does.

I think there's a lot more going on in Meracydia than you think. Dawntrail and Tural was just handled poorly.

First, it wasn't our story, it was Wuk Lamat's. We were just there to help her become Dawn Servant.

Second, it treated the first 4 zones as some big field trip where we learn about the people and culture, which is extremely boring in my opinion. They kinda did the same thing with Kugane with the whole "Look how different this place is compared to Eorzean! Even Garleans are allowed to be here!" but that was only for the city and things became more intesting when we headed out to the Ruby Sea. Shadowbringers introduced a new world to us much better. We learned about the people's plight and the threats they faced and did what we do best: Play the hero. In DT, things pick up once we reached Heritage Found, but by then people have already began to lost interest and have gotten tired of Wuk Lamat.

Third, while FF14 has always drawn inspiration from previous games in the series, I think doing it with the MSQ by almost copying the story from a previous game is going too far. Post-Endwalker reused a lot of stuff from FF4, and half of Dawntrail was FF9. I don't like being able to predict what's coming from miles away. Most people knew exactly what the trial of 7.3 was going to be months ago. Sure, they put their own spin on it, but I prefer when they just borrow bosses or locations but do entirely their own thing with it. Imagine we do go to Meracydia in the next expansion and the place looks similar to Spira and we find out that ever since the Fourth Umbral Calamity there's been some massive Voidsent named Sin threatening to consume the continent and every so often a summoner goes on a pilgrimage to defeat Sin to allow the people to relax for a century before it eventually comes back to threaten the continent again, and we just so happened to arrive when this new summoner is setting out on their pilgrimage.

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Originally Posted by XtremePrime

I know a lot of people are waging and expecting that we are going to Meracydia, and for that reason I hope they throw a curveball and we go somewhere else! :)
It doesn't have to be another shard (even if it will most likely happen at some point due to the story), but I'd love to see what's past the Blindfrost, or for us to go a bit more survival-y mode in a snowy place! We're proven to be good in a battle, but we've yet to prove our might against the elements of nature and extreme weather conditions!

We've had our "vacation" in Tural, so I hope they don't give us yet another one on another surprisingly well developed continent that nobody visits much. :D

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Yea, personally I don't think it's vable to have the WoL alone going somewhere just from the fact that they are "mute" with dialogue options, so it would really cause issues with storytelling.
But generally speaking just exploring known areas within the continents would be great. Goign toother shards would need a reason to go there, and I don't quite yet see any reason to go other than fanservice.

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Originally Posted by Kirutsuki

Yea, personally I don't think it's vable to have the WoL alone going somewhere just from the fact that they are "mute" with dialogue options, so it would really cause issues with storytelling.
But generally speaking just exploring known areas within the continents would be great. Goign toother shards would need a reason to go there, and I don't quite yet see any reason to go other than fanservice.

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That can be worked out though. I don't mind if Erenville or some of the scions decide to accompany us to such a place (either for the sense or adventure or DSS, though I'd rather we get DSS party members from people we meet during our trip).
It's be a story more about discovery with a place with fewer people where the enemy can be harsh elements rather than what happened in Tural where we were basically on a field trip. :(

Honestly I feel like we did not get enough time in Tural, I wanna see more from it. Solution 9 kinda hijacked the expansion once it got introduced. All the patch content, outside of the minor Koana arc, was mostly focused on Alexandria. Even all the glamour got hijacked. Most of it is modern-futuristic Alexandrian or old alexandrian, all the Turali stuff got pushed to the side. There's so much they could have done with the scenery of the Americas, but it feels like they squandered it so far. Like I wanted some good American gear rep man, and all I get is techwear.

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Originally Posted by Espon

I think there's a lot more going on in Meracydia than you think...

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Obviously yes, it's been quite a long time since the Allagan Empire stuff anyway and yes, it was a bad decision to add make the story about Wuk and not Krile in DT, which would have helped to keep us connected to the world.
I did not personally know anything about FF9 so whatevery added was a surprise to me. but I can understand that stuff being a bit on the nose if done in a way too obvious way.

I am a big fan of FFX tho and seeing that storyline in 14 would be fun, buuut I would also heavily critique it if it's done wrong and it would probably still feel like some knockoff edition. Not good in the end.

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Originally Posted by LynxDubh

Honestly I feel like we did not get enough time in Tural, I wanna see more from it. Solution 9 kinda hijacked the expansion once it got introduced. All the patch content, outside of the minor Koana arc, was mostly focused on Alexandria. Even all the glamour got hijacked. Most of it is modern-futuristic Alexandrian or old alexandrian, all the Turali stuff got pushed to the side. There's so much they could have done with the scenery of the Americas, but it feels like they squandered it so far. Like I wanted some good American gear rep man, and all I get is techwear.

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100%, the continent is double the size of Aldenard and we have 6 locations. And it's not like it would always need to be locations that have these big villages or different cultures residing in them.
Like in ARR you literall just have "a lake" or "a forest" as an area that has some crystals and NPC's to talk with, there's a dungeon there, but otherwise it's just an area connecting into other more important places.

As long as it kills off Wuk Lamat I'm happy.

I think Tural was terribly wasted. We crossed that bridge and the southern continent was basically treated as irrelevantly as regions from expansions ago. Such a waste. We got a South America inspired region with so much mythos to mine and they barely touched it. Not even a side-quest series like we got with the Four Lords in Stormblood.

We could've had a Vidrall hunting series as our primal fight equivalent. Maybe that can be a thing in 8.x or 9.x.

Are we ready to return to the void, yet? New regions with a very distinct gothic fantasy vibes. I would like that.

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Originally Posted by Espon

I think there's a lot more going on in Meracydia than you think. Dawntrail and Tural was just handled poorly.

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I hope CS3, YoshiP, & any others on the writing team learned some very important lessons when it comes to writing & planning out an expansion.

DT's entire 7.0 expansion should've consisted entirely about the rite of succession competition. It would've allowed for events to unfold and give Wuk a chance to legitimately grow into her station and be able to understand the kind of role she was stepping into & the responsibility; not have elements of the story bend over backwards to suit her winning (Thinking of the Hanuhanu crops trial). Because it was once again trying to be an expansion that covered two areas at once, story beats & elements were clearly rushes in order to be able to fit the 2nd area and part in. In another time, we could've had a trial that would've been the twisted ideals of "I want my people to be happy" without robo cyberpunk element being the thing to do it. Instead we have a naive disney princess that acts like a primal with the way she drains people of their personalities and has the story again bend in over itself just for her. So to reiterate, focus on one area for an expansion to fully flesh it out

NPC's that are mentioned & focused on as being vendors of things, like that guy that sells tacos, SHOULD be a vendor that will sell tacos to you.

The after 7.0 patches unfortunately come-off more or less like the expansion has been on the backfoot trying to make up for things it had messed up on, instead of being something to expand on & prepare for the next expansion.

I really hope the devs & writers do not end up making Calyx to be their version of Sylvanas, where his grand schemes & plots are so convoluted & complex that not even the writers know what he's planning.

Right now up to DT, from ARR to DT and all its happenings, the WoL has been written into a corner of being a god/primal killing, empire wrecking, force of a person. This gives a power creep where they have to keep throwing god-level enemies is just going to keep going. Even the recent 7.3 trial cutscene shows us barely flinching out of our weapon drawn stance when it exudes an aura where everyone else is struggling. So if they wanted to "reset" the power creep within the story, then I'm sure they can work something out where the WoL either loses, sacrifices, or gives up a part of their power/strength in order to defeat something or empower an ally. Kinda like how from ARR to HW, midgardsormyr cut off our access to the RGB stones we spent time collecting in ARR and we had to gain that power/blessing back.

We've got plenty of areas in the source and still more of the new world to go through. We even have Hingashi if they wanted to take us through some form of the warring states. I just hope that they take the time to solely focus and expand on the area that we're going to.