Shifting and Concerning Moods Regarding the Writing

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

The 6.x story was mid at best, but what made it feel awful was our companions through the whole thing. Vrtra/Zero/Y'shtola are the worst possible combination of characters to have together. All of them extremely bland characters, with only Zero managing to be somewhat interesting in the last hour of her screentime.

Y'shtola is a walking deus ex machina and has greatly outstayed her welcome. She seems to know literally everything, including things that are out of her field of expertise. Nothing in 6.x felt high stakes, exciting, or a mystery because you knew that Y'shtola would walk in with some groundbreaking technology that would save the day.

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Y'shtola and Urianger are walking brains and book worms. When their not with us they are likely researching god knows what.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

I actually thought 6.5's story was fine. I think it ended much stronger than it began. I love how all these "It was predictable" arguments come up AFTER the patch story, not before it while we're theory crafting. So I doubt it was that predictable. I have played FF4 to the ends of the earth and I wasn't expecting Zero to go full PLD Cecil in the heat of the moment. Nor was I expecting Goblez to join our side despite that also happening in FF4, albeit for other reasons. These things were not all that predictable. And you can say you don't like the story without labelling it as predictable. Like, I'm going to miss Reaper Zero because I don't really see us getting another Reaper party member after this. I think it's okay to say you don't like the story and the direction, I just disagree about things being as predictable as people want to lead them to be. I was actually kind of hyped up during the story and on the edge of my seat. That's my opinion.

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So ... you didn't see two things that happened in Final Fantasy IV happening? Zero was hinted at as the Cecil expy since the start and they teased the Golbez thing repeatedly.

If anything I gave the writing team too much credit, I thought they'd link Zero to Zeromus in some way, and or connect her to the Baron Royal family to get Cecil and Rosa in on the story.

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Originally Posted by Palladiamors

So ... you didn't see two things that happened in Final Fantasy IV happening? Zero was hinted at as the Cecil expy since the start and they teased the Golbez thing repeatedly.

If anything I gave the writing team too much credit, I thought they'd link Zero to Zeromus in some way, and or connect her to the Baron Royal family to get Cecil and Rosa in on the story.

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I saw it happen WHEN it happened. But there wasn't any reason for me to suspect that Zero was ever gonna go full Cecil PLD. I noticed the connection as it was presented, but I did not see that coming leading up to that moment. Especially when it happened AFTER the Zeromus fight. Saying I could have predicted something like that would be disingenuous blindly guessing without evidence.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

The 6.x story was mid at best, but what made it feel awful was our companions through the whole thing. Vrtra/Zero/Y'shtola are the worst possible combination of characters to have together. All of them extremely bland characters, with only Zero managing to be somewhat interesting in the last hour of her screentime.

Y'shtola is a walking deus ex machina and has greatly outstayed her welcome. She seems to know literally everything, including things that are out of her field of expertise. Nothing in 6.x felt high stakes, exciting, or a mystery because you knew that Y'shtola would walk in with some groundbreaking technology that would save the day.

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This seems to sort of take away the others that have been important to this. She may have come up with some of the ideas but she's hardly the one that made them a reality. The Atomos portal? Thanvairian Alchemists. Her only hand in that was getting access to the original research to take back. The revised warding scale? Garlond Ironworks. Zodiark's brands? She was helped by the watcher and the Loporrits. The items used in the latest one? Garlond Ironworks. The way of using the Crystal Towere? G'raha. She has grand ideas based on a scholar level intellect and knowledge foundation, but she's hardly a Deus Ex Machina if she requires soooo much help to make them a reality.

My issue with the writing boils down to it being too predictable and Zero needing more character development. Zero feels forced and shoe horned in when we have 2 other people who had become central to the situation with the 13th, who then got replaced with Zero. Cyella and Unukalhai are the two I wanted to have this experience with and I feel the thirteenth should have been it's own expansion. Now do I mind that this was all just a copy paste of 4? Yes and No, it's hard to explain.

So I try to be fair, I try to understand why as with all things done for XIV. They really should have focused on something that had been in the oven longer, had more time with the world building. I honestly wouldn't have objected to the dragons being explored in other ways, or us doubling down on more Ancient and Ascian lore. And for why I enjoyed it, I'm a huge FF4 nerd so ofc I loved the FF4 stuff xD.

I feel a lot of XIVs side stories have been rushed since Shadowbringers, Gaia and the Eden story come to mind, it was fine, but felt rushed, Gaia needed more screen time, we needed to see her and Ryne interact more, it wouldn't have killed them to have given us side content strictly for the sake of world building with Gaia, and when you think about the 6.X tory now, simply gave us side content with Zero, that explored them and gave more dpeth to them for the MSQ.

I worry about the quality of the writing because with the lack of transparency, we don't know what made them rush, it's likely we'll never know, but it's doesn't instill me courage for 7.X.

Now all of this can simply be rounded up as FF16 really messed up scheduling and things should improve now, and I hope so. But I think what I've typed here is how I and a lot of FC members and friends I've talked to about this have felt with 6.X so far and reasons why it doesn't really feel great.

you mean the gods are ...constructs, like in... shadowlands?

oh no, no no no no no.

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

you mean the gods are ...constructs, like in... shadowlands?

oh no, no no no no no.

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https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2l...aWJ6/giphy.gif

6.0 was choppy due to having a few different writers on board (and presumably Yoshi-P editing).

6.x was filler to get Dawntrail written, and Dawntrail itself might end up being filler to get 8.0+ scheduled out.

That said, 6.x was... not very good. Slow start, interesting premise, but they wasted it on a trite aesop and predictable plotline. Golbez and the Archfiends were great, but beyond that it was dull and repetitive. Heavily reliant on IV nostalgia too, which just doesn't work for me. (I only played the DS version... and didn't finish it because it was so hard.)

I'd say to temper your expectations for Dawntrail - not because it'll necessarily be bad, but because it's clearly not going to be a gritty, dark, world-shaking story; and just because something isn't to your taste doesn't mean it's bad.

6.x was more zany fun with our pals, as always I am looking forward to more adventures!

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Originally Posted by Cilia

6.0 was choppy due to having a few different writers on board (and presumably Yoshi-P editing).

6.x was filler to get Dawntrail written, and Dawntrail itself might end up being filler to get 8.0+ scheduled out.

That said, 6.x was... not very good. Slow start, interesting premise, but they wasted it on a trite aesop and predictable plotline. Golbez and the Archfiends were great, but beyond that it was dull and repetitive. Heavily reliant on IV nostalgia too, which just doesn't work for me. (I only played the DS version... and didn't finish it because it was so hard.)

I'd say to temper your expectations for Dawntrail - not because it'll necessarily be bad, but because it's clearly not going to be a gritty, dark, world-shaking story; and just because something isn't to your taste doesn't mean it's bad.

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Man are we already to the point of writing off Dawntrail as filler? How the mighty have fallen.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Man are we already to the point of writing off Dawntrail as filler? How the mighty have fallen.

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Theoretically.

I remember an interview somewhere saying the expansion after 6.0 (Dawntrail) might not be the start of the next epic arc, and knowing it looks like the "vacation episode," and taking all the rift travel advancements in 6.x... I can't help but wonder.

I mean how do they do it. They butcher the Voidsent AND Twelve story arcs with lackluster content and storytelling in one expansion...............post patches..............and not even all of em.

Part of me feels like Yoshi P. just wanted to watch the remnants of what was established going back to 1.0 burn with the rest of this expansion.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

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You are right, citizen. The Endwalker story has been quite the disappointment with no signs of getting any better. Things are not looking too bright for Dawntrail if this keeps up.




Goddess watch over you.

I think a lot of people critical of the story's current trajectory would be more in favour of a filler expansion if not for Endwalker artificially taking many of the more intriguing elements of the setting and rushing to end their storylines prematurely. At the very least, perhaps Endwalker's patches could have been devoted less to filler and more to properly wrapping things up.

Dawntrail is still quite a way off and if the expansion itself is filler then that means...another three years until the expansion after that. I don't think it's unreasonable, then, to raise an eyebrow in concern. I know that various posters - myself included - have politely requested more variety in terms of themes and characters to better cater to a broader variety of personal tastes. For as much as some really like the Scions, they're wearing rather thin for many others - incidentally even amongst some of those who like them. I know quite a few fans of G'raha, for instance, who would prefer that he acts less like a clingy fanboy of the player character and instead a bit more like the Crystal Exarch.

I'm fairly easy to please, though it's hard not to notice that in terms of both PvE/PvP and the story itself a lot of things are being streamlined. Dragonflight in World of Warcraft is a filler expansion but that doesn't bother me because there's a great deal of exploration and interaction within the overworld. The same cannot be said of FFXIV, which sadly doesn't offer very much in terms of exploration. The closest we've gotten to that is a throwaway hidden quest where you can hand over a potion to a specific NPC to unlock two secret minions. There's also Eureka and Bozja, of course, which I enjoyed - but we didn't get an equivalent this time around and though it's stated that we might get one in Dawntrail it probably won't be until deeper into the patch cycle.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I think a lot of people critical of the story's current trajectory would be more in favour of a filler expansion if not for Endwalker artificially taking many of the more intriguing elements of the setting and rushing to end their storylines prematurely. At the very least, perhaps Endwalker's patches could have been devoted less to filler and more to properly wrapping things up.

Dawntrail is still quite a way off and if the expansion itself is filler then that means...another three years until the expansion after that. I don't think it's unreasonable, then, to raise an eyebrow in concern. I know that various posters - myself included - have politely requested more variety in terms of themes and characters to better cater to a broader variety of personal tastes. For as much as some really like the Scions, they're wearing rather thin for many others - incidentally even amongst some of those who like them. I know quite a few fans of G'raha, for instance, who would prefer that he acts less like a clingy fanboy of the player character and instead a bit more like the Crystal Exarch.

I'm fairly easy to please, though it's hard not to notice that in terms of both PvE/PvP and the story itself a lot of things are being streamlined. Dragonflight in World of Warcraft is a filler expansion but that doesn't bother me because there's a great deal of exploration and interaction within the overworld. The same cannot be said of FFXIV, which sadly doesn't offer very much in terms of exploration. The closest we've gotten to that is a throwaway hidden quest where you can hand over a potion to a specific NPC to unlock two secret minions. There's also Eureka and Bozja, of course, which I enjoyed - but we didn't get an equivalent this time around and though it's stated that we might get one in Dawntrail it probably won't be until deeper into the patch cycle.

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Imo G'raha is a symptom of the larger issue which is that many people are complaining about plot or characters when what they're actually tired of is XIV. What we really need is a level of new setting and new cast that we can't feasibly get by pushing on with the Scions in the Source.

Just imagine the next time someone praises the warrior of light or a Scion talks about how you never back down..

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Originally Posted by Theodric

At the very least, perhaps Endwalker's patches could have been devoted less to filler and more to properly wrapping things up.

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Yeah, but if they spent additional patches wrapping things up then they would be indirectly acknowledging that their story writing didn't provide proper closure the first time around. Knowing SE, these are issues that they are willfully going to ignore to avoid admitting fault.

The main issue that they've written themselves into from a lore standpoint is in tying all the pre-existing worldbuilding elements back to Amaurot, in a reflexive response to the accidental popularity of a few overvalued characters. Garlemald and Allag are just puppet states created under Emet-Selch's influence. The Void was the byproduct of the usual Ascian ignorance and malice. The Twelve are the remnants of Amaurotine souls.

There's a particularly obsessive and vocal section of this community that is fixated on Amaurot and its pretty characters, but there's no way to satisfy them anyways. The best solution is to write Amaurot out of the story and start fresh worldbuilding that isn't connected at all to it. Thankfully the coming expansion seems to be the start of this.

I liked 6.x, especially the general direction of 6.5 so far. My assumption was that the Void was really unsalvageable, and I was really happy to see that they may still be saved.
I also liked how they didn't forget about Unukalhai -- I was almost sure they forgot about him but at the very end it was good to see his name mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Yeah, but if they spent additional patches wrapping things up then they would be indirectly acknowledging that their story writing didn't provide proper closure the first time around. Knowing SE, these are issues that they are willfully going to ignore to avoid admitting fault.

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Oh, I don't doubt it. They'll probably address stuff in passing in the future in a similar manner to how Nidhogg was touched upon again briefly in the MSQ's and the Dragoon quests. To their credit, the development team do have a habit of bringing up events that have transpired in past expansions. This is particularly true of characters that prove to be popular. I believe a number of the developers themselves are on record citing some of the 'Amaurotine' characters as being amongst their favourites and the Ancients as a whole being something they'd like to see more of in the future.

[Spoiler warning]
I feel like between 6.0 and 6.X the quality of dialogues has also gone down.
When you see scions interacting with one another. For example
Compare
scenario 1: estinien mistaking alisae for alphinaud. That was quite hilarious
scenario 2: estinien being topless and zero saying "shall we disrobe".
the second scene it feels almost as if the comedy is forced upon for no reason. Somehow graha eating a burger was adorable and they wanted to have more of it.
Too much of that feels out of place. Placing one maybe such incident in the midst of a world ending crisis feels okay.

Also familiarity breeds content. We have already seen the scions and their arcs finish. No more character development. Meaning they become just ordinary. Now if some new villian were to come and assassinate each scion 1 by 1 that would be really interesting.
Or maybe we see less of them, or maybe have some growth for the scions so they dont stagnate. Also the 13th could have been an adventure, exploration zone. Just like exploring novrandt and ahm areng with its spooky music was soo good.
but we just came in and out, nothing more.
Dawntrail doesnt have the spookyness about it .... hoping it used to build on something greater and not just a filler plot arc.

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Originally Posted by Palladiamors

I'll start off with the obvious, the problem is that this thread is coming from you. You're a known dissatisfied element so the usual suspects are going to brush you off.

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So, I’d say I’m probably in the group that disagrees with like 99% of the whining complaints, but OP does have good points that are worth engaging in (for me) from time to time. This is a pretty legit concern I think across the board though, and there are many people dissatisfied with the direction of the game from Endwalker.

I mean, I’m not in the everyone hates the game/sky is falling camp, but sure- game kinda sucks this expansion.

Also, a lot of what Theodric said. They really could/should have taken an entire expansion to focus on the void. Even the gods really deserved more mystery/story than what we got.

They could have easily made Endwalker a “the world has changed, and now we have to figure out how to deal with that” story. If they had spent the entire 6.x series on sorting out Garlemald and reconciliation I would have been satisfied. The story of the void felt very disconnected to what the void had been built up to be (Diabolos/void Ark/etc)…but it is what it is.

I mean, we could have gotten at least a void-centric expedition zone a la Eureka/Bozja.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

You're free to have your own take but this is getting into real head canon territory. The whole story line of FF14 has been pretty explicit that "gods" are constructs of faith/willpower and aether, they only take embodiments because living believers think they should, they ARE just a form of (powerful) summons. The FF14 universe is pretty scientific and mechanical, it's not some spiritual take on religions from Earth's history even when it uses references like Greek myths to anchor the player's engagement with something familiar.

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It's not head cannon when it's fundamental theological metaphysics that applies to the real world. The primal while, yes, being constructs of aether are physical manifestations of said being in the world. You are separating the method of its summoning and the actual idea it's being summoned from, which is a genuine god; therefore, you are stating it's not the real thing when it's a distinction without a difference. The primal is the manifestation of the divine brought about through the worship of its followers, aka prayers and holy rights. These primals act like the god, convert in the name of the god and want to expand their sacred doctrine as all religions and gods do.

No final fantasy is not scientific in any way. It's occult. Even the most scientific aspects of the universe are magical. You are conflating a hard magic system that you see almost nothing of and that of science, which isn't the case.

When I use references to European mythology, the vast majority is a copy-and-paste job from said mythology. For example, in Celtic myth, if you want to bring forth a god of nature to receive its blessing, you will need to build it a vessel and perform copious amounts of human sacrifice, usually that of another tribe or the Romans invading your land. It's called a wicker man and was used to summon the Green man or father of the forest. The same happens in almost every other European pagan religion, and many of them cross over into each other. Ff14 isn't original and is heavily archetypal in how it portrays its characters
Aether, for god's sake, is just ripped out of Greek mythology wholesale as it's the fifth element that ancients believed made up the natural world and is otherwise known as spirit or ego, aka the soul.

So if they are very powerful summons, then the question is of what, and the answer is of course a god brought about by faith and prayer, which is made up of the material of the soul itself.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The main issue...

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I actually agree with the first part of your post, but those swipes are just too irresistible not to take, huh?

There is a section of the community that was unsatisified with the writing surrounding the Ancients and the way they were dealt with, sure, but unfortunately you can't pass this one onto us. Garlemald, Allag and the Void were written off as Ascian projects prior to the end of Shadowbringers, and I don't know how the Twelve, if meant as anything at all, would be perceived as anything other than a tribute to Venat and her faction. Really though, it's just another swing and a miss from the writing team that stems from their consistent attempts to wrap up all of 2.0's story arcs, but keep fighting the good fight.

(Kind of amusing how often "pretty characters" gets thrown around to make light of what we say, though - seems to be more of a you thing than anything the discussions have been saying. I guess Hythlodaeus does something for you?)

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

Y'shtola is a walking deus ex machina and has greatly outstayed her welcome. She seems to know literally everything, including things that are out of her field of expertise. Nothing in 6.x felt high stakes, exciting, or a mystery because you knew that Y'shtola would walk in with some groundbreaking technology that would save the day.

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When I call Y’shtola the worst female character in the entire Final Fantasy franchise I don’t feel like that is an exaggeration at all. She represents a failure to establish not only a basis from which she can reasonably grow as a character, but the subsequent failure to attempt any growth or semblance of at an arc at all. She quite literally is just a walking lore explanation device that was more rude than sassy a few times and suddenly some elements of the playerbase managed to invent a personality around that moment that is hardly reflected in the game at all – due to her primary function being the aforementioned walking lore device.

I think I can count on one hand the number of well-fleshed out main female cast members that CBU3 has produced: Ysayle and Ryne. All others have suffered from either impossible personalities or lack of growth, and unfortunately characters like Jill in FFXVI are affected by this as well. They are characters that do not make me sympathize or feel anything for them or their struggles. And a creature like Y’shtola has no real struggles, not when she can die and come back every expansion like it’s nothing.

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Originally Posted by Vrankyl

This seems to sort of take away the others that have been important to this. She may have come up with some of the ideas but she's hardly the one that made them a reality. The Atomos portal? Thanvairian Alchemists. Her only hand in that was getting access to the original research to take back. The revised warding scale? Garlond Ironworks. Zodiark's brands? She was helped by the watcher and the Loporrits. The items used in the latest one? Garlond Ironworks. The way of using the Crystal Towere? G'raha. She has grand ideas based on a scholar level intellect and knowledge foundation, but she's hardly a Deus Ex Machina if she requires soooo much help to make them a reality.

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Yes. Scholars galore. And their response to this oversaturation of that archetype in this game is to introduce yet another scholar with Krile’s likely addition to the main party in 7.0 while retaining all the other ones that the WoL is shackled to. What could possibly go wrong? It’s not as if people have been complaining about being bored of them or anything.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Man are we already to the point of writing off Dawntrail as filler? How the mighty have fallen.

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Which makes one question why follow up the Filler MSQ arc with yet another Filler MSQ arc.

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Originally Posted by Ephremjlm

I mean how do they do it. They butcher the Voidsent AND Twelve story arcs with lackluster content and storytelling in one expansion...............post patches..............and not even all of em.

Part of me feels like Yoshi P. just wanted to watch the remnants of what was established going back to 1.0 burn with the rest of this expansion.

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My view is that it fundamentally cheapens the world state when key elements of the setting are erased like the Hell or Demon Realm equivalent, especially when done in the WoL-messiah way that the current writing has embraced. Along with getting rid of the gods as well. This doesn’t come across as any kind of empowering or uplifting story to me, it bores me to think of the thought of so much magic being stripped from FFXIV’s setting after the end of other more interesting elements like the Ancients plotline, etc.

It really has reached WoW Shadowlands levels of too much cosmic nonsense, but the way to course correct was absolutely not to waste our time with a vacation episode expansion. It should have been to reground the story in a new home base, an Ilsabardian or Meracydian kingdom with the same strong fantasy elements that gave people something to catch their attention back in expansions like Heavensward or Shadowbringers.

By contrast, the reaction to this beach episode vibe has been complete and utter apathy from most with some players choosing to play defense saying things like their WoL needs a vacation – but as these same sort of players are generally averse to storytelling with significant consequences at all, as ultimately neither Endwalker nor its patches had much for the main cast, I am indifferent to their opinions. The WoL does not deserve a “break” after having so many victories handed to them on a silver platter while their allies get away without a scratch. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Dawntrail is still quite a way off and if the expansion itself is filler then that means...another three years until the expansion after that. I don't think it's unreasonable, then, to raise an eyebrow in concern. I know that various posters - myself included - have politely requested more variety in terms of themes and characters to better cater to a broader variety of personal tastes. For as much as some really like the Scions, they're wearing rather thin for many others - incidentally even amongst some of those who like them. I know quite a few fans of G'raha, for instance, who would prefer that he acts less like a clingy fanboy of the player character and instead a bit more like the Crystal Exarch.

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I do not want to wait until I’m almost or nearly 30 for FFXIV to get good again. And yeah it pretty much does feel like anyone who doesn’t like the worst cast in the entire franchise gets actively ignored if not punished by having those more interesting characters consequently removed from the story and then having no references to them or even store outfits. How much do you want to bet we will get yet another Scion outfit or even another levelling set recolor like they did with Ysayle’s put on to the online store before we get something like a Solus set? I’d have even considered purchasing a Zenos Shb Patch outfit, but not when the game is so stretched for content as it is now.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

(Kind of amusing how often "pretty characters" gets thrown around to make light of what we say, though - seems to be more of a you thing than anything the discussions have been saying. I guess Hythlodaeus does something for you?)

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On that note, for practically all of Shadowbringers the Ancients were represented as shade-like beings and Emet-Selch, who is rather unconventional looking - especially for a character in a Final Fantasy game. It wasn't until Endwalker where we saw the Ancients in their original forms.

So the attempt to push it as people being fixated on the Ancients because they are 'pretty' is rather strange. It was the actual story surrounding Amaurot and its peaceful, Etheirys loving inhabitants that drew a lot of people's interest towards the Ancients. To say nothing of those of us who were already intrigued by them even before the Amaurot reveal.

It's also worth noting that the Ancients are the closest we've gotten in a while to the pure high fantasy aesthetic which also plays a large part in their popularity, I rather suspect.

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Originally Posted by Alec97

It's not head cannon when it's fundamental theological metaphysics that applies to the real world. The primal while, yes, being constructs of aether are physical manifestations of said being in the world. You are separating the method of its summoning and the actual idea it's being summoned from, which is a genuine god; therefore, you are stating it's not the real thing when it's a distinction without a difference. The primal is the manifestation of the divine brought about through the worship of its followers, aka prayers and holy rights. These primals act like the god, convert in the name of the god and want to expand their sacred doctrine as all religions and gods do.

No final fantasy is not scientific in any way. It's occult. Even the most scientific aspects of the universe are magical. You are conflating a hard magic system that you see almost nothing of and that of science, which isn't the case.

When I use references to European mythology, the vast majority is a copy-and-paste job from said mythology. For example, in Celtic myth, if you want to bring forth a god of nature to receive its blessing, you will need to build it a vessel and perform copious amounts of human sacrifice, usually that of another tribe or the Romans invading your land. It's called a wicker man and was used to summon the Green man or father of the forest. The same happens in almost every other European pagan religion, and many of them cross over into each other. Ff14 isn't original and is heavily archetypal in how it portrays its characters
Aether, for god's sake, is just ripped out of Greek mythology wholesale as it's the fifth element that ancients believed made up the natural world and is otherwise known as spirit or ego, aka the soul.

So if they are very powerful summons, then the question is of what, and the answer is of course a god brought about by faith and prayer, which is made up of the material of the soul itself.

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You're just super-imposing your fascination with religion/real life religious lore over the game world where in literally dozens of cases the writers/characters specifically state that eikons aren't gods, I dunno what to say if you want to ignore this. And yes, FF14 has an extremely hard/scientific magic/mythology system. Magic is the subject of scientific study, its measured by instruments and quantified in textbooks, aether may as well just be electricity or dark matter or whatever given the level to which it is analyzable, compare this to other magic systems in other settings which are entirely mystical or spiritual where magic comes from spirits or actually gifted by the gods. On a comparative scale FF14's magic system is EXTREMELY codified and is essentially an adjunct to science, ceruleum engines are used next to aether-burners not to mention all the magitek and Allagan magic technology, you really can't get more systemised.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Well then I don't get the hype for 5.0. Graha is the same person in ARR that he is in 5.0. Hell, he is the same person right now. Elidibus was doing his best Emet impression-- oh no not another sacrificial Ascian but with nostalgia bait slapped on. You can literally do this with anything. The writer of the reddit post is too incompetent to even hide their bias-- so because Zero has actual character development it is "predictable and boring". They can stfu. Zero is contemplative and well executed. Just because part of her journey is learning to rely on others doesn't make it Kingdom Hearts. The writer was trying to go deeper into what friends bring to you and your life aside from the very literal "they help you kill stuff".

Let's go talk to Graha for the 500th time about being on our next adventure while we are actively on the current adventure we brought him on while some sad old FF piano music plays.

I will take Zero any day of the week thanks.

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I think the biggest problem with Zero's arc is that it wasn't anything profound or unique to her as a character. It is quite literally the standard I was all alone and sad and then I met friends and am no longer sad and will save the world arc.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The main issue that they've written themselves into from a lore standpoint is in tying all the pre-existing worldbuilding elements back to Amaurot, in a reflexive response to the accidental popularity of a few overvalued characters. Garlemald and Allag are just puppet states created under Emet-Selch's influence. The Void was the byproduct of the usual Ascian ignorance and malice. The Twelve are the remnants of Amaurotine souls.

There's a particularly obsessive and vocal section of this community that is fixated on Amaurot and its pretty characters, but there's no way to satisfy them anyways. The best solution is to write Amaurot out of the story and start fresh worldbuilding that isn't connected at all to it. Thankfully the coming expansion seems to be the start of this.

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They can't really do that though, since Amaurotines are credited with creating everything that has ever existed in the world. No matter where we go or what we see it will have been the result of what they did, meaning any and everything is going to some how come back to Aumaurot and Elpis and Ancients. If the twelve really are as they say responsible for the stability of all of Etheirys then every culture should be aware of them in some capacity, since they would have been shaped by the prayers and devotion of everyone on the star, not just Eorzeans.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

You're just super-imposing your fascination with religion/real life religious lore over the game world where in literally dozens of cases the writers/characters specifically state that eikons aren't gods, I dunno what to say if you want to ignore this. And yes, FF14 has an extremely hard/scientific magic/mythology system. Magic is the subject of scientific study, its measured by instruments and quantified in textbooks, aether may as well just be electricity or dark matter or whatever given the level to which it is analyzable, compare this to other magic systems in other settings which are entirely mystical or spiritual where magic comes from spirits or actually gifted by the gods. On a comparative scale FF14's magic system is EXTREMELY codified and is essentially an adjunct to science, ceruleum engines are used next to aether-burners not to mention all the magitek and Allagan magic technology, you really can't get more systemised.

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No I'm not nor did I say Eikons are gods, I said the summoning method is summoning a god and therefore it's a distinction without a difference. The word Eikon means representation. If I'm summoning the physical representation of a god I'm therefore summoning a god. If I chose to do it with a fork I would get a fork. It's that simple I don't need super impose anything on it.

What you are doing is saying that because the people in the setting can do summoning magic what they are summoning isn't a real representation of the idea which is false because they still manifesting the being in question it's just a matter of how limiting they are as individuals. The more powerful and intelligent the individual, the more flawless the representation of the idea will be.

Also no FF14s magic system isn't that codified you almost know nothing of how anything works, what you have done is take items which affect everyday peoples lives, weapons of war and resources with select properties and therefore you stating its really codified when the reality is you have no idea how any of it works because it's not important to the setting. In LOTR for example its magic system is soft and its even more detailed than FF14s is. However in Starwars for example it has an incredibly hard and rigid system with documentation on how almost everything functions from starships, shipyards, lightsaber parts, ideologies, species, their anatomy etc. Ff14s lore isn't really explained upon because it's not that important for you to know the minutia of how things operate.

Electricity is a form of aether in the setting because electricity as we know it doesn't exist because it's inherently magical in nature. Also, dark matter isn't provable yet even in our world so we don't even know if it exists, it could be completely made up. Science is derived from the scientific method to help us understand the natural world the setting is inherently different and therefore it doesn't exist. This world has aetherology and it is a source of academic study but it's not science and has very little in common with it philosophically because the rules of the world don't conform to ours. This is why I said it's closer to occultism because that's the closest real-world representation we have to it.

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Originally Posted by Alec97

No I'm not nor did I say Eikons are gods, I said the summoning method is summoning a god and therefore it's a destination without a difference. The word Eikon means representation. If I'm summoning the physical representation of a god I'm therefore summoning a god. If I chose to do it with a fork I would get a fork. It's that simple I don't need super impose anything on it.

What you are doing is saying that because the people in the setting can do summoning magic what they are summoning isn't a real representation of the idea wich is false because they still manafesting the being in question its just a matter of how limiting they are as individuals. The more powerful and intelligent the individual, the more flawless the representation of the idea will be.

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A quick note here. The procedure for summoning eikons/primals/whatever you want to call them is confirmed to be a flawed form of creation magicks passed down by the Ascians. Individual representations of each primal vary widely one from the next not merely because they're being influenced by their summoners but also because they're quite literally being made anew with each incarnation. The belief systems of those carrying out the summonings do play a role in the end result, but they do not allow these creations to exceed the sum of their parts. In other words; no matter how hard people erroneously believe the thing they're conjuring is a god, the end result can never truly be a god.

A thing can possess the form of godliness without also wielding commensurate power and knowledge, as is the case with pretty much every primal to ever exist that wasn't named Zodiark. This is not a case of being limited by its summoners so much as it is a case of being limited by available aether and/or crystals. Prayer alone is not sufficient to conjure one of these things up, let alone grant it power.

Consequently, believing something is a god does not mean it's a god or even a proper representation of a god. It may be a god to you, but that in no way qualifies that entity as an actual deity. Or, put another way, summoning the representation of an idea or belief does not mean that representation is the real thing. The primal Garuda is just a creature that happens to carry the appearance and mannerisms of the Garuda believed in so fervently by the bird people, for example. That isn't Garuda, no matter how much the Ixal (and the primal Garuda itself) believe it is. There is no actual Garuda, and there never was. Like all primals, "Garuda" was born the first time she was summoned.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

A quick note here. The procedure for summoning eikons/primals/whatever you want to call them is confirmed to be a flawed form of creation magicks passed down by the Ascians. Individual representations of each primal vary widely one from the next not merely because they're being influenced by their summoners but also because they're quite literally being made anew with each incarnation. The belief systems of those carrying out the summonings do play a role in the end result, but they do not allow these creations to exceed the sum of their parts. In other words; no matter how hard people erroneously believe the thing they're conjuring is a god, the end result can never truly be a god.

A thing can possess the form of godliness without also wielding commensurate power and knowledge, as is the case with pretty much every primal to ever exist that wasn't named Zodiark. This is not a case of being limited by its summoners so much as it is a case of being limited by available aether and/or crystals. Prayer alone is not sufficient to conjure one of these things up, let alone grant it power.

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Your correct with the analysis but it's actually down to the difference between the imperfect nature of the physical world and the timeless nature of the world of ideas. It's a god as much as a god can be in the physical world which by definition is imperfect. This has a lot to do with Plato's world of shapes/forms.

In our world there is no such thing as perfect, we have the idea of something being perfect but that can't exist in the real world. Even when it comes to zodiark he isn't perfect. When the idea is manifest it is brought forth using the understanding of the caster whose understanding of the concept has been influenced by their culture, religion etc as well as their natural talents and available resources but the fundamental nature of the concept hasn't changed and you can argue that the fundamental nature of concept itself directed them to perform the summoning which in turn would promote the concept. Aka do people have ideas or concepts or do concepts and ideas have people who use them to manifest the concept and spread its influence further?

The difference between the ancient method and what was later taught is that the concepts which manifested were stable concepts they didn't require constant sustenance. The concept of a god didn't really exist for the ancients because they themselves had no need for one in the traditional sense until they did which was to manifest the concept of salvation. You could also argue that concepts did eventually become more than sums of their parts because almost every enemy type we see in the game was a stable concept created by an ancient in Elpis with their own emotions, feelings etc.

It also comes down to how we define a deity or a true deity. Do we compare them to the incredibly human and imperfect pagan gods which fed on faith, sacrifice and ambrosia or do we compare them to the Godhead of the Abrahamic religions where God is the beginning and end, we they are all-powerful. All-knowing and ever-present. If that was the case the only person in the setting who could be considered a god would be Athena when she tried to transcend into an all-powerful being who tried to recreate reality.

The simple truth is a God is a being which is worshipped due to it being connected to ideals that people see as transcendent and universal such as justice, nature, war, love, desire, chaos, death etc. Also, almost anything can be used as an idol, to worship said God a good example in the Bible would be the Golden calf which was an eikon of the Egyptian bull god Apis.

Plato's theory of forms

“ These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms 's theory of forms”

Also on perfection of ideas

No one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato uses the tool-makers blueprint as evidence that Forms are real

... when a man has discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the material ....
Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by definition they are sets of infinitely small points. But if the perfect ones were not real, how could they direct the manufacturer?

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Oh, I don't doubt it. They'll probably address stuff in passing in the future in a similar manner to how Nidhogg was touched upon again briefly in the MSQ's and the Dragoon quests. To their credit, the development team do have a habit of bringing up events that have transpired in past expansions. This is particularly true of characters that prove to be popular. I believe a number of the developers themselves are on record citing some of the 'Amaurotine' characters as being amongst their favourites and the Ancients as a whole being something they'd like to see more of in the future.

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Well, isn't that a horrifying thought. On one hand, the Ancients are my favourite thing in FF14. If you had asked me two years ago I would have loved an excuse to dive head first into their world. On the other hand, I don't really trust whoever is doing the writing now to do that well. I want to keep my love for them intact rather than getting another story about how all the Ancients I love were bad and oh here is how Venat and her followers helped out this time.

That said, should interest start to wane in whatever adventure we find ourselves in next, I have no doubt they will be brought back. Something like Amaurot ruins on one of the Shards, or perhaps even a secret pocket of Ancients who survived, or even just Sundered people who actually remembered after the Sundering and hid themselves away to keep the remnants of their culture intact. Maybe the bonds between the planets start to break down despite the best efforts of Venat and her followers, and we have to find a way to maintain them...

All those sound really interesting, and I would love any of them. Sadly, again, I do not trust the current writers to do them justice.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

It really has reached WoW Shadowlands levels of too much cosmic nonsense, but the way to course correct was absolutely not to waste our time with a vacation episode expansion. It should have been to reground the story in a new home base, an Ilsabardian or Meracydian kingdom with the same strong fantasy elements that gave people something to catch their attention back in expansions like Heavensward or Shadowbringers.

By contrast, the reaction to this beach episode vibe has been complete and utter apathy from most with some players choosing to play defense saying things like their WoL needs a vacation – but as these same sort of players are generally averse to storytelling with significant consequences at all, as ultimately neither Endwalker nor its patches had much for the main cast, I am indifferent to their opinions. The WoL does not deserve a “break” after having so many victories handed to them on a silver platter while their allies get away without a scratch. Sorry.

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Who is this "most"? Can you definitively prove that's the opinion held by most players? Or is it just most players in you personally know?

Personally what I've grown apathetic of is the whole everything with Ascians, Ancients, Garleans, and Allagans. Had the plot of Endwalker been extended into two expansions instead of the one, we would have had to suffer through Zenos for FOUR expansions when he should have died at the end of the base Stormblood. Y'all criticize the Scion cast for staying the same and not dying when they should've while the villains have the same problem. Going to a faraway place without a conflict started by the same usual suspects, in an aesthetic and cultures that are usually ignored in most Euro-centric fantasy is going to be a refreshing break.

This fresh start in a new place with nothing to do with anything else is what this story needs. All the ex-Garlean lands need a break before we come to them for them to be interesting. Otherwise it's just going to be Stormblood 2 with the same themes and the same types of conflicts.

I don't disagree that the cast should've been refreshed and that at the very least the 1.0 Scions Thancred, Y'shtola, and Urianger should've retired for the younger ones like G'raha, the twins, Estinien, and Krile to take over with the addition of new Tural characters to fill out the old slots. But they seem to have made their decision about turning them into main characters a while ago, which I can understand even if I don't prefer it.


Also, Meracydia never was and shall never be your European castles and knights fantasy. It's been described since 1.0 as a place with witch doctors and West African cultural items. And over the years has included North African fauna and cultural items as well as kangaroos and koalas for some reason. Other than that we're told it's mostly a wasteland with violently xenophobic inhabitants. I personally think we're going there in Dawntrail based on the cloud shapes on the world map shown to us but I don't think it's going to be anything you like.

I wouldn't actually mind less G'raha. I liked him as the Crystal Exarch, and I was meh on him in the original Crystal Tower quests, but since coming back home to the Source he always just seems way too much like an overeager fanboy with a crush. I am sure that is exactly what some people want, but I wince every time I see him come on to the screen now. :(

Edit: That angle would even be okay if the game gave me some dialogue options to shut it down, too. Let the people who like him choose the favourable ones, and let people like me tell him to back off a little, but the game gives you no options. Just sorta assumes you are not completely uncomfortable. :(

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Originally Posted by Alec97

Stuff

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I believe you're overthinking it a bit. The game has already drawn a line between what constitutes a god and what does not. Per this game's lore, something being worshipped as a god does not in fact make it a god. A given creature and those faithful to it can proclaim it a god all they want, but that will not make it meet the criteria for godhood as put forth in-story by the writers. Even Zodiark, for all his power and despite the Ascians referring to him as a god on so many occasions, was no god at all. He was just a primal, albeit the original upon which all others were based.

What real life religions and/or philosophers have to say on the matter of forms and deities does not play into it beyond whatever inspirations they drew from when coming up with the lore in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Alec97

The difference between the ancient method and what was later taught is that the concepts which manifested were stable concepts they didn't require constant sustenance. The concept of a god didn't really exist for the ancients because they themselves had no need for one in the traditional sense until they did which was to manifest the concept of salvation. You could also argue that concepts did eventually become more than sums of their parts because almost every enemy type we see in the game was a stable concept created by an ancient in Elpis with their own emotions, feelings etc.

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I don't know that I would call Zodiark a manifestation of the concept of salvation. From what we're told, they took a very scientific approach to his creation, purpose, and the plethora of abilities he received. He was initially regarded as nothing more than a unique and inordinately powerful creation made to some exacting specifications. The worship didn't kick in until afterward, driven partially by utter desperation and partially by incidental tempering.

There were two major creation categories; those with souls, and those without. Creations the planet chose to impart with souls by definition grew beyond the sum of their parts, but the ancients had no actual control over this phenomenon. They could create a form they'd seen the planet grant a soul prior and hope for the best, but that was it. Those without souls were known as arcane entities, and they had no capacity for growth beyond their initial stages. In other words, those enemy types you refer to are basically just standard animals whose origins happen to lie in Elpis. They can adapt and evolve with time like any living creature, but it's worth noting few if any of them actually changed all that much. They for the most part retain the same forms, mannerisms, and intellect or lack thereof. It was their progenitors being granted souls that permitted them to propagate unassisted in the first place.

Modern primals, aside from those embodied in an individual (Iceheart/Shiva, for example), are basically just glorified arcane entities. They have zero capacity to grow beyond their summon state, whatever it may be.

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Originally Posted by Nayukhuut

Well, isn't that a horrifying thought. On one hand, the Ancients are my favourite thing in FF14. If you had asked me two years ago I would have loved an excuse to dive head first into their world. On the other hand, I don't really trust whoever is doing the writing now to do that well. I want to keep my love for them intact rather than getting another story about how all the Ancients I love were bad and oh here is how Venat and her followers helped out this time.

That said, should interest start to wane in whatever adventure we find ourselves in next, I have no doubt they will be brought back. Something like Amaurot ruins on one of the Shards, or perhaps even a secret pocket of Ancients who survived, or even just Sundered people who actually remembered after the Sundering and hid themselves away to keep the remnants of their culture intact. Maybe the bonds between the planets start to break down despite the best efforts of Venat and her followers, and we have to find a way to maintain them...

All those sound really interesting, and I would love any of them. Sadly, again, I do not trust the current writers to do them justice.

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Yeah, I share similar sentiments. Personally I wish the development team had deployed a slow burn over the years and taken the time to work with what they had established instead of rushing through it with increasing speed. Heavensward and Shadowbringers at least took place in regions all directly connected to each other with some side content taking place elsewhere. Ala Mhigo and the surrounding region could have served as its own expansion with more of Othard being given its own time to shine in its own unique expansion.

Really, instead of trying to tie so many different aspects of the game together they should have simply had each expansion serve as a standalone experience that mostly dealt with unique regional issues whilst serving to uncover more pieces of the greater narrative that they had in mind. As it stands, by choosing to rush to a premature conclusion they've now effectively sowed the seeds of division. Some people want more of what was squandered or cast aside. Others want something new. Yet more - myself included - would prefer a healthy balance of both.

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Originally Posted by Nayukhuut

I wouldn't actually mind less G'raha. I liked him as the Crystal Exarch, and I was meh on him in the original Crystal Tower quests, but since coming back home to the Source he always just seems way too much like an overeager fanboy with a crush. I am sure that is exactly what some people want, but I wince every time I see him come on to the screen now. :(

Edit: That angle would even be okay if the game gave me some dialogue options to shut it down, too. Let the people who like him choose the favourable ones, and let people like me tell him to back off a little, but the game gives you no options. Just sorta assumes you are not completely uncomfortable. :(

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Agreed with that as well - I don't particularly like the character to begin with and his behaviour borders on outright creepy at times. He's far too clingy and most games with romance options or deeper friendships usually grant players the agency to consent to leaning into that sort of thing.

I don't like the canon crush displayed by Alisae, either. For starters she's a sixteen year old girl and thus underage but both myself and my character are gay with my character even having an Eternal Bond to another guy. It's rather immersion breaking for the game not to acknowledge that in any way. There should be an option to gently let her down at the very least.

Yeh, Alisae's fangirling weirded me out at times too. I am not actually against romance or hints of romance in games, but it feels weird when it feels forced on you. Dissenting dialogue options would be perfect, even though none of it would mean much since the story is written in such a way that it has to stay on the same track. But hey, even the illusion of choice is better than no choice.

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Originally Posted by Nayukhuut

Yeh, Alisae's fangirling weirded me out at times too. I am not actually against romance or hints of romance in games, but it feels weird when it feels forced on you.

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Even weirder when it's coming from a child. That's a whooolllleee lot of nope considering the undertones of some of what she says/days.

Agreed as well. I understand that it was meant to be innocent child looking up to her elder kinda thing, but it still made me feel uncomfortable with the attention. I meant to agree in my original reply that it wasn't only the familiarity that felt strange, but also her age. Thankfully we moved off that and have fully boarded the G'raha train. Well, thankfully of a sort I guess. G'raha's constant fanboying makes me feel amazingly uncomfortable too, he's just not a literal child. Although it does look like he will be a large part of the next expansion... so woo. :(

Do not think I have seen anything that made me less excited for an expansion than G'raha biting into that taco.

I am really hoping that the full trailer shows us some actual story beats to look forward to, because the only part of that trailer that looked even slightly interesting was the shot of us exploring that ruin. The happy go lucky beach vacation filler expac vibe didn't win me over even slightly.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I believe you're overthinking it a bit. The game has already drawn a line between what constitutes a god and what does not. Per this game's lore, something being worshipped as a god does not, in fact, make it a god. A given creature and those faithful to it can proclaim it a god all they want, but that will not make it meet the criteria for godhood as put forth in-story by the writers. Even Zodiark, for all his power and despite the Ascians referring to him as a god on so many occasions, was no god at all. He was just a primal, albeit the original upon which all others were based.
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We are only discussing what constitutes a god. As I said in my previous post, if you were to summon an eikon of a fork, you would get a fork. Zodairk was a god after a fashion from Emit because he fulfilled the societal purpose of one as he became the embodiment and will of the star. In any other be mythos that would your Gaia, even Venat is—archetypically presented as the Lightbringer or Lucifer who betrays God, leading to the fall of man out of Eden/paradise which leads to a loss of our immortality.

I also didn't overthink it at all Plato was the defining philosopher for the majority of the ancient world to the medieval world and the impact he had on our society, especially on notions of what a human and the soul are is massive. FF14 is not original in how it portrays anything just as the world of warcraft or warnammer isn't, they all steal from the same playbook. This is why when you steal from Chinese mythology you should be surprised when Confucianism seeped into everything.

The problem today is most Westerners haven't received a proper education and couldn't tell you their nose from the arse. What you have instead is westerners being asked why the curtains are red instead of being asked to research the philosophical origins of the narrative because nothing is original.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I don't know that I would call Zodiark a manifestation of the concept of salvation. From what we're told, they took a very scientific approach to his creation, purpose, and the plethora of abilities he received. He was initially regarded as nothing more than a unique and inordinately powerful creation made to some exacting specifications. The worship didn't kick in until afterward, driven partially by utter desperation and partially by incidental tempering.

There were two major creation categories; those with souls, and those without. Creations the planet chose to impart with souls by definition grew beyond the sum of their parts, but the ancients had no actual control over this phenomenon. They could create a form they'd seen the planet grant a soul prior and hope for the best, but that was it. Those without souls were known as arcane entities, and they had no capacity for growth beyond their initial stages. In other words, those enemy types you refer to are basically just standard animals whose origins happen to lie in Elpis. They can adapt and evolve with time like any living creature, but it's worth noting few if any of them actually changed all that much. They for the most part retain the same forms, mannerisms, and intellect or lack thereof. It was their progenitors being granted souls that permitted them to propagate unassisted in the first place.

Modern primals, aside from those embodied in an individual (Iceheart/Shiva, for example), are basically just glorified arcane entities. They have zero capacity to grow beyond their summon state, whatever it may be.

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The methodical approach to his creation isn't science, it would considered occult by our world as individuals have control over the fundamental forces of reality. This is actually the key philosophical distinction between occultism and science. Science is about understanding the natural world and how things work. Occultism is about having the innate ability to control and change the natural world.

He is explicitly linked to the need for salvation by Elidibus his heart or core constantly. It becomes his primary function to the point he's forgotten everything but his duty which is to perform his function. Anything with aether is made up of the building blocks of the soul. We don't actually know what constitutes a soul yet as seems to be something very specific but the fact that you can make one does say a lot. There is also only one line from Emit stating they were tempered but there is actually very little evidence to prove he was actually tempered as he shows almost no evidence of it and one would have to question his need for it because he was already driven by his duty to his friends and family, not a parasitic insemination of another beings aether. Tempering also seems to be one of the major differences between how the ancients constructed things versus the beast tribes as almost no ancient concept tempers people. Their ability to create seems to be complete and stable without the need for the concept to acquire more aether to sustain and grow.

When it comes to the primals you are correct they are glorified entities but that is actually what all gods are in the first place. I could make a chicken my god by worshipping it. This is why I said what grants Godhood is people worshipping an ideal that they find to innately have transcendent properties such as war, death, light, dark etc as it functionally important to their understanding of the world and their place in it. The 12 in FF14 setting are just glorified beings but they are still gods and perform the societal function of gods to the point they are moulded by this function.