Is it just me, or are Expansions getting more brutal and depressing every time?

It was pretty ho hum. I guess if your primary source of emotional drama is shounen anime then it might've seemed dark.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Just because you weren't, doesn't mean they weren't supposed to be. It's very obvious it's supposed to play on your emotions and while we can argue back and forth if it was done better or worse.. those moments are in there.

I will argue that shutting down his dynamis experiment wasn't what pushed him over but it was Meteions report of hopelessness.

My whole point being that there are moments in there, well done or not, that were supposed to be sad or to evoke a fear of loss and they're pretty obvious.

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I never claimed that they weren't supposed to be, just that they did a poor job of evoking an emotional response, so people could be forgiven for ignoring their deaths considering how unimportant they were. Seeing the death of Generic Person #2021 is very easy to overlook in the grand scheme of things, even if you paid attention to the story.

As for the madman, considering that he was remorseful for having to put down a dangerous science experiment that was killing other creatures, I think he was always off his rocker and that attempting to shut down Meteion, despite her being an even more dangerous experiment, was what pushed him over the edge, with the report doing little more than reaffirming his decision to condemn the world. For someone that supposedly loved all life, he sure didn't hesitate to push us off that building to try and kill us, despite moments ago thanking us for showing him he wasn't alone in his sorrows. Think it really took away from his sundered form's motivation considering that his unsundered version was ultimately no different.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I never claimed that they weren't supposed to be, just that they did a poor job of evoking an emotional response, so people could be forgiven for ignoring their deaths considering how unimportant they were. Seeing the death of Generic Person #2021 is very easy to overlook in the grand scheme of things, even if you paid attention to the story.

As for the madman, considering that he was remorseful for having to put down a dangerous science experiment that was killing other creatures, I think he was always off his rocker and that attempting to shut down Meteion, despite her being an even more dangerous experiment, was what pushed him over the edge, with the report doing little more than reaffirming his decision to condemn the world. For someone that supposedly loved all life, he sure didn't hesitate to push us off that building to try and kill us, despite moments ago thanking us for showing him he wasn't alone in his sorrows. Think it really took away from his sundered form's motivation considering that his unsundered version was ultimately no different.

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Again, I'm not arguing good or bad. just present and apparent. If you're glazed over already for it all then fine, but again.. the stuff is there if you're paying any sort of attention, most markedly saying things like "what part of the story was supposed to be sad" is very much evidence of not paying attention AT all.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

It was pretty ho hum. I guess if your primary source of emotional drama is shounen anime then it might've seemed dark.

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Just like people who can't feel anything unless seeing main character died left and right must have grew up only watching Game of Throne?

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Because sadness is not an emotion exclusive to death? Not all of us are obssessed with seeing people dying in order to feel sad.

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You are correct but there was nothing sad. The most sad thing was what? Meteond that we know for 1h? I really can't see it.

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Originally Posted by SamsaraTrickstar

You are correct but there was nothing sad. The most sad thing was what? Meteond that we know for 1h? I really can't see it.

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I feel "powerful emotion", whether it has to be "sad" or not is up for debate. I'm not particularly playing a game looking to be sad (why would I!!??). The game only needs to make me "feel", convince me the story has a "soul", which it did plenty.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I don't it matter. That would be like saying since Thailand is a very devouted Buddhism country, and because Buddhism teaches enlightenment the people of Thailand must be more enlightened than other country ... Trust me, they are no more enlighten or less sinful than any others. The story did mentioned it, and you see even Maltia even when he was the one who reminded others of the teaching, he came almost to turning while chanting it. You're giving that culture too much credit I think.

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Ok, so by your logic the Role Quest make no sense because the areas that these take place, (Gridania, Doma, etc.) should all be completely free of despair but the role quests suggest otherwise. The primary difference though is that, these places have no knowledge of Dynamis as a separate force to Aether, whereas Thavnair has some mild knowledge on the subject and has at least tried to have something in place to help stem the tide of its influence. It's still the least likely location to have suffered from the events regardless of how you try to spin the narrative.

When your entire culture is dependant on trade, it's not a matter of want but of necessity to rebuild. Let's look at Hawaii. 89% of exports from Hawaii stem from small to medium businesses. When Covid shut down many of those locations, Hawaii was in a very bad spot financially, with many people jobless, businesses closed, etc. We're still suffering from a Pandemic but Hawaii is slowly recovering, attempting to reestablish itself because it has to in order to support itself. Thavnair is no different in that regard. Will some people lose hope? Sure, but would it be to the extent that Thavnair suffered? Not a chance.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

I know your thing.. is trolling.. or at least being "edgy".. but lots of people died who weren't the two girls in

Garlemald. I suppose what you'll say next is that they all were so inconsequential you forgot, but not only did people die, we saw someone basically lose his mind and go from the most empathetic caring creator to a nihilistic madman, a loyal and steadfast leader choosing suicide over accepting the truth or at least accepting the world had changed and he might still be able to contribute, someone else wade through grim knowledge they had and trying to rally their dying people while knowing it was mostly futile.. there was even a dungeon where we got to see very briefly a mother lose hope and turn into a monster right in front of her children who then follow.

There's a lot of depressing and sad moments in the story. Were you paying attention at all?

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Not trolling at all or people that are not think like you are trolls now? I find hardly any sad moments as most are non logical or related to characters we don't know for more that 5 Min.

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Originally Posted by SamsaraTrickstar

Not trolling at all or people that are not think like you are trolls now? I find hardly any sad moments as most are non logical or related to characters we don't know for more that 5 Min.

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I did add the "or being edgy". You cannot deny most of your posts are contrary or inflammatory.
I don't find I need to have a relation to a character to find empathy and therefore sadness or distress at their loss or threat to them. But everyone is different. So again, you can NOT feel sad. whatever. But if you go through the whole story and don't take the queues that parts were SUPPOSED to be sad, not even seeing the queues like.. I dunno.. every character in the cutscene is sad or talking about being sad.. Then that's on you, you probably skipped all the cutscenes when you realized the people in it weren't ones you "knew".

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Just because you weren't, doesn't mean they weren't supposed to be. It's very obvious it's supposed to play on your emotions and while we can argue back and forth if it was done better or worse.. those moments are in there.

I will argue that shutting down his dynamis experiment wasn't what pushed him over but it was Meteions report of hopelessness.

My whole point being that there are moments in there, well done or not, that were supposed to be sad or to evoke a fear of loss and they're pretty obvious.

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Buy that's what we say exactly. This moment was need to but did not.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I don't it matter. That would be like saying since Thailand is a very devouted Buddhism country, and because Buddhism teaches enlightenment the people of Thailand must be more enlightened than other country ... Trust me, they are no more enlighten or less sinful than any others. The story did mentioned it, and you see even Maltia even when he was the one who reminded others of the teaching, he came almost to turning while chanting it. You're giving that culture too much credit I think.





No ... unless you skip 2 MSG cutsceen ... they mentioned it front and center, it just doesn't have the super omnipotent effect you think it does.




Have you talked to any of the business owner that suffered during COVID? Once a business fail, there often no going back. And even if one can, many won't have the will to rebuild something that was built over decade from scratch. My grandfather was a very rich man, and he invested everything in a trade ship. That ship sunk and insurance was barely enough to cover liability so he didn't have to go to jail, but he lost everything. Many years later he admitted at one point he thought about renting a bus, put the whole family on it (about 15 people) and just drive it off the cliff. So yeah, I can totally relate to the feeling of the Thavnair's people.

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Sorry what? So you going to over look what don't fit your Narrative? You can just say even with all the plot hole I liked it. But you just.....
People that are devouted in Buddhism are more enlightened.they make not even 1% of the population. In 5he same time just because we fixed some bigger problems in older Citys don't mean there no small one any more. We made it so there no poor and reach? No crime? So there be people in disparity any where.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Just like people who can't feel anything unless seeing main character died left and right must have grew up only watching Game of Throne?

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No but for something to be sad you need emotional connection to the characters. Look at DBZ ,did you fell sad when any one was killed? No as you know they be well soon..now look at let's say made in abyss , thing there hit hard even when you know the main character won't be dead. But they get fucked up badly and nothing say they be ok. So no death is not the onlly way to make a story sad.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Ok, so by your logic the Role Quest make no sense because the areas that these take place, (Gridania, Doma, etc.) should all be completely free of despair but the role quests suggest otherwise.

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Except others and me had covered exactly that point about the role quest.

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Let's look at Hawaii. 89% of exports from Hawaii stem from small to medium businesses.

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I know I'm the one who brought up COVID, but that just to show recovering is not an instant process, or even possible for individual. But I doubt COVID is comparable to having a monster tower in front of your port, neither I doubt they have all the social safety net to protect them.

The point is:

- Final Day don't hit everyone at once.
- Final Day will hit the most vulnerable position first.
- Regardless how "not that bad" you think Thavniar is, relatively it's in a far worst position then the Eozea Alliance.

Thus, it simply makes sense it will be hit first.

Gotta be honest, the only moment I felt anything in the story was that talk with *redacted* on the bridge, they kept talking about how beautiful life is and the whole moment I was thinking "I wish I still felt like that".

I agree with the OP, this Expansion was, to me, a step-down in quality from SHB. I felt the dungeons were not as interesting and unlike the other expansions, I could feel the procedural formula with this expansion. Plus the duty parts of the MSQ were abysmal and felt like road blocks to slow down progression. The story was also disappointing, this the company that brought us FFVI, FFVIII, FFXI and FFX, the story felt like a real confusing EMO mess.

What the hell is happening in this thread. Why are we talking about Hawaii.

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Originally Posted by LisSquid

What the hell is happening in this thread. Why are we talking about Hawaii.

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I hear it's lovely this time of year to get away from the snow.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I hear it's lovely this time of year to get away from the snow.

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Stay away unless you like Rain and COVID. We are currently having the worst bouts of both we've seen in a while.

Endwalker was trying to be dark. Some times it did deliver this theme but when I look at it as whole it failed to be dark. I expected that at least some of main characters will die (I am not saying that I am dissapointed. I just expected that) and it would have a much bigger impact if it really happened.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I know I'm the one who brought up COVID, but that just to show recovering is not an instant process, or even possible for individual. But I doubt COVID is comparable to having a monster tower in front of your port, neither I doubt they have all the social safety net to protect them.

- Regardless how "not that bad" you think Thavniar is, relatively it's in a far worst position then the Eozea Alliance.

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How exactly is Thavnair worse off than virtually every other area?
The Tower? Got taken care of before virtually every other area of the world with the added bonus of kidnapping being stopped.
The Economy? We literally helped rebuild Ala Mhigo's entire economy from scratch with Nanamo. Are you telling me they got a solid economy up and running in that short a span of time when all Thavnair needed to do was reestablish their trade routes once again? That seems like something that would realistically take much less time than recreating an entire economy from scratch.

The truth is there wasn't a good reason for Thavnair to even be included as far as the narrative was concerned but it was shoehorned in anyways just to showcase the Final Days and nothing more. The entire zone was filler from start to finish just to pad out the expansion since nothing and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in that zone was needed to tell the story.

I thought it was but in the end.. not really...

SPOILER MSQ

The Thavnair parts really made it feel like we were about to see some proper destruction but in the end, it did not impact much and you didn't feel any danger outside of that region.

And MSQ continued with sacrifices that are not really sacrifices since you end up not really losing anyone from the main cast.

Pretty impressive that we manage to beat Zodiark, Hydaelyn, Zenos, go to the moon and to the outer space to fight the post powerful creature and lost no one along the way.

I think this is working as intended as far as the expansions getting progressively heavier in the emotional department.

We're progressing through a story that has essentially promised us we're going on a very challenging journey. There have always been very dark moments since ARR, but they were spread / paced further apart due to that being the beginning of the story. Heavensward showed us how deep the story could cut, but those deep cuts were few and far between with substantial build up. Then Stormblood was more exposition and story building following Heavensward's lead of build up + pay off. Shadowbringers understandably started speeding up the emotional payoff of a story about 6yrs in the making (Heavensward - Shadowbringers). This was a blueprint of the ultimate payoff, Endwalker.

Endwalker, naturally is our conclusion and thus many stories had to be concluded, pulled together, and ultimately paid off. EW is all expansions put together.

I can't promise this, but I'm expecting 6.x through 7.0 to have much more levity and far more adventure. Even the poem Yoshi wrote as his clue to us kind of hinted at that - we're taking off the heavy burden of our 10yr journey to start fresh a new adventure.

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As far as you mental health, I'm right there with you. I strongly suggest when you're feeling in the dumps, please take a break. Remember this is only a game, despite how attached we may be to these characters. Something that honestly made me feel way better about this game were some youtube shorts I saw that made the game look more like a production than it did a story of these fantasy lives - almost like it's like a big movie lol. It's silly, but it honestly took this massive weight off my shoulders. Maybe this will cheer you up :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CJ8...nel=FluffStuff her other videos are wonderful as well :)

It’s starting to remind me of Berserk now and I can’t complain :)

The only parts of EW i have found "dark and depressing" were Garlemald and Thavnir after the Final Days began. But the rest of the game is ... normal to me. And those "dark moments" the game always had.

Remeber when the Sultana was poisened and Raubahn loses his arm. Or in ShB when you know that you are a ticking bomb because the light can break out every time and turn you into an "Over-9000-sineater" etc. Or when Zenos and Fordola attack Rhalgr's Reach and kill almost everyone etc.

IMHO the story writers could be more brave and deliver really depressing stories.


Cheers

I would like to say to answer this thread a solid maybe. Because my brother started playing about 4 months ago; and endwalkers specifically was in his words "Making me chug the depresso espresso" so ive been doing msq w/ him by vibing near by while they watch things most of the time.

It is very clear in the writing when the team is making somethings softer to be less emotionally distressing... and thats not bad. Its reallllllly not bad. ACtually I think its quiet tactful. But as a person who consumes darker media often it could definately be alot uhhh more intense//dark//allthatjazz.

But on the scale of just ffxiv and what it has gave us so far, yes. yes fully agree the topic and my brothers take that it is super depresso espresso. >w<

Still a side note I want to mention but not as important to the thread just me being uhh waxing lyrical:
> I think this expansion finally is something I like more than my favorite (stormblood).

>They tackled difficult topics like loss, greif, powerlessness, the want to die, the want to live, depression, disability [[if you count the healer rolequest and death unto dawn]], and like a whole slew of challenging topics and not one of them did they shine a negative light on and for the most part I think they handled them with compassion and respect. Ive battled depression and some other ship my entire life and some of how theyve wrote these characters really speak to me! <3 <3 <3 :3

I do want to shout out- the Warrior of Light story.... that one hit me right in the feels.... and Emet... oh, Emet. I love Emet and no one can ever convince me he was bad.