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

On my end, I don't particularly care if a character or faction does 'bad' things. I just loathe it when there's no consistency. If something is portrayed as being unforgivable when the antagonists do it, then it shouldn't be excused when the protagonists do the very same thing. Mysteriously there's always an excuse as to why exceptions have to be made which just leads me to not give a damn about all the preachy sophistry.

The fact that not a single character directly calls out Venat is proof enough that it's not worth paying attention to whatever the game tries to pass off as 'morality' because the moment a 'fan favourite' does a terrible thing it'll be excused.

Though I don't look to video games to reinforce my moral compass in the first place. I just want a cool story that makes sense and doesn't require me to be expected to go 'oOh MoMmY' and turn off my brain.

Again, no disagreement on hypocrisy. Like Kizuya said, all the factions are bad people. But the choice is going to be either "make as many of these factions as we can less bad" (FFXIV logic) or "support the bad people you like" (Skyrim/DA logic).

Or both (Endwalker logic).

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Originally Posted by RedaAlert

who play off facts and logic, and facts don't care much for your personal feelings or wishes

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Good thing I never claimed that they do - much as they don't particularly care for yours, either.

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I don't need to offer evidence and stats, this here is a venting forum, people offer their criticism and their dislikes, but this forum is not the only source of information you can get from the fanbase about how they view certain elements of the game.

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Hardly a revelation. I am well aware of the polling etc. done. It's still just indicative of certain subsections of the community... but since you're not trying to make the claim that it is a majority of the playerbase we're talking about, there is nothing further to discuss on that point.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I think the story is suffering a bit in the hands of Natsuko Ishikawa. She seems to like to bring us to emotional lows with ultimately happy endings and our close friends (Scions) never seem to be in real danger in her hands. Now I am not saying she is a bad writer. She made me care about the people in the world of FFXIV a lot and that's huge. Caring about the people makes me care about the story.

But it's time to let some Banri Oda influence seep back in. He had great world building and wasn't afraid to kill characters. A balance between them would be ideal. Oda to threaten the characters and build out the world, Ishikawa to make me care by writing said characters and establishing their motives. Maybe with more Oda the Final Days would have felt more apocalyptic.

I think there was some knee jerk reaction against killing characters after Heavensward and that was fair at the time, honestly. If we'd kept killing off NPCs like that we would be in the opposite situation, where we don't dare care about anyone and deaths have lost any emotional impact.

As for G'raha I like him a lot. He's not my favorite character but he's fun. Some of the issue with him is his energetic enthusiasm can make it hard to remember he's hundreds of years old and ran a society.

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I agree with this. I have a strong bias for solid world-building over character-centric stories, if I am honest, and I think Oda does the former better. I am not sure to what degree EW is really reflective of Ishikawa's work, as there seems to be a myriad of factors which compromised the quality, but I'll say I preferred the sort of tension-laden writing that Maehiro brought to life in HW.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's not, though. Someone isn't supporting murder by joining the Dark Brotherhood in an Elder Scrolls game. They're not supporting incest by rooting for Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. Fiction is fiction. Something people immerse themselves in temporarily and I daresay the fondly looked upon 'majority' of people don't overanalyse such scenarios to the same degree as those who declare everything to be an 'issue'.

It just sucks out a lot of the fun out of fictional settings as far as I'm concerned. Much like it did when people who played World of Warcraft attacked people for liking the 'wrong' playable races or faction.

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Quite - or playing the Sith in Star Wars games. It's just a fun form of escapism. Doesn't mean I support everything the character does - and at least, unlike with Venat, there isn't this restriction in how you can respond as your character to their actions, or this pretence that the actions were unambiguously good.

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Originally Posted by RedaAlert

First I never said he was loved by the majority, and my guy, hate him if you want I don't care, and if you want to believe all I said was a lie do so, but I am someone who play off facts and logic, and facts don't care much for your personal feelings or wishes, his CGI art that was posted on twitter is literally the most liked tweet that cursed twitter had, what do you expect people's reaction to a character who is affectionate to them?, I am someone that literally don't care whether he is in or out, but he is massively loved, I don't need to offer evidence and stats, this here is a venting forum, people offer their criticism and their dislikes, but this forum is not the only source of information you can get from the fanbase about how they view certain elements of the game.

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It really is pretty hefty copium to pretend that G'raha isn't the most well-liked Scion by a pretty decent margin. How could he not be? He had one of the strongest character arcs in one of the most consistently well-written parts of the story. It's the same reasons Emet-Selch was so loved. An expansion of lukewarm characterization doesn't erase anything that came prior. He wasn't at all made meaningfully worse by EW, especially if you actually paid attention to his character in ShB. He just wasn't made better like, say, Estinien and Alisae were.

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

It really is pretty hefty copium to pretend that G'raha isn't the most well-liked Scion by a pretty decent margin. How could he not be? He had one of the strongest character arcs in one of the most consistently well-written parts of the story. It's the same reasons Emet-Selch was so loved. An expansion of lukewarm characterization doesn't erase anything that came prior. He wasn't at all made meaningfully worse by EW, especially if you actually paid attention to his character in ShB. He just wasn't made better like, say, Estinien and Alisae were.

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He had a strong arc sure, but a lot of people were turned off from him after 5.3 once he was demoted to nothing more than a character worshipper and slice of life character. It’s subjective in the end i suppose, i certainly thought EW just focused on his worst parts and tried to pander to the twitter crowd by giving him countless adorable moments like “haha catboy eats borger drooollll.”

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

It really is pretty hefty copium to pretend that G'raha isn't the most well-liked Scion by a pretty decent margin. How could he not be? He had one of the strongest character arcs in one of the most consistently well-written parts of the story. It's the same reasons Emet-Selch was so loved. An expansion of lukewarm characterization doesn't erase anything that came prior. He wasn't at all made meaningfully worse by EW, especially if you actually paid attention to his character in ShB. He just wasn't made better like, say, Estinien and Alisae were.

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All I see is people saying they don't like the character for their own reasons. And there's existing fans of his here also who are claiming they dislike the trajectory he took as of 5.4.

So do explain whose "copium" this is?

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

It really is pretty hefty copium to pretend that G'raha isn't the most well-liked Scion by a pretty decent margin. How could he not be? He had one of the strongest character arcs in one of the most consistently well-written parts of the story. It's the same reasons Emet-Selch was so loved. An expansion of lukewarm characterization doesn't erase anything that came prior. He wasn't at all made meaningfully worse by EW, especially if you actually paid attention to his character in ShB. He just wasn't made better like, say, Estinien and Alisae were.

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Sadly people highlight the bad more than the good with characters, while I didn't like his 5.4 or 5.5 versions, his 6.0 character, for me, was phenomenal, he and only HE (honorable mention: estinien) was the most reliant and competent out of ALL the scions saving dozens of people repeatedly, he had many badass moments in EW, moments that was highlighted in the whole expansion, during ultima thule, while that zone is a subject of controversy, his speech where he project the thought experiment of the "ship of theseus" unto himself was also phenomenal, the only civilization among all we dealt with that looked convinced by what is being offered were the omicron.

But oh nyo he ate a boorger and had sparkly eyes for 30 seconds, bad character > : (

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I know poaching angers the Elementals but there are characters that dislike not just poaching but Moon Keepers in general. The gal in the Archer's guild wasn't a poacher, she was doing her best, but was still treated badly. Foulques broke the rules, but so did others and they used him as a scapegoat BECAUSE he was a Duskwight which is pretty blatantly racist.

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In the first case you mistake two things. First the Moon Keeper Archer Gal isn't treated badly by entire guild but by a single person. In contrast the Guildmaster showed nothing but support to her. It was also less of racism and more of harmful stereotype that sadly had solid grounding in reality. And yes there's a difference. People from my country used to or naybe even still have a terrible opinion as tourists. Sadly it's well deserved one. Long story short she's a victim of bad reputation her race sadly worked hard to deserve

Foulques case though... I didn't feel it had strong racial subtext. As far as I remember his retelling of the story he and his friends broke the rules. When everyone in the guild got questioned he, taking the teachings of Lancer's courage to heart, stepped forward admitting to his guilt expecting that hus friends would do the same. Ultimately that felt less as a racism (although stereotypes about Duskwight were present) and more about hypocrisy of his friends and colleagues that when presented with choice would chose "cowardice" to save their own hides.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

He had a strong arc sure, but a lot of people were turned off from him after 5.3 once he was demoted to nothing more than a character worshipper and slice of life character. It’s subjective in the end i suppose, i certainly thought EW just focused on his worst parts and tried to pander to the twitter crowd by giving him countless adorable moments like “haha catboy eats borger drooollll.”

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I think that, despite the fawning, he retained most of his competency and agency in EW, so it's not as egregious as it could be. His post 5.3 characterization wasn't that bad either because it was pretty clear that he was just getting used to finally being able to be who he was all along.

However, as I said, several of the Scions were actually benefitted by EW in some pretty significant ways, so it's definitely unfortunate that the new guy didn't get as much focus. They could've easily done a lot more for him, but they didn't.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I agree with this. I have a strong bias for solid world-building over character-centric stories, if I am honest, and I think Oda does the former better. I am not sure to what degree EW is really reflective of Ishikawa's work, as there seems to be a myriad of factors which compromised the quality, but I'll say I preferred the sort of tension-laden writing that Maehiro brought to life in HW.

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I think it is pretty reflective of Ishikawa's work, and not necessarily in a bad way. She's extremely good at making characters likable and emphasizing their humanity and a lot of EW's problems were born from the fact that she seemed to try too hard to make too many characters likable. She just bit off more than she could chew. Imagine how much easier the Sundering would've been to swallow if Ancient society was, at its core, nearly as unpleasant as the Garlean society was. It wouldn't have been morally justified but it wouldn't have been as bad as the whole "throwing away a perfect society for bad reasons" thing.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

All I see is people saying they don't like the character for their own reasons. And there's existing fans of his here also who are claiming they dislike the trajectory he took as of 5.4.

So do explain whose "copium" this is?

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It's copium from the people who pretend he's not as popular as he is.

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Originally Posted by RedaAlert

Sadly people highlight the bad more than the good with characters, while I didn't like his 5.4 or 5.5 versions, his 6.0 character, for me, was phenomenal, he and only HE (honorable mention: estinien) was the most reliant and competent out of ALL the scions saving dozens of people repeatedly, he had many badass moments in EW, moments that was highlighted in the whole expansion, during ultima thule, while that zone is a subject of controversy, his speech where he project the thought experiment of the "ship of theseus" unto himself was also phenomenal, the only civilization among all we dealt with that looked convinced by what is being offered were the omicron.

But oh nyo he ate a boorger and had sparkly eyes for 30 seconds, bad character > : (

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Absolutely. That one scene in Thavnair was enough to show that he wasn't really that much different from how he used to be, he just didn't get enough focus outside of that and Ultima Thule.

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

I think it is pretty reflective of Ishikawa's work, and not necessarily in a bad way. She's extremely good at making characters likable and emphasizing their humanity and a lot of EW's problems were born from the fact that she seemed to try too hard to make too many characters likable. She just bit off more than she could chew. Imagine how much easier the Sundering would've been to swallow if Ancient society was, at its core, nearly as unpleasant as the Garlean society was. It wouldn't have been morally justified but it wouldn't have been as bad as the whole "throwing away a perfect society for bad reasons" thing.

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I'm not sure that's the sole problem. She was nervous about concluding the story within 6.0, and had thought it may go on to 7.0 and beyond; Yoshi ultimately made the decision to conclude it in 6.0. I'd like to think given more expansions to work through, without so many threads to conclude at once, she'd do a better job. As for the ancients, with how the story went to great lengths to portray their society as idyllic in many ways, I am glad they did not try backtrack on that by canonising the crypto-dystopia some were wishing for ever since SHB. You'd think they were the Allagans with how some people received them... or the Steppes or Ul'dah or Mhach, for that matter.

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It's copium from the people who pretend he's not as popular as he is.

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I think it's more a case of some people growing tired of said popularity being used as a reason to dismiss their own dissatisfaction with the character but also questioning some of the stronger claims being made about the extent of it - I'll take it as uncontroversial that he's the most popular of the Scions. I have to admit, I don't care for him one way or another. If the story gave me the option to bench him and take someone else, I would - maybe even Zenos. His popularity, one way or another, makes no difference to me in that sense.