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.