When are the Scions gonna get the memo...

Ah, I think I see the confusion here. When I said all that, I didn't mean, go back to level 1. Quite the opposite.

You start out wherever the Tomb of Light is (probably Mor Dhona) in a cut scene where you approach your own tomb, and then the soul crystals light up and you are recognized (ICly) as one of several adventurers to have been fortunate to inherit that legacy, you might even see an NPC later go through the same thing. You retain your crafting skills.

So, when the next Crafter Quest comes up you go to the guild and they go, "Welcome to the guild! I can see by your equipment and hands/posture/whatever that you're no stranger to our craft. We'd love a sample of your work." Turn in obligatory item. "Incredible! A true Master! We haven't seen craftsmanship this amazing since we lost a dear friend."

As for the various NPCs, like I said, it would be a more organic thing in developing friendships, but all sharing the same factor in that you, 'Remind them of someone.' They can't put the finger on who, but those connections formed partially supersede the mind wiping of Hydaelyn, to the point those NPCs want you to be their friend.

As for losing all the recognition and fame and accolades, yeah, you're not getting that back. The whole point of being freed from the mantle of Warrior of Light is to escape all that to begin with I imagine.

Nope... for me the msq is actually a sidequest in my characters life... an event not the totality... for my character being WoL isn't a burden but a blessing... granting me access to more challenges and adventures... I'm an adventurer first and savior second... all the things my character has done was of his own volition... the npcs may perceive my actions as morally imperative or self sacrificing but that's just their views... I'm in it to win it... all of it...

@Vexander: Oh sorry didnt mean to sound like we go back to 1 or something but more along the line that they just simply dont know that you are talented. And yes we could just show them how good we are but we also got a lot of the new tasks because they trusted us and this trust would be gone. And if they dont remember us anymore I am not sure if they would remember us as a dear friend. (I mean if they dont know the faces anymore the memory wipe would be big, so shouldnt they have lost all the memories of us too? Or at least they will just see a light instead of a person so not sure if that will create a good feeling)

About friendship: But that would mean that lots of quests would needed for all of these NPCs we know since you still need time to grow a friendship. All of this will take away from other adventures we could do in the new lands. And it would not feel like a honest friendship for me because they are already influenced by old feelings so its not even a true fresh start. Also everyone sees their WoL in a different light anyway. Maybe some dont even see them as friends and feel just forced to create a friendship again, some others already saw them as honest friends and dont understand why it was even necessary and some might like it that way. Still there are so many NPCs in the game that we know and so many different ways they can be liked and I cant see how they would do this without disappointing someone. For example if you created a friendship with a more minor side character and this character is way too minor for SE to give them a quest line, you will kinda lose the friendship with that person because they cant remember you. Yes you could make your own head cannon where you will just create a friendship with them again but this is not shown ingame thus they will always just treat you as a stranger that somehow might feel familiar.

And at the same time you will have lots of people that love to play a hero because they like feeling important. And you do a lot for these Eorzean people and sacrifice a lot too only to become a nobody again. So you did all the work and will never get the recognition for it that you deserve. I already feel like the WoL has to do the highest amount of work but gets barely any recognition for this, and with a memory wipe this would be even worse. And this would be after defeating the big bad so you would have saved billions of lives and yet nobody would thank you. At the same time we would remember everything (good and bad). At least for me this does not feel like getting rid of the burdens and starting anew, it feels more like still having the painful memories of going through all of this, having nobody of your friends recognize you (and lets be real, its not a given that we would be friends again because we created some bonds through fights like Bahamut and made them stronger later) and you still have the burdens of having to kill primals because you have the ability to do so. And on top of that it would make our whole life in Eorzea less comfortable too. I mean we got a lot of services and stuff because we did those things, realistically we should lose all of that because nobody would know that we saved the world countless of times. (We should lose all of our retainer licenses, the flying licenses, our ranks in the city states and more. Also realistically none of the retainers should give us our stuff back because they dont know us and they only know that their old master/employer is death. This just opens up a lot of reworks, lore bending or plot holes to let it work.)

I dont want to put your ideas down and say that they are wrong or that SE would never do this but for me this would be kind of a bad ending and would feel like all the stuff we did and all the friends we got are for nothing. I see no reason to do this, simply because if its after Zodiark is killed, the biggest burden should be gone. We then should be able to tell everyone that we will go and do some other adventures and we could also use our status for a lot of things.

@Alleo To hells with the services and the sycophants!

I don't want to have this ridiculous moniker define my character forever. Because at times it feels like she's artificial, not someone who lives and breathes in the same world as the rest. If that were truly affirmed by the story I'd honestly feel cheated. Choices and deeds since then has felt artificial since 2.0, and short of no longer being the Warrior of Light, I'm not sure how to get that back.

@kallera: I do agree that the WoL often feels artificial but that is probably because she is a blank character. At least in single player games like Dragon age your character can be formed by your own choices (how you behave to NPCs, how you react in certain situations) even if there are defined endings. But here in FF14 there is simply one ending and one way to play this game thus we cant make choices that feel like this is our character. At the same time they give us more sentences that might show some character but since its still one story they cant truly act on it. You cant say no to the war because even if the sentence is there, you choosing it, will not affect anything. SE also starts to give the WoL a bit of their own character which might also clash with how we see them. (I would have never tried to hit the youngest Fortemp for example)

With that you will have people that hate a certain NPC and yet are still forced to be friends with them. So I can understand the want to break chains with them but in the end this will change nothing. You will just start in the new country and just start to be forced to do certain tasks again and to befriend certain NPCs again. At the same time such a decision could anger a lot of people. Because until we defeat Zodiark we will probably befriend even more NPCs. So people might lose this bond to someone they truly like as a character and may not get a quest to get this friendship back.

I am just not sure if there are enough players in this game that would be fine with such a new start. It is SEs story to be told so we have to go on their ride, if we want it or not, but I am not sure if they would choose that kind of ride for us. (Simply because it also opens way to many plotholes like retainers, housing, beast man rangs and more) But I do wish that we might get back to being a bit of a normal adventurer again sometimes because defeating one big threat after the other will get a bit boring after a bit but at the same time I am not sure if you can really create an interesting main story line without that. But we will see.