Telling people to judge the story based off of what we were told rather than what they imagined we were told is not 'defending the story'.
The posters you are criticising have been been going off of what the story has told them - and so they're calling out the lazy retcons, blatant contradictions and weird attempts at the justification of genocide despite the story and characters within it insisting that such acts were an unforgivable red line that could never be crossed.
I mentioned this in the past in a different thread. Some players become so involved in FFXIV that any criticism of the game is interpreted as a personal attack on themselves and they lash out at the criticizer as a defense mechanism to protect their egos. That's precisely what we're seeing right now in this thread, but with someone who inadvertently admitted to it.
Can we pause the thread for a few minutes? I need to go make more popcorn.
I like the story at least from heavensward to shadowbringers. I don't like that they've been clearly sacrificing other aspects of the game for it in recent years though. Endwalker may as well have been a visual novel and it was so boring because of it. First time an expansion has felt like this to me.
It's pretty natural to be defensive when someone insults you by saying you have bad taste or your preferences are bad in an objective manner. Nearly everyone - easily 99% of the human population - reacts negatively to that insinuation.
You've probably done it yourself, possibly without recognizing it.
It would be really good if people could learn to discuss things they dislike without acting like they're objectively bad. It'd remove a lot of the defensiveness.
Great example of a way to prevent people from attacking your feedback right here: "I don't like" "felt like this to me"
And some specifics about the reasons why they felt that way.
And none of it is based off of made up stuff. Just... this is how I felt, this is why I felt that way. Not 'it sucks and you're bad for feeling that way'.
The funny thing is... I've never really seen anyone in that certain megathread or any other thread say or imply that those who enjoyed the story as whole are dumb or bad -- at most, people getting spicy about certain characters. If there were, they are quite few in number. Is all of this happening on the meteion site or elsewhere?
I've seen a lot of "you misinterpreted" "you misunderstood" "you just don't understand" "you're just a hater" "you just don't like that your faves didn't 'win'" against those who didn't like the story, however. And I've never seen this before Endwalker. Did anyone say that during, say, Stormblood? I was too busy actually enjoying the game and raiding with my friends and felt no need to vehemently defend anything.
There is also no shortage of posters like the one I was responding to, who will fly right out of gate with hostility and tell you your opinions are invalid while creating arbitrary criteria and hoops you must jump through for "acceptable" ways to phrase your opinions (which, let's face it, they will smack down anyway)... because apparently you must respect them because reasons. Almost as if it's pass-agg mindgames that are designed to bait and provoke you!
Also, I'm only now noticing this is a Titanwomen thread. No wonder.
Nah, I'm not. I'm saying people do. People are ASSUMING I did. But I haven't been upset this entire time.
People are making a lot of assumptions about my emotional investment in a forum thread. I can't prove them wrong so I'm not gonna bother making a huge deal out of that part of their insinuations. However since you asked relatively politely, I'll happily respond to you regarding it. No, I'm not emotionally invested. I don't feel attacked. I don't feel hurt. I am simply responding to peoples' comments as they come. If you were to REALLY take assessment of my emotional state, the comment that most accurately shows it is the 'did I just get troll bingo?' - I'm having fun. I enjoy forum discussions, even when they become vitriolic. It's amusement. Distraction from other stresses.
But I will say that it is perfectly natural for people to react negatively to those types of insinuations. Most people do it. Different people react differently to those types of insinuations, so not everyone explodes in rage... but it happens a lot more often than you may like to think.