I hope the Writing doesn't remain like it did from Post 5.0 to Now (post 6.0)

I would be mostly okay with the whole Azem business if they weren't so intent on the "Azem is like you so we will dance around the subject of giving them any solid traits or even a gender" – doubly so when it comes between the very solid and not-you character of Ardbert also having Azem's soul, and Amon not identifying with Hermes despite having the same soul.

From those other cases we can extrapolate:
1. Being a shard of an ancient soul does not guarantee you will physically resemble the original bearer.
2. This is not just a difference between soul-shards from the Source and the reflections.
3. Being a shard does not make you the same person as the original.

So there is no need for Azem to be like our character, except in basic personality. It would be better to make them more of a distinct individual.

On a separate note, I don't particularly feel like I'm the chosen one because of Azem. It's convenient that we have personal connections back to all these plot-important characters but that isn't quite the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Instead, MMOs often go for a subtype of 'chosen people', where instead of you being one special guy, you're one of a collection of people who get some sort of elevated status, usually getting access to some central gameplay conceit like respawns or something, while not necessarily being some great hero of destiny. That's a decent way to say that yes, you're special, but only in the same way everyone else who's playing is; you're more special than the random pedestrian walking down the street, but not more special than the other players on the team with you. That's a pretty solid angle, actually, because it gives you that necessary access to the game's functions and 'special-ness' to say that yes, you are allowed to do all this special stuff, but still leaves your achievements to be your achievements; you didn't slay the dragon because you're the destined dragon-slayer, you slew the dragon because you worked at it, and you're someone who's trained the skills of slaying dragons.

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What irks me is that XIV was already in that direction, since the opening cutscene for ARR where the PC meets Hydaelin is pointed with two other generics going around the crystal receiving the same message. Implying that others are having their own adventures. This is further reinforced with the other adventuring parties around Sastasha, Copperbell, and Tam-Tara, where maybe you were lucky enough that your group DID clear the problem without dying or disbanding. Though the "chosen one" replacing the "chosen many" decision must've come early enough in the game considering the post-ARR patches already start the "super special Warrior of Light" narrative; from there we've had a lot of issues of "well, we'll poke fun that maybe your adventurer friends came on a fishing trip to the far east" and the MANY "which duties are we sure that we did solo/with companions?" threads.

It also, like Iscah mentioned, makes Azem themself kinda murky because they're in a weird spot of "we have a canon personality and idea of them and will mention how brave but also scatter-brained and a bit of a trickster they are" and "we can't and won't show or say [i]too[/] much about them because it may go against how players see themselves." Just take a trip through twitter to see just how many "This is my Azem, they're just like me" posts one can find.

The chosen one aspect itself doesn't really bother me. We've been the "Warrior of Light, Champion of Hydaelyn, Slayer of Eikons, etc..." since 2.0. As a plot device that's fine, especially since lore wise other players also have the Echo so it's not weird when you team up for primal fights, and such.

My sticking point is specifically with Azem. That feels like Destiny™. Like being the hero was inevitable, instead of being something you chose and worked for (and that's before you throw the Elpis time loop into the mix.) I feel like it limits the story and lessens the WoL as a character.

I would argue that is the "chosen one" aspect. In 2.0, yes, we're chosen by Hydaelyn, but to Cleretic and White's points, we're one of many. And remaining that way would've been preferable.

I agree that the notion of the WoL's exceptionalism is seeded even earlier than 2.x, but at least by that point, you can still try to argue that their accomplishments are their own, based on their own skill, their own merit. Cut to the Azem revelation, though, and suddenly it's all been predestined -- you're not just a cut above the chosen many, you're the chosen ONE. And even in an RPG with linear storytelling like this, the agency that suddenly robs the WoL of is frustrating. Which, to be fair, can be its own source of drama. But the writers aren't interested in allowing the player to rail against the idea in-game, or even to have an opinion to begin with lol.

Azem could have been easily tweaked if they tied it to how Hydaelyn’s many chosen were handled and if it used the very common “Inheritor of Will” trope when there is a Chosen One trope in play - to use a manga/anime that should be familiar right now: One Piece. Luffy is not the son of the Pirate King and the Will of D is shared across dozens of seemingly unrelated or at least possibly so distantly related as to be meaningless characters and his eating of the GumGumFruit was accidental. But he embodies the Joyboy spirit/working to fulfill prophecies without aiming too and his aim to be King of Pirates is directly mirroring Roger but that straw hat was passed down by a mentor-mentee chain. Therefore the destiny element of the story is still placed subservient to character choice and agency.

With the WoL inheriting Azem’s power only by the happenstance of birth, it undercuts the player character and also as said weakens the MMO. And because Azem isn’t allowed to be a complete character like Ardbert nor allowed to be a blank slate, it gets the worst of both decisions. What is set in stone is that Azem’s BFFs are two obnoxious characters in that of Hythlodaeus and Emet Selch, and at least for Emet there’s the most unpleasant personality that the game wants to come across as endearing instead of purposefully loathsome. Tsunderes aren’t bad for a character trope but they aren’t a universally loved trope type and Emet fails at making it endearing.

And that the Ancients are untenable as a MMO setting because of the nature of combat job/quest design (see Pandaemonium instantly rebuking the no voluntary peaceful deaths) and the narrowing of the origins of everything while being opaque on any origin or sense of history to the Ancients themselves with a boring shallow monolith of a world setting, and there’s just not a lot of interest or wiggle room for Azem to exist as a character.

And the only point of tying the WoL directly to Azem instead of being gifted a piece of their power or acknowledgment of the WoL as the new type of Azem for this era is because that sharing of soul is the only way that Emet’s bigotry would have an emotional connection to the WoL. It’s not actually necessary for any of the Elpis plot.

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

Just take a trip through twitter to see just how many "This is my Azem, they're just like me" posts one can find.

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To be fair, we're quite definitely told that Azem is indeed just like you, right down to some degree of appearance. IIRC it's ambiguous whether this is at a physical or aetherial level, but enough people are going to decide-or-interpret it as physical, and it's not like we have anything else to go on. If they share your gender, why not other attributes?

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Originally Posted by Iscah

To be fair, we're quite definitely told that Azem is indeed just like you, right down to down degree of appearance. IIRC it's ambiguous whether this is at a physical or aetherial level, but enough people are going to decide-or-interpret it as physical, and it's not like we have anything else to go on. If they share your gender, why not other attributes?

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For minor clarification there: it's not 'right down to appearance' for some. That's the description given if you're hyur or elezen (I think roegadyn but I'd have to check, and I won't). With more beastlike races they don't make that comment, and with lalafel I believe the implication is that you look similar but are way smaller. Our aether's always the same, but our physical appearance might not be.

I think the shared gender is sort of a functional conceit. I've mentioned this in other threads, but Ardbert gets some metatextual help to pass on the 'this is you' message, because he's clearly 'The Trailer WoL'; he has the one static design that actually can be recognized as the WoL. Most of us can immediately recognize that as the reference being made, so when they take that from being a wink-nudge reference in 3.x into the more literal in 5.0, it sells. But Azem doesn't appear in person (and I would argue probably can't for a few reasons), so they need to sell that in a lot of non-physical ways. That means them having the same gender, and it means being described in pretty similar ways to how others would describe us. And they need to sell that approach in every way they can, because if they leave a single way for Azem to be Not Like Us, then people will inevitably reject it through that, and that's the last thing they want.

...which, unfortunately, means that Azem comes off as sort of a 'can do no wrong' perfect figure that everyone loves (except for the one guy we're meant to hate), because they're written too vaguely to have negative character traits. I don't want to describe them as a Mary Sue, because that term's been warped into meaninglessness by certain corners of the internet and doesn't really function for official, canon characters anyway, so I'm instead going to call them a Ferris Bueller.

I can see the writing is off kilter for much of the post 6.0 msq quests. It wasn't like shadow bringers at all. Hydalen had her reasons for the sundering. It probably would of end up of running out of sacrifices or aether if they stuck with zodiark's plan. The best choice out of a bad situation. My beef is with the void quests this expansion and the seemingly disconnect on what we know so far about voidsent and thirteenth. From what i have gather the voidsent do not eat each other though maybe diablolos ate scatach. They are only so many of them and aether is a prob on the thirteenth. But that alone is there motivation not restore there mortality. Even if they invanded the source, its going to take more that stealing everyone's aether to restore their mortality.

I truly wish the person that did the blm questline and the void ark raids and questline had done these void adventures.

I think its obvious at this point endwalker was sidelined due to ff16. They got their work cut out for them for dawntrail(lamest name ever) The only good news is the blm questliner is set to do dawntrails msq. So he knows what hes doing.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

I truly wish the person that did the blm questline and the void ark raids and questline had done these void adventures.

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I have good news! Unfortunately, you're not gonna like it.

Yeah I'll be honest with you,

Endwalker was probably the worst of the story expansions. I really just flat out did not enjoy the story much except at small points. There was just sooo much cringe in this one that even went beyond the kind you saw in ARR the original. The Climax was pretty engaging with the ending of the Meteion arc, but... so much in between was either flat out boring or just cringe worthy. And as much as I loved the Shadowbringers expansion, which really had a very mature story... the reality is, it really almost completely re-wrote the Ascians into something they never were or were intended to be. Now they are screwed with the Meteion arc which comes out of nowhere because it was originally supposed to be the Ascians who did those things.

You can clearly see in ARR and Heavensward the Ascians were supposed to be attached to the Void or emptiness. They were the bad guys working with the Voidsent to devour the world. This played itself out in all of the after stories and alliance raids of those two. Hell they even hosed it in the Endwalker where Zodiark actually looks more like a Demon or Voidsent, not some Eikon or Primal created by what was originally in the new story line the "peace loving" Ascians.

Not only did Endwalker hose up the original story... but on top of that it really just wasn't that terribly exciting to play through other than the end run.

I didn't start feeling like I was even playing a Final Fantasy game until the afterstory with the Voidsent.
And even then they still threw in so much cringe it was annoying at times. This constant "need for emotional reinforcement and support" or "rah rah" you can do it stuff was even more overdone in Endwalker as a whole, than it was in the ARR. All it really did was make the many of the important characters look weak and insecure. It's fine to do it on occasion, but god it was almost every other conversation.