[FEEDBACK] Criticism Myths of the Realm Story (SPOILERS!!!)

Please do not read this if you're worried about spoilers.


Just a disclaimer - I'm a relic 1.x beta player for FFXIV. I'm a huge supporter of Yoshi P and the entire XIV Dev team. I do not hate the state of the game and I'm thoroughly enjoying the changes made (especially smn / ast). However, I want to provide feedback regarding the new 24-man alliance raid story, Myths of the Realm. Also, if I'm misunderstanding anything or I missed a crucial detail along the way - please correct me.

Feedback: The story was terrible. Please do better.

Breakdown:

1. Pacing: The entire story could have been told in the first HALF of the introduction to the raid. Stretching out the story so thin was ridiculous and extremely frustrating. Most of us called Deryk's identity at the beginning, we all ALREADY KNEW Venat had her own council of 13 (told to us in the ShB dungeon), and although very fun and nostalgic to visit their "shrines," the road trip didn't add anything else to the story than the information they had already given us. There was SO MUCH repetition of information - YES I KNOW PRAYERS AND FAITH SHAPED YOU ALL STOP TELLING ME!! Probably the most frustrating part was how the writing disrespected my intelligence and time with that repetition - an issue I've not seen much of in the previous XIV writing.

2. Predictability: There's a grey area of following breadcrumbs a writer lays out for their viewer to enjoy and just blatantly following a cliché to the letter. I was able to predict at the very beginning of the story they were all going to sacrifice themselves. I know this is ENDwalker, not Beginningwalker, or Continuingwalker - but the whole trope of "We're tired of being dieties and want to have a noble sacrifice" was so exceptionally anticlimatic and rushed. 2 patches we were given - our motives are a secret! then suddenly we're rushed through - FIGHT US WE WANT TO DIE! There was no build up, no bonding, nothing but just a disappointing ending of one of the greatest mysteries of Eorzea (at least for me as a 1.x player - the 12 were a huge part of the story with Louisioux).

3. The ending wasn't satisfying: Due to the poor pacing and predictability of the story, the sudden reveal of the prayer machine was not satisfying and honestly pretty uncreative. Their statements were so wishy-washy I don't even know what the point was to give their aether back. Apparently this machine will gather prayers and send them to the lifestream where their essences will still hear them? But they also won't exist anymore so we'll be sad. Yeah, this makes no sense.

Suggestions: In my personal opinion, a better way to have handled this story would've been to blow the mystery at the beginning and focused on the struggle Deryk was having with leaving Eorzea. So, the first patch would've introduced the 12 and explained they have a plan, but they're not ready to share. The second patch would've revealed that they want to return their Aether, and return to the lifestream - however, Deryk (revealed as Oschon) is showing signs of doubt. They still want to continue to show us the shrines and how much they love the realm - which is why they want to give their aether back so vehemently. We still have 2 realms left and it ends on a cliffhanger. The third patch would've showed Deryk becoming resolute and cutting off our friendship for a farewell and goes to prepare the ending. We ourselves go to the watcher to better understand what is going on, return to continue the fights, and have a more fufilling story ending with the surprise of Deryk returning. This isn't perfect and 100% could be improved, but I would've preferred a more emotional journey with Deryk than what we got. Another idea could've been we get to explore who they were in the past after each fight - this would've been similar to Pandaemonium though.

Conclusion: I know Yoshi wants to give new writers bigger opportunities for quests and stories in the game, that's not bad. What was bad was focusing SO much attention to FFXVI that they let this incredible 10th anniversary raid story fall flat like a whimper instead of going out with a bang. Please keep a closer eye on the story and continue to respect your player's time and intelligence like you have done for the most part of 10yrs. This raid story is an example of one of the worst raid stories in the game so far. Please do better for Dawntrail.

Agreed with all of the above. I somehow managed to dislike this raid's writing worse than the NieR raids.

It has the same issues the msq suffered from this patch cycle, slow pacing and constant reiteration of already very digestible themes and issues. Just feels like the writers lack confidence in themselves, their ideas AND the audience. Worse for the AR storyline is the fact that it only served to be reductive to the world at large because it's just stripped every aspect of faith and mythology from the whole world and replaced it with.... a thoughtless automatic machine.

I enjoyed it. Torn a bit on the ending but overall I thought it was a nice story.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

It has the same issues the msq suffered from this patch cycle, slow pacing and constant reiteration of already very digestible themes and issues. Just feels like the writers lack confidence in themselves, their ideas AND the audience. Worse for the AR storyline is the fact that it only served to be reductive to the world at large because it's just stripped every aspect of faith and mythology from the whole world and replaced it with.... a thoughtless automatic machine.

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You should've made the OP instead of me LOL! You basically summarized exactly how I felt. The writing is so poor this post patch. I thought the raid was really fun, but the entire time I just kept saying to myself "They're going to kill themselves... this is so stupid..."

12,000 years babysitting the mankind. If it were me, I would have wanted to fade away after 20 years.

The point you completely missed in your review is the reason the storyteller did this:

Now there is not "mommy Hydaelin, wealthy old scholars, ancient gods snapping their fingers or ancient dragons with removable eyes" protecting the humanity anymore.
No more crystals, no more blessing, nothing.
The only ancient magic still working is the Azem crystal.


In short there aren't "deus ex machina" anymore.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

12,000 years babysitting the mankind. If it were me, I would have wanted to fade away after 20 years.

The point you completely missed in your review is the reason the storyteller did this:

Now there is not "mommy Hydaelin, wealthy old scholars, ancient gods snapping their fingers or ancient dragons with removable eyes" protecting the humanity anymore.
No more crystals, no more blessing, nothing.
The only ancient magic still working is the Azem crystal.


In short there aren't "deus ex machina" anymore.

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I agree! Even though I'm tired of the "We're tired so we're going to die" trope (it's been used a lot - and to a much more fulfilling standard throughout Endwalker), I don't think it was necessarily the wrong story to tell (even if I would've preferred a different one). It made sense. I'm more frustrated with HOW they told that story. The repetition, lack of genuine worldbuilding/character bonding, and the horrible pacing was really what made this story rotten. I get the ancients want a rest - totally reasonable. However, the replacement machine was also a gut punch. We've had this very rich and storied world with incredible mysteries and beautiful characters to explore replaced with... a machine.

Hades, Hythlodeus, and Venat told this story so much better. They could've done something different or better with Myths of the Realm.

I picked the dialog choice saying the monkey was Oschon expecting it to be a funny choice since it was extremely obviously Deryk at that point, but instead he's just like "No it's not" and it's the most disappointed I've been with a dialogue choice since pre-Shadowbringers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

12,000 years babysitting the mankind. If it were me, I would have wanted to fade away after 20 years.

The point you completely missed in your review is the reason the storyteller did this:

Now there is not "mommy Hydaelin, wealthy old scholars, ancient gods snapping their fingers or ancient dragons with removable eyes" protecting the humanity anymore.
No more crystals, no more blessing, nothing.
The only ancient magic still working is the Azem crystal.


In short there aren't "deus ex machina" anymore.

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Psst. The dragons are still around. Hraesvelgr is still very much alive, as are at least two of his siblings. Their father is also alive in a sense, and it's implied he'll be able to return to full physical form somewhere down the line. Will it be within the WoL's lifespan? Probably not, but Midgardsormr will be back.

I might also argue the WoL themselves is a deus ex machina of sorts. They've made that character far too powerful, doubly so since we learned Venat was never actually giving them power. Barring certain rather blatant exceptions (such as the aforementioned removable dragon eyes and one instance early in the story of Venat actually lending power beyond just the traveler's ward), the WoL's feats are for the most part indeed their own. They possess a level of aether far beyond that of their peers, display a far-above-normal ability to utilize Dynamis, and are shown on numerous occasions to have far above normal physical capabilities. Their identity as a shard of Azem is implied to be the source of all these abnormal abilities.

I definitely think that dragons will be playing a large part in the next expansion. However, I don't think it was necessary to completely gut the entire mythos of Eorzea to do it. Again, we're in ENDwalker, and I understand why, but the way the did it just really left me more annoyed and disappointed than I have been in any other raid series (Nier was equally frustrating storywise, but considering the source material I had expected crazy from the beginning).

EDIT: Also, just finishing up the main story now, any time anyone says "Thank the twelve" I just roll my eyes... yes, thank the machine that willl blah blah blah /sigh - did not realize I would still be annoyed. I think I need to go touch some grass lol