[Feature Request] Pass the torch to the next team (spoilers)

The following are my opinions. Agree with them? Great! drop a note. Disagree with them? Great! explain why. These are suggestions, and they’re not meant to represent everyone’s opinions.

The team behind Final Fantasy XIV no longer takes risks because they don’t want to kill their goose and golden eggs. Ironically, doing so has killed the franchise slowly.

It’s time for new leadership—e.g. Yoshi P, Natsuko Ishikawa—for the next 3 expansions, until the next Final Fantasy MORPG. (I know Natsuko wasn’t the Dawntrail head writer, but she was still involved as senior story designer.)

For at least a few expansions, the types of content has been extremely repetitive. The story, which to me and many others is the main draw, has been bad. I would argue that this has been the case at least since Meteion was introduced.

The next 3 expansions could be better than the first 4 expansions, and the first new expansion didn’t have to be bad. I would find the following arc more interesting than the first 4 expansions (Heavensward to Endwalker), and it would fix a number of narrative mistakes:

Expansion 1:

- New zone (1): Another part of Eorzea gets overwritten in the source by the Heritage Found reflection (12th?). e.g. a new zone next to Mor Dhona

- New zone (2): Part of the 1st's reflection is overwritten by the 13th’s reflection. e.g. a new zone south of Amh Araeng.

- In the World Unsunderred, the crew find that an aetherial imbalance between reflections is causing them to collapse into each other, killing the inhabitants of the overwritten world.

- The cause is the death of Primals. Primals consume aether and maintain a balance in aether. An aether overflow in a reflection causes the reflection to merge with another.

- The merging of reflections is the reason that monsters are above level 90 now. (i.e. why you were the most powerful after Endwalker, but not you’re facing stronger foes)

- Zero has assembled a crew of Warriors of Darkness with some monsters in Zone (2), and she is killing Primals on the 13th. The crew determines that Zero has to be stopped.

- You fight Zero and Golbez. They both have new forms (Paladin and new job, e.g. Viper)

- New zone (3): A new zone from the 13th is overwritten in the 1st

- You fight to protect 2 Primals in the zone (3) from the Warriors of Darkness

- The 13th collapses (disappears) and creates a new zone in the 1st reflection.

- You fight Zero and the Warriors of Darkness in a penultimate battle

- During the battle two main characters (e.g. Alphinaud and Krile) die.

- You expect these characters to come back because of the Echo. The Echo power is gone, and these characters are gone for good.

(Patches)

- Mourning

Expansion 2:

- The crew regroups and allies with Zero and the Warriors of Darkness, whom have now lost their world

- The crew confers with the World Unsundered and Venat

- The loss of echo powers comes from the death of Hydaelyn (in the future from the World Unsundered)

- 2 New Zones: A reflection is overwritting another reflection again (e.g. the 4th is overwritting the 7th)

- You find that the root cause is a reflection of Zodiark. In Endwalker, you defeated a weakened, sundered Zodiark. Zodiark reflections still exist in all reflections.

- You fight a Zodiark reflection from the 13th

- 2 New Zones: A reflection is overwritting another reflection again (e.g. the 9th is overwritting the 2th)

- The reason the reflections are merging is because Zodiark is consuming Primals. Each reflection that collapses unifies and strengthens Zodiark.

- You find out that Zodiark has consumed Hydaelyn

- You fight Zodiark, who is much stronger after 3 collapses of reflections

Expansion 3:

- Your focus is to save remaining Primals and kill Zodiark and isolate the reflections into worlds that can no longer interact

- This is the end of MSQ content. Pass the reins to the next Final Fantasy MORPG.

Other thoughts and fixes for the current expansion

- Dawntrail wasn’t an interesting direction—including the Heritage Found content. At least, it would have been more interesting if Wuk Lamat had died after the first or second trial, and the Warrior of Light took up the mantle of Dawn servant (King/Queen) with Koana. The stakes for saving Tuliyollal would have been higher, and the player would have been more invested.

- The Dawntrail number of “tasks" should have been much fewer (3), and the "summer vacation” content should have been relegated to patch content—not an expansion.

- The Pictomancer job should have been more interesting, like an Engineer. The Engineer is a level 100 job based on the Solution 9 / Heritage Found aesthetic, and the Engineer uses consumable devices in battle that can be created by crafters. (A Chemist in a future expansion would also have a similar mechanic)

- Reward players that level multiple jobs to 100. For example, each job could have master skills that carry over to all jobs with longer cooldowns or more significant resource costs. e.g. Raise from WHM.

- Stop making 1-off quests. Make interesting quest lines with modest cutscenes. Don’t release all the quests in an expansion; release a new quest line every 2 weeks, and make the rewards meaningful—i.e. more than 1/20th of a level in experience.

- Fix the glamour system. Keeping track of acquired gear takes no storage (2KB for 2048 items). Both you (Square Enix) and we (the players) want to experience all the hard work you’ve invested in the design of your outfits.

- Get a North American and Europe Community Manager. If one (or a team) already exists, supplement them. Solicit feedback from North America and Europe, and use surveys. See the community approaches of Warframe and Mihoyo teams, for example.

ps: I intentionally haven’t read the feedback from other Dawntrail criticism threads, and I apologize if some of my points overlap.

pps: I’m not a lore expert and, no doubt, I have some lore mistakes above. These and other plot holes would need to be ironed out, and expansions 2 and 3 would need much tweaking.