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

It started from post Shadowbringer. Bear with me.

While discovering how we can focus on treating those not fully succumbed to the Light, we used Beq Lugg's aid to alter the aetherial properties. But such methods were not entirely new to the First, they had it from before as seen from the Court Mage story of Tank Questlines. And we connect the dots that its similar to how "primal tempering" works as well.
But then, within literally 2 patches we rolled up not only how but a warding against tempering as a whole. 12000 years, scholars were doing fuck all and it took our WoL and the Scions to finally make a break through, compared to the First. This, a big challenge and a strong story point of FFXIV got a ride with ShB and got answered. Fine, we're trying to wrap up the old stories, but maybe making this a big point that is done over post ShB and completed near EW would have made it better? Such a critical point of our story, got solved in literally 2 patches. (Not even gonna bother how they did the same with Nymian plague)
Fast forward to Endwalker, the greatest threat that has been teased as the big bad from 2.0 was a mere level 83 trial. We fought a mere shell too. Sure its a very signature final fantasy thing to do to suddenly make the expected big bad just be a puppet, but this time it just felt badly done and was straight up rushed. And rushed it was. We got introduced to a whole new concept, a whole new big bad, mid expansion and defeated them by the end of the expansion. Interviews show that Ishikawa stated (source Famitsu interview translation https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...t=2&utm_term=1 ) that they wanted to end the story in 1 expansion quickly and end the original saga with this. Then why not do that??
Why not give the proper ending to where it all began? We could still have gone to all those places but faced the original big bad in Carteneau. But nope, let's try to see how many new ideas we can fit into the story.

Then came post Endwalker. I won't talk about the content drought which is a big issue over all for Endwalker. Let's see, we are making world level developments each patch now. Every patch ends with us facing a challenge that should logically take people a long time to fix but then the next patch starts with either us realising the solution already exists or lo and behold Y'shtola has found the solution mid patch and we're ready. We now have accessed the big portal in Moon, Y'shtola have discovered what took entire Allagans to accomplish, by herself in a few months, or less.

As much as I love FFXIV story, since post Shadowbringer, we have been making developments in the story in a crazy level, developments in matters that has long been a big plot point of the story that very visibly is being cleared out very quickly. I doubt the devs would close the Void as a threat entirely. So what are we doing here? This isn't tied to the original saga so not like there's anything to tie up for 7.0

If the new writing style of FF14 is going to be making every calamity level threat be solved willy nilly like this, I fear soon there won't be any story. I mean instead of making post Endwalker be actually about us returning to our roots and grounding us, we made another breakthrough. The threat barely could feel like a threat and its already solved and it was done behind the scene...

I sincerely hope this rushed "bring a concept, solve a concept FAST to show characters are strong and resourceful" doesn't stick as the new formula. And more importantly, stop bringing new concepts/plot points into the story and make them look big, if its only there for a while. Look at what they did to Garlemald. All those wars, all those expansions, so much misery and we can't even see a proper Garlemald. If this keeps up, we may end up going to Dawntrail and suddenly there's a whole new world that threatens us from another dimension, but wait, Y'shtola knows a way out and Sharlayan has the means to allow her to do her thing. Go fight.

Not to mention I don't even know what the point of breaking up the Scions was if we're literally spending every moment with the Scions? And yet, no development in the characters or bonding with the Scions themselves. Zero has more bonding and chemistry with Jullus than us, and far more depth to Zero than Y'shtola has had in 6 expansions.

I sincerely hope the writing of the story picks up and we actually start paying the attention the old stuff deserve and not just dust them off to make space in the shelf for new ideas that will be solved within 5 levels worth of content.

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Originally Posted by 15725462

While discovering how we can focus on treating those not fully succumbed to the Light, we used Beq Lugg's aid to alter the aetherial properties. But such methods were not entirely new to the First, they had it from before as seen from the Court Mage story of Tank Questlines. And we connect the dots that its similar to how "primal tempering" works as well.
But then, within literally 2 patches we rolled up not only how but a warding against tempering as a whole. 12000 years, scholars were doing fuck all and it took our WoL and the Scions to finally make a break through, compared to the First. This, a big challenge and a strong story point of FFXIV got a ride with ShB and got answered. Fine, we're trying to wrap up the old stories, but maybe making this a big point that is done over post ShB and completed near EW would have made it better? Such a critical point of our story, got solved in literally 2 patches.

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Naturally this is going to vary according to taste, but in my opinion they couldn't rush this process fast enough because it was necessary to solve two narrative problems that have plagued FF14 for far too long:

First, I have no idea why the writers of FF14 decided to frame the Grand Companies as double-crossing colonizers (relative to the tribes) while also having the WoL align with them, but they did, and it has sucked. Unfortunately, narratively these tribes have been significantly tempered, making reconciliation difficult. Thus, removing tempering is important because it paves the way for a united Eorzea, which means players can stop feeling like:

https://external-content.duckduckgo....880&ipo=images

Second, in my opinion, tempering has really limited the potential of any story involving primals. Because regardless of who they are or what their powers are, it always comes down to "folks without the Echo will have their minds corrupted". And that's a neat gimmick the first few times. But after a decade it's tiresome. Primals are cool, but there are only like 5 people in the story who are ever allowed to fight them because of this narrative limitation. Removing this limitation creates potential for better stories. (they've also been incredibly inconsistent about tempering, considering that folks like the Company of Heroes defeated Titan...)

I get that they could have done it slower, and that it would have been more elegant to do it slower. But personally, this is one thing I was perfectly happy with them fast-tracking. Solve these problems ASAP so we can move past them.

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Originally Posted by 15725462

Fast forward to Endwalker, the greatest threat that has been teased as the big bad from 2.0 was a mere level 83 trial. We fought a mere shell too. Sure its a very signature final fantasy thing to do to suddenly make the expected big bad just be a puppet, but this time it just felt badly done and was straight up rushed. And rushed it was. We got introduced to a whole new concept, a whole new big bad, mid expansion and defeated them by the end of the expansion. Interviews show that Ishikawa stated (source Famitsu interview translation https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...t=2&utm_term=1 ) that they wanted to end the story in 1 expansion quickly and end the original saga with this. Then why not do that??
Why not give the proper ending to where it all began? We could still have gone to all those places but faced the original big bad in Carteneau. But nope, let's try to see how many new ideas we can fit into the story.

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Again, different strokes for different folks, but I think having Zodiark as the big bad would have been a bad story. Shadowbringers made it clear that Zodiark wasn't some maniacal villain, but rather a being that literally saved the world. To fight against such a force as the end boss to an expansion would just be rehashing the end of Shadowbringers. I'm glad we got something different.

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Originally Posted by 15725462

Then came post Endwalker. I won't talk about the content drought which is a big issue over all for Endwalker. Let's see, we are making world level developments each patch now. Every patch ends with us facing a challenge that should logically take people a long time to fix but then the next patch starts with either us realising the solution already exists or lo and behold Y'shtola has found the solution mid patch and we're ready. We now have accessed the big portal in Moon, Y'shtola have discovered what took entire Allagans to accomplish, by herself in a few months, or less.

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Haha, this is a fair criticism. But also nothing new. Y'shtola (and to a lesser extent the other Scions and Cid) are always solving unsolvable problems with a rapidity that is common in fiction but rare in reality. It's what they did when they needed a barrier to protect Doma from Garlemald, it's what they did when they needed to access Azy Lla, it's what they did when they needed to increase the efficiency of the world's first spaceship that Sharlayan's finest had been working on for who knows how long. In short, it's Final Fantasy.

It's not that a tempering cure wasn't trying to be worked on. It's that no one knew how to properly fix it and even if people wanted to do so an Ascian could and would want to shoot any real attempts down. That and it has been years along with people not paying attention to tribal dailies as there is an Almalj'aa daily that has you use a concoction that they hope cures said tempering. If we look at figuring things out "fast" Cid and Nero figured out time travel within their life time in the UC8 timeline. They just didn't get any backing for it because not enough people wanted to go with their original idea. Sure, Meteion does come in late to the story but she isn't Necron late. Nor is she like some other games where the credits are rolling only for the game to have "the real" boss interrupt the credits.

@Lilimo The Company of Heros only beat Titan and Leviathan by throwing a lot of "bodies" at it. The survivors ended up having to kill some of their own people due to them becoming tempered. It's why they make us run around on what feels like a fool's errand.

I'm not replying to all of this because there's a lot, so I'm just zeroing in on the points I want to discuss.

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Originally Posted by 15725462

I sincerely hope this rushed "bring a concept, solve a concept FAST to show characters are strong and resourceful" doesn't stick as the new formula. And more importantly, stop bringing new concepts/plot points into the story and make them look big, if its only there for a while. Look at what they did to Garlemald. All those wars, all those expansions, so much misery and we can't even see a proper Garlemald. If this keeps up, we may end up going to Dawntrail and suddenly there's a whole new world that threatens us from another dimension, but wait, Y'shtola knows a way out and Sharlayan has the means to allow her to do her thing. Go fight.

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I don't think this is what's happening. When we're in a combat-focused game, the stakes will always involve some level of mortal threat, or else we're the bad guys; you can't solve nutritional issues in the Crystarium (to pull the example of my favorite Facet quest) with wanton murder, that just makes you look horrible.

At this point the Golbez issue has reached 'Possible Calamity-causer' levels, but I actually wouldn't say we're in a scale of constantly stopping world-ending threats (which I do worry about, and I'm very thankful to see Dawntrail is at approximately a Heavensward-level scale). I think we're actually at a scale usually inhabited by raid content: This is certainly theoretically capable of causing some kind of apocalypse, and that's becoming quite plausible now that we're reaching the end, but at the forefront is more of a personal story, we're doing this for Vrtra and Azdaja. It's basically got the same sort of 'narrative motivational structure' there as Alexander or Eden, where there's an existential peril on the table, but far more central is a personal story. And I think that's about the right level for the 6.x storyline; we want it to feel like it's worth our time, but not so big it eclipses everything else.

6.x is an interesting situation there, because by nature it needs to tell a contained story. Traditionally the .1-.3 MSQs acted as something of an epilogue for the expansion, and then .4 and .5 acted as leadup for the next; that wasn't where they went with Endwalker, because they specifically wanted 6.0's finale to be able to stand as the capstone by itself, they didn't want the expansion advertised as 'the end of this story' to end with 'TO BE CONTINUED, come back in four months'; if someone just wanted to reach the end of the story, they could get that right from launch day and then put the game behind them. (Incidentally, I feel like I've seen a fair few angry people who maybe should've taken that advice.) But that means that 6.x has to be an entirely independent story, not just from 6.0 but also 7.0, in a way that overshadows neither but also gets overshadowed by neither. I think that it's been pretty good at that all things considered; I think a lot of distaste about it doesn't come from the fact it's doing what it's doing badly, but because it's not what a lot of people are used to or necessarily wanted. If you were into Endwalker primarily for it to be Garlemald Time, you're probably disappointed not because the Garlean stuff it's doing is bad, but because it's not as central as you want.


But there's something else I want to point out, that shows the root of this problem might be different from what you think:

By your first line, you started post-Shadowbringers. And you also happen to think that the game's writing drops off exactly post-Shadowbringers, at the point where you started playing.

I think what you're actually doing, and not realizing it, is that you're looking at the game differently when it's unfolding in the 'present-day' than you were when you were playing everything that already existed when you joined. I've always thought that was the real reason behind complaints of a 'content drought'--that's mainly coming not from people who've been playing actively across a number of expansions and have noticed an actual dip in content, and more coming from people who started the game in Shadowbringers' patches and are only now grappling with the fact that they ran out of the backlog of the content they liked.

I don't think that's quite the same factor here, but I think it's similar: I think you're subconsciously approaching everything before you reached the end of the current content as an unassailable, complete canon, and everything after that point as fallible additions.

I'm not telling you this to shoot down everything; I'm saying this because I think an important thing to recognize is that we're ultimately speaking subjectively from our own perspective, and I've seen your sort of perspective before.

I hope it does. The writing in 6.0 is excellent.

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Originally Posted by 15725462

While discovering how we can focus on treating those not fully succumbed to the Light, we used Beq Lugg's aid to alter the aetherial properties. But such methods were not entirely new to the First, they had it from before as seen from the Court Mage story of Tank Questlines. And we connect the dots that its similar to how "primal tempering" works as well.
But then, within literally 2 patches we rolled up not only how but a warding against tempering as a whole. 12000 years, scholars were doing fuck all and it took our WoL and the Scions to finally make a break through, compared to the First. This, a big challenge and a strong story point of FFXIV got a ride with ShB and got answered. Fine, we're trying to wrap up the old stories, but maybe making this a big point that is done over post ShB and completed near EW would have made it better? Such a critical point of our story, got solved in literally 2 patches.

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I don't have a problem with this. Yeah the Source has been dealing with the consequences of primal tempering for thousands of years. Because they didn't have the critical experiences that Leveilleur, et al., had in the First. And as I've said before, I hope she's able to make an Archon thesis out of it or something.

Rapid advances in real world science have occurred overnight after one person has applied some critical new experience to a thousand year old problem.

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Originally Posted by 15725462

While discovering how we can focus on treating those not fully succumbed to the Light, we used Beq Lugg's aid to alter the aetherial properties. But such methods were not entirely new to the First, they had it from before as seen from the Court Mage story of Tank Questlines. And we connect the dots that its similar to how "primal tempering" works as well.
But then, within literally 2 patches we rolled up not only how but a warding against tempering as a whole. 12000 years, scholars were doing fuck all and it took our WoL and the Scions to finally make a break through, compared to the First.

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People died of things like smallpox, polio, tetanus, etc, for thousands of years before cures were "suddenly" found. A team of expert scholars armed with new information (and not subject to Ascian sabotage) finally figuring out and solving tempering doesn't feel so odd to me.

We're gonna get a new lead writer for 7.0, so I assume the writing will change in some ways. The quick developments in the story happened because they wanted to wrap up everything in Endwalker, which they only got one expansion for and one of the goals was to end the ambiguous moral nature of the Eorzean citystates, so that no more stories need to be told in Eorzea and we can look beyond and know our home in safe hands and that everything has become good and we are no longer needed. This happens in every expansion and everywhere the WoL goes, we appear and then everything becomes good so that we no longer care about the place. That will happen in Tural as well of course, so it will start out as an interesting place with conflict where we wanna go, then by the end the conflict will have been resolved and therefore nobody will care about Tural anymore and we will wanna go somewhere else where there's new conflicts to solve. It's kind of like the Omicron, but instead of destroying places literally, we destroy them narratively.

Glad I'm not alone in feeling this way. I stopped connecting with the story when the miracle breakthroughs went into overdrive.

I wouldn't mind so much if there was some unprecedented world-changing event as an explanation for all the brand new science. Some reason that the impossible became so easy in this era. Not just the same group of prodigious youths bulldozing through scientific barriers whenever something inconveniences them because they are so smart.

I mean honestly, the contrived story has the same root cause as the repetitive gameplay formula problems -- it's the Yoshida style. He told the writers to not feel restricted by Oda's pre-existing lore, just make up some convenient excuse on the spot to smash through it.

The history of the realm has much better writing than the present-era player's journey. We're just gonna keep on liberating cities, planets, dimensions, whatever we focus our gaze on because it's so easy. The main scenario is about as serious as Hildibrand at this point.

Yoshida isn't alone in hurting the series reputation for good story content, it's all the directors and writers in the S-E age. XIII was some incomprehensible Fal'Cie god nonsense, XV was half-finished with some major story locations and events cut for time, XVI didn't finish as good as it started but I guess it could be called progress, it's better than the worst game.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I mean honestly, the contrived story has the same root cause as the repetitive gameplay formula problems -- it's the Yoshida style. He told the writers to not feel restricted by Oda's pre-existing lore, just make up some convenient excuse on the spot to smash through it.

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Citation pleazeeeee! That would be big if true! Also how does this tie into the repetitive gameplay formula, wouldn't that be the opposite?

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Originally Posted by Eisi

Citation pleazeeeee! That would be big if true! Also how does this tie into the repetitive gameplay formula, wouldn't that be the opposite?

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I was unclear. I don't know what you mean about opposites but I meant both the gameplay issues and the story issues in the game ultimately start with the executive decisions of Naoki Yoshida. The same guy is responsible for formulaic gameplay and a storytelling style that I dislike.

It's hard to back up posts with citations when I'm talking about things from years passed, from memory, not a recent interview. Some people here probably remember what I was referring to. I will go down the Google rabbit hole a bit though and add a link if it doesn't take too long to find.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I was unclear. I don't know what you mean about opposites but I meant both the gameplay issues and the story issues in the game ultimately start with the executive decisions of Naoki Yoshida. The same guy is responsible for formulaic gameplay and a storytelling style that I dislike.

It's hard to back up posts with citations when I'm talking about things from years passed, from memory, not a recent interview. Some people here probably remember what I was referring to. I will go down the Google rabbit hole a bit though and add a link if it doesn't take too long to find.

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You should, this would be a massive statement by Yoshi-P and if it ends up just being: "Yo our writers should feel free to not leave the world static out of some false humility before Oda-san's work" or something like that, that would be pretty embarrassing! That's why I'd like the actual quote.

What I meant by opposites is that you say that on the one hand Yoshi is encouraging radical disregard of a set framework while on the other he supports a repetitive formula which doesn't allow for innovation. You might be able to square that circle tho, maybe he employs some sort of twisted logic!

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Originally Posted by Eisi

You should, this would be a massive statement by Yoshi-P and if it ends up just being: "Yo our writers should feel free to not leave the world static out of some false humility before Oda-san's work" or something like that, that would be pretty embarrassing! That's why I'd like the actual quote.

What I meant by opposites is that you say that on the one hand Yoshi is encouraging radical disregard of a set framework while on the other he supports a repetitive formula which doesn't allow for innovation. You might be able to square that circle tho, maybe he employs some sort of twisted logic!

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Yeah this is hard to explain. The story is very consistent in its pacing, use of plot devices and invincible heroes. I'm not trying to say that makes it radically innovative in a way that could be related to gameplay innovation. Just saying like these two entirely separate things that I perceive as problems share a common reason for being, it's Yoshi/CBU3 style.

The Yoshida quote that I can't find is just something about story > lore, where he said the writers should move forwards with whatever story they want to tell, even if exiting lore cannot support it. The writers work with the lore master to introduce new lore for their story. It's not exactly the same as me saying the Scions are bulldozing the old lore. I guess what I'm saying is they aren't working inside a set of narrative limitations, but I like some limitations to keep things grounded.

Yeah, that's not really what's going on and I thinks tems from a radical and uncharitable memory of what actually happens.

It's been mentioned by the writers in interviews (that sadly I haven't bookmarked), but FFXIV isn't written from some secret grand plan that's always had clues to it. Instead, the writers are making what works for the story they're telling, and then going back and finding lore that already exists that helps that new story feel like it's part of the world that already exists. For example, let's talk about some Endwalker side content and put together what that process might've looked like there:

• Anden: Well we want something that explores the male viera of the First and/or Il Mheg. As it happens, we do have that heavily characterized leafman from the pixie tribe quests.
• Eureka Orthos: We want an Allagan-themed deep dungeon. Well, there's been Noah sitting around for years, and also the seeds of the original Allagan Eureka dating back to even A Realm Reborn.
• Sil'dih Subterrane: Let's do a variant dungeon focused around the history of Ul'dah. You know what, ARR Hildibrand provided us the perfect backdrop!
• Mount Rokkon: Okay, another variant dungeon, this time exploring Hingan spirituality. We've got a lot of pieces of that lying around since Stormblood, we basically just need someone to pull it together, and hey, we've also got a total weeb of an NPC who'd be a perfect tour guide!
• Pandaemonium: Look, we have to do something in the Ancient world, that's too big a canvas not to use. So let's fix all that incoherent rambling Lahabrea did back in ARR!

The Endwalker role quests are also a perfect example, and REALLY don't need to be elaborated on.

None of this is 'Yoshida style', it's basically how most long-term serialized storytelling works, it's just that most people writing those stories don't say it until long after the fact; superhero comics have been stated to be written like this a few times. I think FFXIV is just more open about this because they were basically forced into it; the difference between the 1.0 and ARR team is huge overall, and on the writing team the only person remaining is Banri Oda. They already had to throw out whatever ongoing story 1.0 had and make something out of what was left; there's been skeletons of future plans since then, but a bulk of individual stories come from wanting to explore something new, and then linking it to something old. Basically, they've got a formalized and publicized process for the stuff that other stories like them do all the time in a more ad hoc way.

One more thing worth saying here: the writing process involves several lore checks involving people who are dedicated Lore Experts; Banri Oda's one of them. (One of the others is Kathryn Cwynar, the English localization lead.) So it's not like someone can just go completely off the reservation and declare that actually primals are clones made from alien data in a hijacked supercomputer hidden under the ocean; there's people making sure all this stuff makes sense.

All these examples are also introducing new lore and expand on the history of the world in addition to the current plot.

What interests me about the tempering cure is how much of a history of research had already existed prior to our solving the riddle so to speak, cracking the nut so to speak, breaking the dam! I mean every one of those singular events like the invention of penicillin or Darwin's Origin of Species or whatever, fall of the Berlin wall, they all feel pretty big like a paradigm shift but there's always a long history, an accumulation of individual events that made them possible. And I guess with the Tempring cure it felt pretty isolated, not like we stand on the shoulders of giants and now managed to finish someone else's work but like

Wait

Wasn't there this Allagan dude who literally found the solution thousands of years ago and we rediscovered that lore in the game? I mean it sounds like an asspull, but it was pretty clever of our heroes to check the archives and it wasn't exactly easy, wasn't there like this Artificial Intelligence device involved by the Garlond Ironworks that had to decipher some code that prevented access or something? I mean it does make sense we could make it, plus we had a catboy with the blood of the royal family. I still feel there should have been some more recent attempts to solve this issue tho. It did feel like a riddle suspiciously suited for exactly our set of talents if you catch my drift.

I'd like the heroes to react to things more often than being the cause of historic change themselves. Some kind of event causes the floodgates to open, some mysterious entities alien to the Source arrive and that messes with a lot of things that used to be impossible in past eras. As a catch-all for the frequent change the writers want so we don't need the Scions to keep coming up with major scientific breakthroughs that work so perfectly, one patch after first spitballing the theory. I don't like our guys to guiding the fate of the whole star.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

Wasn't there this Allagan dude who literally found the solution thousands of years ago and we rediscovered that lore in the game? I mean it sounds like an asspull, but it was pretty clever of our heroes to check the archives and it wasn't exactly easy, wasn't there like this Artificial Intelligence device involved by the Garlond Ironworks that had to decipher some code that prevented access or something? I mean it does make sense we could make it, plus we had a catboy with the blood of the royal family. I still feel there should have been some more recent attempts to solve this issue tho. It did feel like a riddle suspiciously suited for exactly our set of talents if you catch my drift.

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Mostly, yes. Owen hadn't 'found the solution' so much as theorized one; he knew what the problem was and what the solution might look like, but Amon cut funding before he got any further. This gave the Scions the information to get that little way further, but if we're completely honest and objective Owen should get most of the credit here.

That's a perfect example of how they work with this sort of thing: they pick up on pre-existing characters and concepts (Owen, Amon, and the research into the Warring Triad) to do something with them that they weren't doing originally, but couch it in the proper environment to make it look like they always were. Works pretty well.

I think a big thing to remember about research into tempering in particular was that there's a lot of time where that just wasn't a thing. There's no evidence of any primals between the Fourth Calamity and the roughly-present-day (it's unclear exactly when, but probably Titan), with the weird exception of Proto-Ozma, so reasonably there wouldn't have been a lot of research into this going on in the present, and what would be there wouldn't have been going on for long. I can easily believe that research into tempering had only reached a level of general understanding of the concept, rather than having made any headway into curing it. Especially since Allag had something huge the Alliance didn't: a test environment. They had captive primals that they could test their hypotheses around, while the Alliance only had insane brainwashed thralls after a giant monster turned up.

That's another thing you have to keep in mind. The world basically did a near complete reset half a dozen times. For all we know someone DID find a cure for tempering in the past but the knowledge was lost (or erased by the Ascians) thousands of years and several calamities ago.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

For all we know someone DID find a cure for tempering in the past but the knowledge was lost (or erased by the Ascians) thousands of years and several calamities ago.

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Could have been the reason why primal tempering in the first didnt exist even though there clearly was a primal alive. And since interactions between the first and source werent possible, that information could never have gotten out until the connection that allowed interactions was finaly made.

Its not something i worried about since even irl it can take a very long time to discover something, and then in just a matter of a few years we maange to use and optimize it to crazy degrees. Even just a little bit of knowledge can give a massive boost in progress. Especialy when things are important for survival, people are quick learners.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

Could have been the reason why primal tempering in the first didnt exist even though there clearly was a primal alive.

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Was there a primal there...? I'm wracking my brain (and Triple Triad card collection) for any primals in the First, and I'm coming up blank outside of the Warrior of Light, who was hardly a regular or longstanding event.

I saw a website once miscategorize Titania and Innocence as primals, I think that just came from them having a template for trial bosses that had to be updated; neither of them are.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Was there a primal there...? I'm wracking my brain (and Triple Triad card collection) for any primals in the First, and I'm coming up blank outside of the Warrior of Light, who was hardly a regular or longstanding event.

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You travel on the leviathan to the tempest

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

You travel on the leviathan to the tempest

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First of all, that's Bismarck, not Leviathan. Second of all, that Bismarck was a fae, not a primal. Best guess is the primal Bismarck came from the Vanu Vanu telling stories about having seen the Source's version of the fae Bismarck.

You could see the cure from tempering as leaping off of Beq Lugg's work. As they had been working on trying to find a cure that could reverse the effects of the illness the Voeburt court mage was spreading. As that curse turned people into things that looked like voidsent. All this happening before the flood of light. So when we bring them on a trip out to the Inn at Journey's Head and introduce them to Halric they already have knowledge about how those who are turning into a sin eater looks like and how it works. That it sounds very similar as to what what describes Ga Bu's condition is what makes Alisaie ask if said treatment could work for other ailments that check off a lot of the same boxes. So the cure for tempering came from research that's over 100 years old.

I think it's insane that people are saying the cure for tempering came "out of nowhere" or "too quickly". My brother in christ we had to travel to a whole different dimension, in which time moves in a very different way so for all we know they could've been researching that for way longer than us.
We talked to Beq Lugg who's that shard's incarnation of one of the most brilliant minds in the Source (Matoya).
Said shard also went through an apocalyptic event which certainly boosted the need for innovation/research.

And we did all of that just to get an inspiration as to what the cure for tempering could be, which we later presented to other brilliant minds in the Source.
It makes no sense to say it just "happened suddenly" or that it was convenient for the writers. What else did you want?!

Up to the end of 6.0 I thought the wiriting was well done and I did not mind Zodiark was defeat at 83. We learn that he was never evil to begin with and did OP forget we learn in SHB that the ascians ar enot evil just to be evil? They believed we were a lesser being and wanted to rejoin our souls into one.

After 6.0 yes, I think the writing has took a MAJOR dip. Zero is boring, I don't feel threatened by the Voidsent any more. I like hearing about the history of the world BEFORE the ascians destroyed it, wish we had more of that and less of Zero. I feel like they ended the ascian story and now we are getting Zero fanservice and I am not a fan.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I wouldn't mind so much if there was some unprecedented world-changing event as an explanation for all the brand new science. Some reason that the impossible became so easy in this era. Not just the same group of prodigious youths bulldozing through scientific barriers whenever something inconveniences them because they are so smart.

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We went to a world that did go through an unprecedented world-changing event (the Flood) and observed things there that were applicable to the concept of tempering. That was the catalyst to investigate multiple other threads of possibility that hadn't been pulled together before, assisted by the work of other researchers.

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Originally Posted by Casmir_Chev

I feel like they ended the ascian story and now we are getting Zero fanservice and I am not a fan.

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Yes, they did end the Ascian story and now Zero is the focus character of this "wrapping up loose ends" arc. Whether you like her or not, you can't say it's bad writing to give the main character of the story arc a lot of screentime.

The game goes through phases. You'll like some and dislike other. Just wait for the next story arc to get started. Personally I disliked Stormblood and had preferred Heavensward, and so it felt like the game was on a downwards trajectory when I first got to the then-end of the MSQ around patch 4.1, but looking back there from two expansions later, and it's just low point between other story arcs that I got more enjoyment from.

it's perfectly balanced:
Stormblood x0 was meh and post expansion great
EW x0 was great and post expansion meh
Planned since 1.0

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Yes, they did end the Ascian story and now Zero is the focus character of this "wrapping up loose ends" arc. Whether you like her or not, you can't say it's bad writing to give the main character of the story arc a lot of screentime.

The game goes through phases. You'll like some and dislike other. Just wait for the next story arc to get started. Personally I disliked Stormblood and had preferred Heavensward, and so it felt like the game was on a downwards trajectory when I first got to the then-end of the MSQ around patch 4.1, but looking back there from two expansions later, and it's just low point between other story arcs that I got more enjoyment from.

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FFXIV is also, fundamentally, a game with character-focused storytelling and a wide variety of characters to focus on. That means that sometimes it's just gonna focus really hard on characters you're not into, and honestly, the best you can do there is accept it and find other joys, in that story or otherwise.

This is actually one of the better cases. Not only is there a bunch of Voidsent Stuff going on in the background if you're not that interested in the Zero storyline, but the fact it's a patch storyline means that every time we get a new installment, it's alongside other things to look at as well; if you're not into this, don't worry, we've got some Ancient Shenanigans to boggle at in Pandaemonium (and probably also Myths of the Realm). It's way worse when a character you're not into is getting their spotlight in the leveling portion of an expansion, spare a thought for the people who didn't like Emet-Selch and had to deal with THAT nonsense taking full center stage with no intermissions. Twice.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

spare a thought for the people who didn't like Emet-Selch

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I came out of my happy single-player bubble of playing Shadowbringers for the first time, and was seriously confused by all the "greatest villain ever" fanning over Emet-Selch. As far as I was concerned, this guy had been introduced as a nasty manipulative person towards Varis in the Stormblood patches; spent most of Shadowbringers oscillating between "why won't you trust me" and giving us a million reasons not to, culminating in shooting my character's close friend and being quite pleased about the prospect of her turning into a monster that would serve his purposes.

And then, for some reason, the game took a left turn into a too-little-too-late "oh, you were close friends once, isn't it tragic that you're enemies now" which didn't come off well when I was furious at the guy for near-killing my actual friend. (Plus I wasn't keen on the whole reveal that Ascians are just people and not some kind of eldritch immortal force.)

Sure he was a tragic villain in the end, but he only ever felt secondary to the actual core characters and relationships of the story, being G'raha, the Scions and Ardbert.

So all of that, and then coming out to find people talking like the juxtaposition of our character and Emet being the core of the story felt like I'd stepped into discussion of a parallel game and not what I'd actually played.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I came out of my happy single-player bubble of playing Shadowbringers for the first time, and was seriously confused by all the "greatest villain ever" fanning over Emet-Selch.

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Oh yeah, I was in much the same position, and I made a 20+ minute video about why. I might've actually been even harsher on him than you were, because I never really saw him as a 'tragic villain' (or a tragic hero as some people try to say he was); until 5.2 when we saw the Anamnesis recording I was basically certain that everything he told us was a lie, because the only thing saying that he wasn't lying was himself, and this was a guy that verifiably lies to people to get them to do what he wants. I still didn't really buy most of it after 5.2, either, I just at some point accepted that they expected me to.

I never really warmed to him, and I'm pretty sure he's my least favorite 'core content' villain in the game, I just generally mellowed out about the situation over time; people have their blorbos, and I can't really argue that away from them. But a big part of my response was absolutely, as I said, the fact that when it was Emet Time it was nothing but Emet Time, there was no alternative programming.

Reminds me that the reason I don't want to re-play Endwalker on an Alt/NewGame+ has mostly to do with how deeply negatively impacted my experience was having to suffer through Emet's obnoxious narration at the start of every zone in EW and the sheer relief when Alphinaud took over for the final narration. Elpis as a zone was not enjoyable but at least it had Hermes and Meteion and to a lesser extent Venat to salvage the experience, but when Emet dethroned Zenos as the least enjoyable or welcome Final Fantasy XIV character (and FF character in general), EW is worse than ShB in both his omnipresence and the writers' assumption that I enjoy him. He was a well-written antagonist but never anything less than manipulatively vile and frustratingly free from allowing our character to talk back to or counter, and the brand of villain wish-fulfillment that the Azem+Hades friendship hinges on is one that I find repugnant more oft than appealing. Coupled with my bored-at-best-to-outright-dislike of most every element of Amaurot salting the ground for that emotional beat to have any pull, that we're moving off from the Ascians and Ancients aside from a probably last bit in Thaleia has me beyond relieved. I know exactly why he and other related characters and plot beats and settings are so popular, and this isn't unique to XIV - one can get very used to series with a giant cast and yet the lone disliked character out of hundreds unfortunately being fan favorites.

Emet-haters rise up! ⸜(*ˊᗜˋ*)⸝

I sometimes wonder how much more positively I would've regarded those parts of Endwalker without his presence lol. The Elpis scenario, in particular, is riddled with things I take issue with, but it might've gone down a little easier if I wasn't being constantly beaten over the head with Emet-in-a-Xehanort-wig on top of it all.

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

Emet-haters rise up! ⸜(*ˊᗜˋ*)⸝

I sometimes wonder how much more positively I would've regarded those parts of Endwalker without his presence lol. The Elpis scenario, in particular, is riddled with things I take issue with, but it might've gone down a little easier if I wasn't being constantly beaten over the head with Emet-in-a-Xehanort-wig on top of it all.

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I think the big struggle with Elpis for an Emet-disliker is that it's not necessarily an Emet story--it's much more about Hermes and Venat, Emet and Hyth are just incidentally present--but it's very deeply tied into elements that an Emet-disliker is probably inevitably turned off by. I don't know many Emet-dislikers, but for the ones I do it's rarely just 'I hate this guy and his smug face', there's always something about his greater story, and Elpis is just that story told first-hand instead of second-hand. So cutting him out wouldn't suddenly make it good.

I can imagine an Emet-less version of the events of Elpis quite easily, but I can't imagine a version of that story that I'd actually like all that much while still remaining 'the Elpis story'.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Emet's obnoxious narration at the start of every zone in EW

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The narration might have been bearable if Emet's voice wasn't so whiny. It really ruins some of the lines.

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

Emet-in-a-Xehanort-wig

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I really could not take him seriously with that hairstyle. What were they thinking?

That said, I found him relatively bearable in Endwalker because he wasn't the villain from Shadowbringers, yet, so it didn't seem fair to hold any of that against him. Still my least favourite person from that story arc, though.

For me it's that Emet has the same level of appeal, physically and emotionally, as Valens Varo. Emet has a little more inner emotional complexity, but character-wise saying someone likes Emet feels the same as saying they think Valens is attractive and compelling. Yet core emotional and narrative beats at the end of ShB throughout EW don't function if there isn't a positive emotional connection where he's thought of as entertaining to listen to and welcome to be around, equal to the Scions.

Which, I find people complaining about the story not killing off the Scions or completely ditching their characters after EW to be not just tiresome but lacking in narrative structure understanding (and marketing, but that is a valid consideration given too much weight in critique) - yet I do understand that response because it is that same one I have to Emet's over-saturation and his in-universe relationship with the WoL built not on what makes sense but the fandom's love for him. The Scions aren't my favorites, but at least I have the comfort that the character I found a cancer on the story only overstayed his welcome until 6.0.

It's the same problem with why Zenos didn't work for me until Endwalker's writing used his character and the associated tropes in a manner that finally felt novel and narratively satisfying. Because Zenos also demands that your WoL have a specific feeling of "this guy is a great rival and threat" (when his fights were boring) that shades into a meta-commentary on a player mindset that makes him a direct foil and frenemy ...if the player wants to see Zenos as that foil. And while the final option at Ultima Thule doesn't satisfy with the option to deny Zenos his fight, at least there's an attempt at variety in player choice responses. The option to rebuff or at least be neutral on Emet (and Hyth) isn't really there because the writers decided to tie the WoL to Azem and too strongly conflate the two without the dialogue option to reject or rebuff "Azem liked you so it's reciprocal". A mistake that they don't do with Ardbert. As an "Emet-disliker" there's a lot of reasons and the "WoL is a direct incarnation of Azem" isn't the sole reason but it definitely exasperates it and creates another reason why the Elpis section is nowhere near a favorite game segment.

I enjoyed Ilberd as a villain - he was sympathetic while also fun to hate and entertaining and his dungeon fight was fun - but I think it would have been interesting to think of Stormblood was given the Endwalker treatment: Ilberd is the narrator instead of Lyse and you're getting his post-death commentary and narration on each zone, the second half of the Peaks includes not just learning about the rebellion against Theodric but an extended Echo flashback where you're buddy-buddy fighting alongside him, Curtis, and Raubahn, and then his ghost manifests to help you in the Shinryu fight. And his role in Wilred and Papalymo's deaths are glossed over.

I think Emet is such a fundamental part of the story of FF14 as a whole that if you don't like him then you probably just don't like the story that much overall. Like, they're not putting him everywhere in Endwalker because people like him, they're doing it because he's that much of an important character, especially in that context.
I remember (although I don't have the source) the devs saying that they always meant to make Emet an important figure in Endwalker, even before they knew his overall positive reception from the fans.

I understand where people that dislike him come from, though. I guess my point is that I think it's just very unfortunate that you ended up disliking one of the most important characters :( .

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I think Emet is such a fundamental part of the story of FF14 as a whole that if you don't like him then you probably just don't like the story that much overall. Like, they're not putting him everywhere in Endwalker because people like him, they're doing it because he's that much of an important character, especially in that context.
I remember (although I don't have the source) the devs saying that they always meant to make Emet an important figure in Endwalker, even before they knew his overall positive reception from the fans.

I understand where people that dislike him come from, though. I guess my point is that I think it's just very unfortunate that you ended up disliking one of the most important characters :( .

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That's my feelings for a far greater extent for people would dislike the Scions or who fell in love with Amaurot/Elpis to the detriment of 99% of the game's setting and lore and zones. Emet's an important antagonist but he wasn't even the most interesting one for me to want to tease out their motives and emotional connections (that was Ran'jit! I am not kidding. Ran'jit with his Caius Ballad vibes) in Shadowbringers, and it's the later game assumption that I would connect positively to him in a way that it doesn't even demand from Elidibus or Zenos.

And as said, I have a lot of practice with loving or at least being neutral on a cast of hundreds in a long running piece of media while also having a prominent or fan favorite character be one of my most beloathed fictional characters (Wheel of Time and Rand al'Thor).

Some important characters are meant to be disliked, though. You're meant to hate Thanos but he's arguable the most important character from Phase 2 and 3; you're meant to hate Hojo but he's arguably one of the most important characters in FF7, Kuja in FF9, Emperor friggin Mateus in FF2. Antagonists are antagonists because they set the plot in motion, and sometimes you can understand an antagonist's motivation while disliking or even hating them.

I have many issues with Emet, but probably the bigger one in EW is when tells the most tone deaf and hypocritical thing to the worst person possible at the worst time. "Who are you to decide whether we live or die?" to the head of a facility tasked with creating and ending new life... in said facility... granted, Emet's a huge hypocrite in general.

A big part of Emet's appeal is that he's the first, and only Ascian to actually talk to us. Prior to ShB, the Ascians spent many years being cartoon villains plotting and scheming in the dark. Their presence was all over the story but we the players never got any closer to solving the Ascian "mystery". Eventually it became more annoying than interesting.

And then ShB came along and Emet finally talked to us like real people and straight up explained what the hell was going on. It made him more... real, I suppose, than any of the other Asicans to date.

I don't hate Emet-Selch, but I don't understand the rabid fan appeal he has. He's a great character, just not one I particularly like.