[History&Lore FeedBack] Stop killing your light!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to complain about the hard work you writers and devs have been doing. I understand that sometimes life can be dark for many people. Difficult situations are part of our journey to evolve as human beings and as eternal souls in search of the Creator source. But, I honestly don't see any real reason to beat and hurt the light of wonderful characters so much, and even kill them during the plots.
Is it really necessary to bring in destructive moments, where there is no hope for the players, or simply to destroy the legacy of a creation, possessed of light, for the simple desire of evil or for the relevance of the story?
Even though it's a fantasy game, even though absolutely everything is fictional, even though none of them can truly breathe and live in a physical world, every creation has life and energy. So stop killing your lights for the distorted feelings of causing suffering to the players for something as small as relevance at the moment for the history.
Remembering that, everywhere in this world, it is not necessary to die or sacrifice oneself in order to correct the mistakes of the past, or to save other people.
Knowing this, bring more of this into the game's story, bring more light, keep the light.
Thank you. Peace and Love.

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Originally Posted by Mitzahel

Is it really necessary to bring in destructive moments,

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Yes.

In a game largely focused around conflict and combat, where are we going to find any form of drama unless something bleeds once in a while? This is not Animal Crossing.

https://i.imgur.com/HvU4bGH.jpeg

something something notallsineaters

FF14 is a game about many things, but a primary focus has always been war. When wars are fought, good people die. To present a war where the "good guys" don't suffer deaths and loss renders it alien, disingenuous, and unbelievable.

Personally, I actually think that even the version of war that FF14 presents is too fluffy, with named characters generally having plot armor unless their death will progress someone else's story or lead to what the writers think will be a compelling story beat.

And I won't complain about that too much, it's fine; they're trying to efficiently tell a story, and a constant backdrop of random deaths and their corresponding trauma isn't going to be conducive to every story. It's fine.

I love fantastical elements such as magic and monsters and gods, but in the midst of that I want FF14 to tell me relatable human stories. And it can't do that if it presents war in a way that never results in loss for characters that we've become attached to.

Actions without consequences are largely meaningless. Winning without cost or struggle is not dramatic or fun.

It's why FF7 is/was such a big deal when compared to (arguably) the better plots of its peers.

Having the stones to completely off a major character permanently and dealing with "how we pick up the pieces and move on" is good drama.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

It's why FF7 is/was such a big deal when compared to (arguably) the better plots of its peers.

Having the stones to completely off a major character permanently and dealing with "how we pick up the pieces and move on" is good drama.

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How dare you devalue FFV like this?

Also probably IV more strongly in theory, but that game didn't exactly know where to put its dramatic stakes, so none of the party deaths/grievous injuries felt like they did much.

VI killed 10 Moogles, 3 Imperials, and 1 Assassin, all playable characters at some point... Though most were filler for plot events. The two biggest being General Leo and Shadow.

I think Arvis and Banon also technically died due to being in Vector during the Warring Triad apocalypse, but that was off screen technically (though I suppose that applies to the playable moogles as well).

FFII was actually the first game in the series to kill party members though, starting with Josef being crushed by Borghen's Boulder. Next would be Minwu dying to unlock Ultima. Leila had a fake death, disappearing when Leviathan swallowed her ship. And Ricard Highwind sacrificed himself to hold off the Hell Emperor while the party escaped with Leon on the last wyvern of Deist. Technically it is also the first entry to have a character become playable after they die, since Scott, Gordon's brother, becomes playable in the later remaster/remake ports of the game in Minwu's party. It also killed side characters like Cid.

Anyway, details aside, the series is no stranger to main party line death nor death in general. It's always used in line with the story being told and setting the tone for the story.

Yes, it is needed to bring excitement in the story.
Its hard to tell a good story, if there is never any danger to the character in it.
It even create unbelieve. Like: why did Tataru survived the attack in ARR? When the enemy killed everyone else?

Or by Krile. There was a real feeling of danger, when her things happens in SB. "What did they want from her? Im warning you, that you shouldnt harm her."
Its even make it questionable, that whe dont have any loses anymore, since stormblood.
You would think, that whe would have any loses again in EW, when it is the final fight, with all live on the play. As example: it would have been maybe a good moment for Uriange or Thranced to go out of the play (Thranced has fullfilled his main role, and Uriange could have sacrifficed himself, because of the guilt he feeled -i want Yshtola out of the story, until she has written the book, with all the knowledge, they obtained).

The only reason, why its hard now to kill any of the scion would be, that whe would need a replacement for them. They are now the right numbers, to make the 8 man raids possible.

From a writer perspective, if your audience is going out of their way to volunteer a specific named character to be killed off in the name of more drama, then that's obviously not the play. Instead, you find the character that they actually care about, and sacrifice that one instead. Common sense, really.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

This is not Animal Crossing.

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You'd think that, until Furi and his fellow Auspices show up to repossess unused player housing for non-payment of dues.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

From a writer perspective, if your audience is going out of their way to volunteer a specific named character to be killed off in the name of more drama, then that's obviously not the play. Instead, you find the character that they actually care about, and sacrifice that one instead. Common sense, really.

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Yeah, the reason Y'shtola will never die is because everyone keeps saying she should.

The OP is a pretty obvious drive-by troll, though. I think they've almost brought up an interesting discussion point, but let's not pretend they're here to argue with, or were ever genuinely arguing.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

How dare you devalue FFV like this?

Also probably IV more strongly in theory, but that game didn't exactly know where to put its dramatic stakes, so none of the party deaths/grievous injuries felt like they did much.

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I mean, I said “arguably better plots of its peers”, as in the peers are/were (arguably) better.




Though let’s be real, early 8/16 bit FFs… as much as I loved them, were and are nerd games. Lotta people who love FF likely never even touched those games. 7 or 10 being big entry points for people in their 30s/40s now.

FF7 was a first when RPGs were “cool” for the average joe gamer, and the plot helped. Unlike 8 which was a lotta wtf,omg,bbq.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Lotta people who love FF likely never even touched those games.

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This is hilarious, because gaming really didn't hit the mainstream until about 2006/7. FF7 and the entries on PS1 were still "nerd" games by far. They just reached outside of the target demographic due to the sheer scale of their marketing (mainly 7's worldwide marketing, a first for the series).

Also, you're a nerd on an MMO forum. Nerdiness went mainstream around the same time gaming did, maybe a little later, and it's because of the reach of the internet.

Gaming itself is a nerd hobby started by nerds, originally for nerds. Society viewed gaming as for nerds and children, largely, until again... the mid 00s. And you still see a lot of people in more conservative or old folks circles express that.

What you're actually perceiving is the first big schism in the Final Fantasy series' fanbase where VII brought in a lot of people to the series(again because of the way it was marketed), and that new fanbase running rampant over and against the older one. Because it's an ongoing series that has no end in sight there's a different entry point for everyone that opts into it, it has one of these schisms since VII every 3~4 entries now.

There are people in their 20s now who started with FFXIII, for instance, and you can find them droning on about how awesome Lightning actually is, and pulling stuff from XIII-3's story trying to pedestal her as the strongest person in all of Final Fantasy lore etc.

Similarly there are people in their 30s who started with X, and have not played anything in the series before that.

This doesn't make them not nerds, it just means there wasn't something that drew them into the series before they found the entry that they started with, and in these cases, this would be their parents or older siblings introducing those games to them as children.

People in their mid 30s and older really did get to start with the beginnings of the series, and their lifelong fan status means something to a lot of them. The newer or younger fans resent that.

When they hear the older fans talk about the older games, they get defensive. No one wants to hear that they aren't a real fan of a series, even if they aren't, and so you see all of the clashes. It's hilariously all varying flavors of nerd rage. It's just Nu Nerds vs. the old guard at this point.

And that's to say nothing of the Final Fantasy fans who reject the MMOs.

"Average Joe Gamer" is out playing some other series, likely first person shooters or Candy Crush.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

This is hilarious, because gaming really didn't hit the mainstream until about 2006/7. FF7 and the entries on PS1 were still "nerd" games by far. They just reached outside of the target demographic due to the sheer scale of their marketing (mainly 7's worldwide marketing, a first for the series).

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Kind of, sort of, but not really. The reason gaming became "mainstream" is it became clear that the people who grew up playing games from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras weren't going to leave the hobby. But like, Final Fantasy VII still 'big' for it's time period. To relate it to music the music of the era... It wasn't Green Day levels but it was absolutely Rancid levels.

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Originally Posted by DreadCrow

Kind of, sort of, but not really. The reason gaming became "mainstream" is it became clear that the people who grew up playing games from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras weren't going to leave the hobby. But like, Final Fantasy VII still 'big' for it's time period. To relate it to music the music of the era... It wasn't Green Day levels but it was absolutely Rancid levels.

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Reminder that FFX-2 got advertised on Smackdown. Like, not just 'ad playing in the break', they actually gave it a spot during the broadcast. They didn't do that for 'nerd stuff'.

Vyrerus is actually pretty damn wrong on this while being convinced he's right. Gaming was 'mainstream' since somewhere in the NES era, the thing that changed in the next few generations was the presumed core age group of the audience. NES was presumed to be a children's toy, the SNES/Megadrive era was when you started seeing teenagers being factored in (mostly thanks to arcade hits crossing over, since arcades themselves skewed to the teens at the time), the Playstation 1 and 2 explicitly aimed at that teenage demographic--although the PS2 got pretty far by just telling the family 'hey, we're a DVD player'. It wasn't until the early HD era that the presumed audience of games started including adults, and even then, it was definitely the 'college frat guy' crowd for a while there, defining stuff like early WoW and Xbox Live; after that point, it was actually Nintendo that found the way out of that by appealing to much more casual demographics. Gaming was always considered 'mainstream', it just wasn't always considered 'adult'.

And of course, since we're talking about a Japanese franchise we should consider that Japan had a whole other thing going there, gaming always had an eye for the adults there. The fitness aids and puzzle games that we associated with Nintendo's 'Wii Fit era' was there since the Famicom over there, and one of the core prongs of the audience for the Game Boy was the salaryman on a train commute. We as the international audience were completely oblivious to the mountain of Mahjong games that hit pretty much every platform over there, which hit solely because a core part of the audience was the exact kind of guy that regularly played Mahjong.

I would just say, FF7 was the first time my jock-friends were talking about a video game openly at school. And it was a first time I got a “hey, you play games right, how do I get past xxx boss?”, as opposed to a “man I don’t get what you like about games bro”, or “isn’t Zelda a girls name? Dude doesn’t look like a girl”. (SNES era)

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I would just say, FF7 was the first time my jock-friends were talking about a video game openly at school. And it was a first time I got a “hey, you play games right, how do I get past xxx boss?”, as opposed to a “man I don’t get what you like about games bro”, or “isn’t Zelda a girls name? Dude doesn’t look like a girl”. (SNES era)

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Yeah, in my experience the schoolyard divide once we hit the PS2-Gamecube era wasn't between 'gamers versus non-gamers', but what games you played. It was a given that you did, even if it wasn't your whole thing, but were you in the Halo crowd, the sports games/Guitar Hero crowd (this kinda blended together in my experience), the WoW crowd, the Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts crowd, the Nintendo crowd?

I was uncool, but it wasn't because I played games at all; it was that the games I played were either thoroughly lame or completely unknown to everyone else of my age group. (And also several other reasons, that wasn't exactly my single flaw.)

Huh? Unless my family is an outlier, I grew up under the impression that video games were mainstream even for adults in the early 90s.

I was introduced to video games by my otherwise extremely traditional grandma and my aunt on NES/SNES and we would have Tetris Attack tournaments (Yoshi asset swap of Panel de Pon with an unfortunate name which means it’ll never get re-released in the US due to copyright). Later I used to even ask my grandma to come over to help me with certain Sonic levels. My mom had an Atari Jaguar. The only “nerd gamer” in my family was an uncle who played the early PC games like Myst and Cyberia.

Can’t say anything about FF though since I was only vaguely aware of its existence until I saw a long ad for FFX on Toonami.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Huh? Unless my family is an outlier, I grew up under the impression that video games were mainstream even for adults in the early 90s.

I was introduced to video games by my otherwise extremely traditional grandma and my aunt on NES/SNES and we would have Tetris Attack tournaments (Yoshi asset swap of Panel de Pon with an unfortunate name which means it’ll never get re-released in the US due to copyright). Later I used to even ask my grandma to come over to help me with certain Sonic levels. My mom had an Atari Jaguar. The only “nerd gamer” in my family was an uncle who played the early PC games like Myst and Cyberia.

Can’t say anything about FF though since I was only vaguely aware of its existence until I saw a long ad for FFX on Toonami.

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The only adult I knew in the 90s that actively played games (daily-ish anyway) was my dad, and it was strictly DOOM/Wolfenstein kinda stuff, or Warcraft/Starcraft/Command and Conquer RTS games. He would watch me play and might have input on what I was doing in say, Diablo or Chrono Trigger, but he wasn't really interested in the game itself so much as hanging out with his kid(s). And even then he was kinda embarrassed about it I think- at first he wouldn't play until all the kids went to bed.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

How dare you devalue FFV like this?

Also probably IV more strongly in theory, but that game didn't exactly know where to put its dramatic stakes, so none of the party deaths/grievous injuries felt like they did much.

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Did FF 5 mechanically change when that happened though? Because giving you Relm with Galuf's exact job levels and everything kind of mechanically disconnected that death.

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

Did FF 5 mechanically change when that happened though? Because giving you Relm with Galuf's exact job levels and everything kind of mechanically disconnected that death.

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It actually does, but in fairly minor ways. Galuf and Krile's base stat spreads are different; Galuf's got the lowest Agility but highest Stamina in the game, so he'll by default wind up slower but with more HP. Meanwhile Krile's actually the fastest but has the lowest stamina. Krile's also tied for the lowest base Strength, and is very nearly tied for base Magic, both times competing with Lenna; meanwhile, Galuf's other stats are both one point off from Bartz's. (Surprisingly, Faris is the one barreling right down the middle on very stat, she's always second or third.)

You don't notice that because jobs and equipment have much more noticeable and controllable impacts, you'd probably only see the differences right at the start, but they are there. If you're really going min-max on FFV, you would be giving Galuf and Krile different jobs.