Can we protect someone please? (spoilers)

[Aryalandi]

Now I know.. on a large scale "The Warrior of Light" has saved Eorzea a half dozen or more times already but when I look back on the storyline I cannot recall a time when we on our own have ever protected anyone important to us, we go out and we kill things, and we are very very good at it.. but whenever push comes to shove it seems as though anyone that our characters get close to emotionally gets put into a situation where they either wind up dead, injured, captured, or otherwise worse off for being connected to us.

Its like friends and love interests develop a fate induced target on their backs that marks them as someone who will eventually suffer for caring about our characters.

Back before the massacre at the waking sands i made a point of talking to everyone after each scion mission.. so walking in to find them all dead and winding up burying them stung, we were not there at the time so it is understandable. The trend continues with the loss of Moenbryda, and then the loss of some of the few crystal braves who were actually loyal to you.

What happened in Ul'dah is a huge controversial thing for a large number of people, personally I understood it. In my characters mind one she was unarmed and wearing a dress, two she didn't want to hurt anyone and expected that she would be taken to people who would listen to her when she claimed that she didn't do anything. The situation went horribly down hill from there ending in all of her friends staying behind to try to buy her and Minfilia time to escape, but I couldn't help but imagine the entire event registering in Einherias mind as "i should have protected them.. i failed everyone.."

Then you go to Ishgard and you wind up spending time with a new group of companions, Ysayle, Haurchefant, Estinien, Alphinaud, Tataru, Aymeric, Lucia, on occasion Yugiri.. and honestly I would say you almost get closer to them than you do to the scions, especially since they can actually fight by your side through most of what you are doing, you travel together, I would nearly consider most of the above to be minor love interests (Ysayle, Estinien, Aymeric, even Lucia to a very small extent over time) and atleast one to be a canon love interest (Haurchefant....)

And you have to watch them get picked off one by one over time, losing Ysayle was heartbreaking, losing Haurchefant was soul crushing, seeing Estinien who I view as a good person who has been through too much in his life possessed was painful..

You also get a scare with Aymeric who is developing in to more of a love interest over time.. it makes me worry about the trend continuing, if my warrior of light loses any more people i cannot help but see "what am i even fighting for anymore..?" being a question she would be asking herself to the point of giving up, i have been almost afraid of going further in the storyline as of late admittedly. It would just be reassuring to have my character stand between someone she cares about and something that is trying to hurt them sometimes instead of it always being the other way around.

One of my all time favorite moments in the game is.. literally at the very beginning of the marauder storyline where you put yourself between a child and a group of monsters and protect him, a moment where you are a hero to someone and don't fail them for once x.x and its just a bunch of crabs.. but the look on the kids face when he looks up and sees that he is safe because you are there means a lot to me. More of that with loved ones in the story would be nice, you aren't degrading anyones abilities by having our characters protect them instead of it being the other way around, you are giving our characters hope that they /can/ protect the people that they are actually fighting for..

Some of this gets brought up in the dark knight storyline, though I honestly view the story differently than some people who view Fray as being what your character actually thinks of situations.. to me Fray is the result of the warrior of light never having a chance to breathe in between the traumatic events throughout the story, you go through so much in so little time and literally never get to stop to reflect or grieve or let any of it go because there is always something else that cannot wait for you to get better.

Going in to Heavensward I cannot help but feel that if PTSD is not an active thing that the warrior of light is dealing with now it will be soon, and that not being able to deal with all of the trauma in their lives at all forced them to internalize it to the point of creating Fray as a way to cope, they could not handle it but Fray could, and then Fray got out because of the dark knight soul stone. The immediate agenda that Fray takes up supports this to me since it's literally trying to either convince you to leave Eorzea so that you don't have to go on suffering any more or just let Fray take over so that you can /finally/ have the chance to rest..

I believe that being able to protect the people that you are close to atleast sometimes in the story would go a long way twards helping our characters to heal.

[WellFooled]

I agree, I think this is really apparent in the Paladin quest chains (spoilers ahead). ARR was interesting enough and focused on qualities like honor and integrity which are in line with what Paladins are about, but the HW quests involved making a sword glow...for reasons. I feel like Paladins are the easiest job to write for, we just need to be heroic or selfless. Any quest where we're saving someone innocent would do, it really would, but instead the pillars of the Paladin order (both the npc and WoL) are fighting each other, lying to each other, and not doing so much as a single chivalrous thing during their entire quest chain?

[MXMoondoggie]

While I agree it would be nice to actually save somebody and not have them die,get injured,possessed or otherwise inconvenienced by us what's all this talk of love interests? Lol this is not a Bioware single player RPG. There are no love interests among companions. Just various degrees of friendliness I guess the rest is in your own head XD. If anything Ysayle and Estinien were a love interest for each other by the final third of HW. They start out very much at odds with each other due to their own beliefs and as the story unfolds making them question those beliefs they are drawn to each other through that shared experience. Apart from Haurchefant coming on to you each chance he gets I don't think any others you listed showed more than a friendly interest in the WoL lol.

[Ultear_Milkovich]

Yes you can cast protect on your team's members.

More seriously I would only like to protect Tataru, the THM guild's lala brothers and Sid/the young one.

All the others are full of sins then they re expendable.

Fray - our mentor - is dead so I dont care about most of the others.

[Aryalandi]

I agree, I think this is really apparent in the Paladin quest chains (spoilers ahead). ARR was interesting enough and focused on qualities like honor and integrity which are in line with what Paladins are about, but the HW quests involved making a sword glow...for reasons. I feel like Paladins are the easiest job to write for, we just need to be heroic or selfless. Any quest where we're saving someone innocent would do, it really would, but instead the pillars of the Paladin order (both the npc and WoL) are fighting each other, lying to each other, and not doing so much as a single chivalrous thing during their entire quest chain?

I agree with this, while I do enjoy alot of the new job specific storylines treating our characters as very well respected members of their profession and I do like the way we get to be the ones to turn around and train people now it is a little Highlander-esque playing the paladin story lol..

While I agree it would be nice to actually save somebody and not have them die,get injured,possessed or otherwise inconvenienced by us what's all this talk of love interests? Lol this is not a Bioware single player RPG. There are no love interests among companions. Just various degrees of friendliness I guess the rest is in your own head XD. If anything Ysayle and Estinien were a love interest for each other by the final third of HW. They start out very much at odds with each other due to their own beliefs and as the story unfolds making them question those beliefs they are drawn to each other through that shared experience. Apart from Haurchefant coming on to you each chance he gets I don't think any others you listed showed more than a friendly interest in the WoL lol.

Different points of view -shrugs- its fine if you feel that way. My view is that over time some characters have minor shades of becoming possible love interests, but overall yes most characters are just friends. it wasn't really the point of the post though.

That said..

You will never sink my ships they sail themselves.

[Xlantaa]

YOu know, the best way to create drama in a movie/videogame/book/whaever is kill people. Also the cheap one.

BECAREFUL SPOILERS of 3.1
I agree with OP. I don't like impotent heroes. We should be able to kick bad guys asses (or at least, fight them) instead of see how they do whatever they want killing everyone while us only put weird faces or even don't get the weapon (like when the Warriors of Darkness defeated Ravana and attack us, our character was looking at them and even not draw his fucking weapon and alsmost defeat us, really? After kill Bahamut or Nael?)

I know can be bored our heroe is alwasys the best, but, man, is not necesary destroy everything and make us impotent on that. We're heroes on a Final Fantasy game, we don't need realism, we should be able to face everything.

[Felis]

We're heroes on a Final Fantasy game, we don't need realism, we should be able to face everything.

This would be boring.
The hero facing drama is like salt in the soup in every good story.

[Xlantaa]

This would be boring.
The hero facing drama is like salt in the soup in every good story.

That's true andI agree. The problem is when you can defeat god beings, but you cannot stop a simple guy killing people while you're looking at him with a "angry face". That was I mean. I know is very hard make different animations for all the 13 classes on the cutscenes, but at least draw the weapon and intimidate him. Face him instad of simply look with a emote. In the game, on most cutscenes on 3.0, we're simply spectators.

[MiniPrinny]

That's true andI agree. The problem is when you can defeat god beings, but you cannot stop a simple guy killing people while you're looking at him with a "angry face". That was I mean. I know is very hard make different animations for all the 13 classes on the cutscenes, but at least draw the weapon and intimidate him. Face him instad of simply look with a emote. In the game, on most cutscenes on 3.0, we're simply spectators.

Alternatively... you enter a one-person trial, that has happened tons of times before, and instead of it saying, "Defeat the Warrior of Darkness" it says "Survive." And all you have to do is hold out say... two minutes while you see outside of the battlefield, your allies fending off the others, and it would be a test of survival because the dark White Mage would be keeping the dark Warrior's HP topped off, making it an impossible fight.

I'm very much a believer that interactable cut-scenes should be used much more often in this game than they are being used currently. And it isn't like it's overly difficult for SE to add these to the game, and it would add greater player satisfaction.

[Kurogaea]

For the longest, our characters have been cool looking planks of wood that just watch as things unfold until the cutscenes end, and its hilarious to watch now after 3.0. Even that part with King Thordan when you beat him and he's all all like: "What are you!?" and I'm all like " Warrior of Infinite Continues.....bitch".


We've all played the story thus far and some of us actually felt the long wait of 3.1 and some right now feeling the disappointment of 3.2 (don't get me wrong, boss fights, story was a good addition, but that's just about it not counting cosmetics). Though one thing that never changed is the personality of our character.... Actually it has changed but we're in no control. Aymeric can be all on my lady bits and I'd have nothing to do with it, I'd rather be with Yshtola, or shet give me Cid, anyone but a damn rich elf again (I swear they're all desperate as hell). This wouldn't even be annoying to me if we actually had options to change our interactions with charcaters through text and the ones we do have don't result in any change of association with people. Most would leave to the exact same text response even! Not even when Haurchefant died "Omg this is so sad, my character is sad he's dying omg" no, and some more no. Yeah, he stood up for us when Uldah was on red alert and we couldn't escape to gridania since were basic criminals against the alliance, but would that really stop the warrior of light? No, if wouldn't. Out of all the people we've helped there'd be countless allies willing to side with us but i guess that'd be impossible because no matter how many beast tribes we've saved, clans in the shrouds we've assisted, pirates we've helped, annoying moogles we slaved over, ninja clans we've associated with (Yugiri), and Doman's we helped immigrate, no one else would certainly help us.

We could've actually had that real dark moment for the WOL where we take up a role to lead an army of warriors to set the world right again and after gaining our reputation back for saving Eorzea a buttload more times they'd want to take us back. Yeah this is all just wishful thinking, but thats how simple minded our character is. We're like the little lost puppy who has been abandoned and Haury (my nickname for him) just happened to pick us up after wandering aimlessly, and now that Haury apparently started dying my thoughts we're "Cast cure you submissive piece of s***!". Probably the first time I felt burn out in an MMO to the point where I was just annoyed from then on out. Let us define our character's personalties! Stop being lazy with your design and give us something to build and THEN "Look forward to it".