What's your opinion about the game's story?

[Squigley]

Well... As the 2.xx storyline was nearing its end I became a cutscene-skipper. I had followed most of it. In Heavensward I wanted my money back because the story took a huge dump on the way how I liked to play up to that point (gatherers & crafters first so that I could make HQ gear for myself). It was forcing me to go battle classes first and making my DoH/DoL efforts worthless. It was probably partially because of that why I didn't enjoy the HW story at all and was mostly just angry at it. I didn't like any of the HW characters and I couldn't care less what happened to them.

ARR: Ok
HW: Annoying, blocking me from doing things I enjoy in the game

[Lewtskie]

Dw people, next expansion we are going to fight the militant atheist empire who are hell-bent on destorying all deities again. Please, look forward to it.

Don't forget that we are doing this by assisting the hidden rebel forces, with our rare gift probably ultimately being the key to victory in the most dire moment.

[Felis]

You're actually rather wrong in that regard. Final Fantasy has actually treated churches as a place you revive KO'd party members. A church was also a place where you first meet a certain flower girl. X, Lightning Returns and XIV are probably the only Final Fantasy games where "world religion" is treated as evil or corrupt. Leaving out cults, as even in real life they tend to be evil...

It might not be common for churches to be corrupt in Final Fantasy, but in JRPGs in general, it's VERY overused.

What about VI, where Kafka became a god and destroyed the world?

Actually I'mma go more in detail. I don't care that my character doesn't talk ingame. I care that my character doesn't ACT in game movies. I hate that npcs can do all this crazy Street Fighter Anime battle crap but my character stands there like a little princess waiting to be saved. I'm the goddammed WARRIOR OF LIGHT! I save YOU! you don't save me. That is my issue with the story. Let me feel like the BA I'm posed to be. IF that means more solo instances where I have to actually fight things then bring it on. I'm posed to be the BAMF of this plot.. LET ME BE THAT. Show me, stop TELLING me.

I think the most we can expect are scenes like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V6w...3kNUeq&index=7
While everyone run away from the enemy, the protagonist go straight to him, ready to fight back. But the fight itself will be outside of the CS.

About the "Silence Protagonist" problem, what is missing is a permament story partner who speak for the protagonist, like the Path of Twelve Companion from 1.0
https://youtu.be/opa2XtyvUOA?t=317

[Kallera]

I was wondering something: if you had the choice, would you side with the villains or simply go for the bad guys (think it of Republic vs Empire thing)?.
I personally would: there's only so much "goodness" I can endure before I get annoyed to be the "good guy/girl"

At times, I do. I kinda wish there was more choice to our actions, or ability to affect what happens to our character. The game's story is at its best when I can relate to its characters and their motivations(3.3), and at its worst when I disagree with doing or saying something, but I'm dragged along the road regardless of my objection, or get no chance to object or say anything at all.(2.55) This has caused me to not like the Scions at times as they seem to be a regular source of this. Being the unstoppable respesenative of Eorzea/Hydelyn/whathaveyou has me pining for things that shake it up or change that, which makes me sad for the WoD's departure.

I also hope Garlemeld gets to be more than a literary paper tiger this time around.

[Naunet]

You must be new to RPG's, the religions are always the bad guys. It's not hard to understand why though. A lot of fantasy games are set in a world where swords and sorcery are rife. Going back to our own history when witchcraft and warcraft was believed in more than science and technology, this was pretty much the case. I see it more as setting the period rather than stereotyping, since the stereotype itself comes from historical fact.

"religions are always the bad guys" - that right there is WHY this is poor writing. It's ridiculously cliche. And it'd be one thing if it was just kind of one thing out of many, but with the Ishgard story, you are hammered over the head at every possible opportunity with every conceivable exaggeration of Catholicism and the Catholic Church to drive home this idea that the Ishgard Fantasy Pope and his henchmen are evil. It's taken to such a level that it reaches absurdity.

And it's NOT based on historical fact. Historical fact is that the Catholic Church subsidized and enthusiastically supported Galileo and his research into celestial mechanics. They welcomed his study on the universe with open arms, as they viewed understanding it as a way to better perceive the glory of God. Historically, the Church has been a huge supporter of science endeavors. They turned on him because afterward, Galileo decided to write some treatises specifically denigrating the Church, which was of course against doctrine - but it had little to nothing to do with his actual science. And yet, the Astrologian quest is quite obviously supposed to be referencing Galileo and his story - only taken to this weird extreme.

Honestly, I find "the religious guys are evil" to be a cheap ploy. It's fine if handled correctly, but it takes an awful lot of work to be handled correctly and FFXIV does not get there.

[Nestama]

What about VI, where Kafka became a god and destroyed the world?

Only the Cult of Kefka worshipped him.

[Belisaire]

I enjoyed Heavensward a lot more than I enjoyed ARR. One thing I can't stand about how this game handles plots though is that everything is often very disjointed with several plots going on simultaneously. Cid needs to prep the airship or whatever, and so we go off to embark on some other plot chain that has nothing to do with the one we were just on. Or there is still stuff like fetching Kan-E-Senna from Moghome... we've just been told that we are the first people in a thousand years to be in the Churning Mists, and immediately we leave, and bring in someone else. It's a... confusing roller coaster, to say the least.

The villains I feel zero threat from are the Ascians, which are also supposedly the biggest of the bad. But the worst thing I ever see them do is stand around, lurking, talking about how everything somehow is going according to their plan (and yet, every opportunity we're given, we stomp them). It's bizarre and confusing why we are supposed to actually feel intimidated by these enemies. Doesn't exactly seem like their plans ever work.

That and... characters are very stale. They don't really have complex backgrounds that are delved into, which is unfortunate. And sometimes characters get introduced (Hilda) that really have no real reason to be there. It's confusing to figure out what we should care about, and why.

[Belisaire]

Additionally--I want the stupid parts of the storyline to go away. Meaning the worthless detractions. Actually, I'd love to see the vast majority of sidequests go away (those that do not unlock content, or actually contribute meaningful lore). I find that there's an outrageous amount of dialogue in this game spent talking about nothing.

Replace the majority of sidequests with things like Clan Hunts. Or hunting logs. Stop wasting my time with meaningless dialogue chains--if you are just trying to find some mundane reason to send me off to kill x number of y monster. It's not interesting, and no one is being fooled by it being called a "sidequest"... it's busy work. I miss the days when sidequests would actually give you meaningful lore on something and justified their existence by having that lore be interesting.

[Morningstar1337]

And it's NOT based on historical fact. Historical fact is that the Catholic Church subsidized and enthusiastically supported Galileo and his research into celestial mechanics. They welcomed his study on the universe with open arms, as they viewed understanding it as a way to better perceive the glory of God. Historically, the Church has been a huge supporter of science endeavors. They turned on him because afterward, Galileo decided to write some treatises specifically denigrating the Church, which was of course against doctrine - but it had little to nothing to do with his actual science. And yet, the Astrologian quest is quite obviously supposed to be referencing Galileo and his story - only taken to this weird extreme.

Being aniti-science isn't the only thing Christianity was accused of that may or may not be false. Just saying.

[Duelle]

What about VI, where Kafka became a god and destroyed the world?

It's not really spelled out to you like it is in other games. A million years ago when I first did the climb and the Kefka fight, my first thought was "well, that's surreal and different", not "OMG this is an allegory for religion and I feel so badass for killing god". The closest things out of the entire fight that even alluded to religious undertones were the third movement of Dancing Mad (itself based on a Bach piece) and the fact Kefka was cosplaying an angel.