When are the Scions gonna get the memo...

[TinyRedLeaf]

This whole discussion is moot to begin with, and stems from the stubborn refusal among some players to accept the necessity of gameplay/story segregation.

I challenge such players to set up "iron-man" rules for themselves, similar to the difficulty mode for Diablo III, ie, permanent death for your character the moment he or she sustains a fatal blow.

No ifs, no buts. I don't care how many thousands of hours of playtime you've invested in the character: Death is death; if you get killed, there's no coming back.

If that's fun, then more power to you.

For all the rest of us ordinary mortals, it would just be a disastrous waste of real-life hours I will never get back. And I most certainly would not want to start over from the Whispering Sands again.

And that's the simple reason why our character has plot armour, and doesn't "die" as far as the story is concerned. It's not his or her time yet.

But, at the same time, it SHOULD NOT be misunderstood as proof of our characters' immortality or indestructibility. The Warrior of Light can die, but it will take something enormously dramatic for that to happen in the story.

[Kallera]

Usually it is not a desire of making things more difficult in game, it is a matter of the enormity of our actions not reflecting on the characters in the story. If I were to sit next to a person that has slaughtered deities and hundreds of men, I'd likely be more worried for my own safety than going "oh hai, mind killing some giant bugs so I can mash their wings into a tea?"

I certainly wouldn't be threatening to stab them with a pike for not joining me on my guard patrol. (Honestly, the nerve of that guy.)

Ultimately, our character has no voice, and oftentimes little choice, usually this is so that the player can imagine what their character would be saying in their stead to some degree. But when you win over and over with still such limited options, you do begin to wonder why you character isn't growing in other areas, or why the world around them isn't reacting in ways other than blind admiration to what they do.

[Cilia]

My take on the issue is kind of like how the metaphysics of BlazBlue work. Hydaelyn is our Observer - every death we have is but one potential outcome, and She only observes the one where we come out alive. All those deaths? Actually happened... just, not really.

Of course I'm fully willing to accept the gameplay and story segregation, but if you insist on having a reason...

[Kyran-Varlsen]

But when you win over and over with still such limited options, you do begin to wonder why you character isn't growing in other areas, or why the world around them isn't reacting in ways other than blind admiration to what they do.

True, by the end of Stormblood we are basically living legends and have the respect of Eorzean leaders and serve as an inspiration for many others. But for my part I choose to believe that the people of Eorzea are projecting onto you everything they hope you will be - a dashing hero who will save the day and is perfect in every way. It doesn't matter what our motives are, that we may be stone-cold killers and mercenaries who aspire to the plunder and riches winning wars and battles entail who only end up saving the day because our livelihoods are also in harms way. And for some reason, in these monster filled lands, people take hope from that.

[TinyRedLeaf]

...when you win over and over with still such limited options, you do begin to wonder why you character isn't growing in other areas, or why the world around them isn't reacting in ways other than blind admiration to what they do.

Yes, that's a valid concern, but it's not the one the OP raised, hence my retort.

But again, I would suggest that this is something you can create your own "rules" for, to make a setback hurt and count against your character.

The current iteration of Lyland Battersea I'm playing is actually the third, with two previous versions "destroyed" and rebooted early in ARR, due a personal "three-strikes-and-you're-out" rule I imposed on myself back in the day. I've since introduced more conditions and flexibility to the rule because, obviously, it would no longer be feasible to restart the character from scratch if he "dies" in battle.

So, for example, I made it such that two members of his adventurer squadron "died" in action, as a penalty for a series of setbacks. I removed the members from the squadron, and even if they appear again as applicants, I'll ignore them, under the assumption that they're "dead".

I've also taken Lyland's development as a summoner in a very different, non-canon direction, and literally hand-waved away some parts of the official story, because I felt inspired to do so. This is purely head-canon, and it reflects certain losses and sorrow that Lyland felt in response to official story developments.

My different take on the story doesn't "break" official lore, so much as it bends it, and it was born from the desire, as you stated, to reflect the cost of recent developments on my character's growth as a person.

This is all in the name of role-playing, and I'm in no way suggesting that all players do this. It's just a personal quirk of mine that reflects my real-life profession in writing.

But the point I wish to make is simply this: There's nothing in the game to prevent players from exercising their imagination, to introduce more somber character development, if they want.

In fact, parts of the official lore could even be used as inspiration for such developments, such as the much-praised story line for dark knights, for example.

None of this changes the fact that death in Hydaelyn remains a very final affair, and the WoL is very far from this fate, mainly because of plot armour. Whether or not this is a trivial matter is for players to iron out for themselves.

[YianKutku]

It's lore-consistent flavor, for sure, but I can't say I've found a compelling reason to consider a party wipe or enemy telegraph any more a part of the official storyline than, say, Expert Roulette, or the in-game clock's suggestion that I spent 4 straight days logging a hundred crates of loquats and then stat there for another 4 straight days smashing them into juice with my trusty pocket-knife.

And then there's the Warriors of Darkness, who get a full-party rez using "the power of the Echo" every time you wipe them, until they're finally defeated by the power of plot.

Admittedly there may be special circumstances in play there (eg how they used the Echo to travel to the Source in the first place).

[Kallera]

And then there's the Warriors of Darkness, who get a full-party rez using "the power of the Echo" every time you wipe them, until they're finally defeated by the power of plot.

Admittedly there may be special circumstances in play there (eg how they used the Echo to travel to the Source in the first place).

While this is understandable, no where is this mentioned within the story with regard to us. Remember, the WoDs had to die in order to get there in the first place. They are powerful because they are undead. It is one thing for the characters to say you are valuable because you are skilled and gifted. But to say you are valuable because you are immortal says a different thing altogether. Admittedly Middy's arc tried to fix this, but it is a fundamental issue with the character's "humanity" as they are.

One of the hunt marks in kugane was a red kojin accused of killing 8 people. EIGHT. Gosetsu killed 1000 men for the imperials, yet is still a respected hero.

When does our character, with their actions and abilities, cease being human and become a weapon? a monster? a god? The loss of that relatability is not something to take lightly.

[Alleo]

I am quite thankful that I am not the only one that was a bit skeptic about the sudden "echo is the reason we see AOEs and other stuff" in ingame lore. I am a firm believer of story =/ ingame mechanic, because it simply does not make sense to me.

The main character having a certain plot armor so that they dont die is part of a lot of games. And it makes sense to me. We, as the players, might get the feeling that everything is easy and that we will never die (or at least not in the middle of the game) because it would be "Game over". Yes you might have some games where this might happen but most of the time you play someone else after that or its a survival game.

It is simply not possible for our character to truly die in FF14. Even at the end of the story we cant die, because this is a MMO and thus its not over if we played through the story. This might mean that its getting boring for some players but people have to understand that there will always be a limit in such games. The only way you can show defeat for our heroes is by having another person die, escaping from certain deaths and anything that is not lethal and does not change the look of the player. All of this was already done in FF14 but they cant do more than this. They cant make us lose all the time because that would become boring too and it also becomes unbelievable if someone survives all of this.

And like others have said: Our character does not have the knowledge we have. They did not know that they will survive the rebellion, nor do they know that a lot of the other important NPCs have plot armor too. (And we kinda dont know if they will have that plot armor forever) The same can be said about the Scions. They know that we are very good fighters, but they also saw us being defeated or pushed back. And those primals are still no jokes. And lets not forget that the WoD were already death. They gave up their bodies to come to our world, so maybe they could stand up again and again because they were no longer truly normal beings. Also our character does not seem to have that great of a control over their echo.

The WoL will stay human as long as SE wants him/her to be seen that way but also how long the player themselves want to see him/her that way. Because the WoL itself is someone with only a bit of character and the rest is something that each one of us reads into him/her. In my version my character lost the person she loved, lost other important people along her side, thus feels like she cant truly protect the people she cares about. She is emotional not that stable anymore and after learning about all the shards and people living on them, she has even more of a burden to bear. She did not really want to take part in a war and if it would go her way she would try to negotiate more (she was with Alphinaud to save Estinien and she did her best to not have to kill that group of Lupins).

What do I want to say with that bit of a description? That its not really easy to say when or even if our character ever gets to be more of a weapon/monster/god. On one side it depends a bit on SE but on the other hand it also depends greatly on the player themselves. How do you see the actions of your own character? How do you play them? Unlike lots of other single players where you get a character that you cant really play your way, you at least have a bit of freedom in FF14.

[LineageRazor]

From the perspective of NPCs in the game, we are not necessarily immortal. Ungodly tough, sure, and phenomenally brave - but there is no way to prove that someone is immortal. This is true in real life, as well. You (yes YOU, the real you, on the other side of the screen, reading this right now) could very well be immortal. Probably not, sure, but the only way to say for certain one way or another is for you to die.

Well, the Warrior of Light has not died yet, but in the eyes of all who know them within the scope of the game, they are mortal. They simply haven't encountered anything capable of killing them, yet. But because the Warrior of Light is a brave hero, they are constantly pitting themselves against gravely dangerous opponents and tremendously risky odds. If anything is going to kill them, it will be one of the many super dangerous missions they accept. The friendly NPCs know this, and because they care about the WoL, they worry for his safety. The unfriendly NPCs aren't about to buy into the whole immortality thing either, and so continue to attempt to find the WoL's Achilles' Heel.

Because this is a game, we know that our character is immortal. There's no reason, however, for the characters in the game to believe so.

[Akonyl]

For all their worries, it's a wonder that we still get sent into all these situations effectively alone. We even have a new buddy who has the Echo (Mr White X Face hyur) who could be sent to tag along with us in our journeys and possible primal-slaying, but yet the Scions still just expect us to call in our 7 mysterious Echo-Buddies to deal with everything.

I don't really see much a need to explain away our wipes as Echo-lore related when every time some catastrophic new primal bursts out of the ground the WoL's expected to just go "Whoa! Alright, hold on, lemme get on my linkpearl, I know some people. Just wait for them to fly over here, okay? Can we hold off murdering me until then? Thanks."