[Lighthouse Spoilers] Can we please stop with the stupid fetch quests?

[Lauront]

Or live in a racist society in reality and don't want to put up with it in their escapist hobbies.

Doubt the lore writers particularly care about that, since it's mostly a hobgoblin in the mind of very idiotic people in the West, where "racism" is probably at its lowest levels anywhere in the world, the ranting proclamations of disingenuous brainwashers ensconced in academia masquerading as "professors" and MSM mindbenders notwithstanding. Japanese players certainly don't have these hang ups. Just rather indoctrinated Europeans and North Americans. But by all means, if one is triggered by it, they're free to skip through it... along with every other "triggering" aspect likely to arise in a fantasy game. I just find it childish. I'm glad some devs are starting to just not care.

No, but that doesn't make him any less a racist git for it. Every last narrative beat reaffirms it.

Eh, your opinion, little more.

[KyokuhoKensaki]

Doubt the lore writers particularly care about that, since it's mostly a hobgoblin in the mind of very idiotic people in the West, where "racism" is probably at its lowest levels anywhere in the world, the ranting proclamations of disingenuous brainwashers ensconced in academia masquerading as "professors" and MSM mindbenders notwithstanding. Japanese players certainly don't have these hang ups. Just rather indoctrinated Europeans and North Americans. But by all means, if one is triggered by it, they're free to skip through it... along with every other "triggering" aspect likely to arise in a fantasy game. I just find it childish. I'm glad some devs are starting to just not care.


Eh, your opinion, little more.

Because xenophobia and racism neeeever exist in Japan. Oh wait.

[Lauront]

Because xenophobia and racism neeeever exist in Japan. Oh wait.

Oh I don't deny it - rather, that was my point: what SJWs glibly refer to as waaaaaaaaaaaycism and muh xenophobia, are trivial non-issues to a Japanese audience, who don't suffer from the same mental condition spreading in the West, radiating outwards from charlatan "academics" and a complicit and corrupt media establishment. Specifically, using words to mock a fictional race, doesn't cause them to have conniptions. I think the devs would be rather amused to find some people just click past this stuff. How would they play a game like Witcher 3 without need of a therapist afterwards?

The game, like many RPGs, offers plenty of atrocities one could more understandably find troubling, though still not to the point of getting worked up over them. A teenage boy using "derogatory" terms to brash visitors doesn't count amongst them.

What many western babies will find amusing is that devs out of Eastern Europe and Asia aren't as "woke" on these issues as they are.

Here's a Japanese IP that might better suit the offence prone:

https://www.sanrio.com/

[Lunaxia]

blah blah

We may be talking about video game characters here, but insulting someone based on their race is still very much racism, regardless of what childish terms you picked up off reddit to call it, and players don't have to be at ease with it. Personally, it left me feeling uncomfortable - which may have been the writers' intentions - and I can see why it might draw unpleasant parallels to real life for many people.

The reason the Japanese don't "suffer from the same mental condition", as you so eloquently put it, is because Japan is a largely homogeneous country, with non-Japanese making up less than 5% of the population. Racism isn't an issue they're often confronted with, compared to more diverse countries, meaning general awareness of it is far lower.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

[Vhailor]

Huh? Get a grip. It's a fantasy setting. The races in it are completely different species. He's not some dumb SJW, he hasn't undergone "muh diversity is our strength" training, probably because he has a functioning brain and a healthy in-group preference. If you can't handle "waaaaaaaaaaycism" (basically nothing but mild name-calling) in a Japanese RPG, you're probably better off seeking professional help.

Also, are we forgetting he's an impulsive teenager?

No wonder we end up with wet noodle garbage like Lyse.

I mean, you're free to write a dialogue in your head where your character dishes out "sassy" replies to all the NPCs.

Say what you will about racism - that's in the eye of the beholder. I think Ramza is clearly xenophobic / racist, but if you want to childishly make fun of people concerned about these things, whatever. The bigger sin from a gameplay / storyline standpoint is that he's boring. He's one-dimensional, nothing he says is interesting, he does nothing but worsen problems. And no, 'impulsive teenager' isn't a sufficient excuse: a bad character is a bad character. It's not like his being impulsive and obnoxious serves some higher purpose in regards to the plot, a la the new Star Wars movies with Kylo Ren.

Also, if you seriously think this guy has a functioning brain, you're the one that needs help, not AmurT. Ramza would get fired by any employer I know, would get excluded from any social group, purely because he's obnoxious. I don't care what labels you attach to it in addition to that: he's obnoxious. And nobody likes obnoxious people.

It's setting lore mediated through a quest. Honestly, it's not a big deal. I mean you'll gladly go do 1000 fetch quests for leveling or beast tribes, but this one SINGLE quest chain for a raid broke the camel's back? Come off it!

There's a difference between a purely mindless fetch quest that's the entire goal of a piece of content, and a mindless fetch quest that might actually contain story elements and is part of a forced quest chain that everyone will do. That story piece is the worst part, because it pushes people to actually pay attention to the drivel that SE wrote to accompany the useless quest. If everyone knew they could safely abandon the cutscenes and just move to the end without missing anything, it would have been far less hated, I suspect.

[Moomba33]

I have a lot of patience for fetch quests in general. I'm the type of person who does every optional quest on the map because I enjoy getting more lore bits about the npcs, the region, ect.
This one in particular was poorly done in my opinion. It feels like a sidequest stuck into the raid storyline and hurts the pacing. References are all well and good but there's no reason this couldn't have been placed after unlocking the raid or as a separate chain. Would give players something to do while waiting in queue if it was a separate chain as well.

[Rokke]

itt: people don't realize devs are playing up Ramza to be such an asshat to emphasize the difference between him and og Ramza and him and the moderate Garleans he travels with. He's the ye olde equivalent of an edgy teenager in a youtube comments section. You're supposed to not like how he's acting.


@ topic -
I would have been fine with it being a sidequest within the raid similar to how the bacon bread sidequest was. I already knew both Gegeruju and Hancock are swindlers, Drest is from a foreign country, and that Shamani is an honest person. All it did was waste some time before I queued.

[Barachim]

Ramza is just plain rude and it doesn't matter who the person is. It's like he only has a semblance of respect for his father, anyone else around him is a useless dimwit. Even to us, the person who saved the life of his father, he says something like "And here I thought you'd actually contribute something." Excuse me you little ****? I swear, if this were SWTOR, he would have been force choked at least twice by now. And then, after the whole infuriating Quest line, where we have to shut up and stand in the back, as he pukes insults out of his face hole, we get taken advantage of by a random NPC, who couldn't get off his lazy butt, to actually do something nice for his wife. That's imo the biggest problem with the fetch quest. It's a Quest, right after a lengthy cutscene, where one of the main characters does nothing but push our buttons. Heck, had I stopped right then and there, slept on it, then played the Wine Quest the next day, I probably wouldn't have been nearly as annoyed by it.

[Vhailor]

itt: people don't realize devs are playing up Ramza to be such an asshat to emphasize the difference between him and og Ramza and him and the moderate Garleans he travels with. He's the ye olde equivalent of an edgy teenager in a youtube comments section. You're supposed to not like how he's acting.

If so, then it's clumsily done. This is the type of difference best illustrated subtly, over time, not with the narrative equivalent of a giant billboard smacking you upside the head. His age is also a bad thing to bring up here: SE need not do anything to highlight that teenagers are pains in the ass. From a broader 'different types of Garlean' standpoint, they needed to use another adult, or someone of a calmer temperament. Ramza is just a poorly-done character, full stop.