Minfilia or Lyse?

[Nora_of_Mira]

who do you prefer Minfilia or Lyse as a character both felt underutilized within the game and want to hear what you all think?

I prefer Minfilia as i felt she actually did more(abiet behind the scenes) / deserved to be there in the story not once in SB have i felt Lyse earned her the screentime she has had despite someone who can actually join us in fights.

I prefer Minfilia for two big reasons.

[Hazmick]

I think they're both ok, they don't do anything that makes them bad characters, but nothing that really makes them stand out as great characters either.

[347SPECTRE]

With the exception of Minfilia, I've noticed the likeability of a character goes down when we travel with them, at least going by this tread.

[Bright-Flower]

Minfilia unfortunately suffers from the unfortunately 'quest design' lets say of ARR and its patches. By the time they started improving on that she was mostly written out of the story, though she's just 'on a bus' and will probably return one day. I try not to hold that against her. I don't see the 'come back to vesper bay' as a character flaw so much as a quest design flaw.

I also don't particularly mind her being a non combatant. First time she gets kidnapped, the entire Scion base was overrun, many people killed, and if I remember right (haven't done arr msq in forever) she wasn't even the only one taken. Then when she's kidnapped the second time, it's done keeping Louis' super magic staff from being taken by an Ascian. Unless there's more incidents I'm forgetting, she seems to have a reputation for being kidnapped more than it actually happened like Daphne in the original scooby doo cartoons.

Lyse got some points for me just for being less annoying than 'Yda' was in ARR. However, her arc to becoming resistance leader was rushed and not at all earned. This is in part due to the rushed feeling of 4.0's msq in general. The split between Ala Mhigo and Doma hurt both stories. They both feel rushed, both victories feel too easy. The only real moments of adversity I can recall are our two beatdowns from Zenos, which lack consequences because he decides to leave after kicking our butts. (The garleans also just let the Resistance keep Rhalgr's Reach, wth?) And then there's the cannon blast. Other than those it feels like we just steamroll the garleans. The 'third act' in particular where we return to ala mhigo, and the Lochs especially, feels a bit rushed too like the writers are in a hurry to get us through the rest of the msq. Honestly it really feels to me like they 'had' to do Ala Mhigo to get it out of the way, but WANTED to do Doma. But that's a topic for another thread.

In short I guess I'm not really much a fan of either character, though I would like them to add Lyse's ala mhigan red dress into the game.

[Brightamethyst]

To be fair, Minfilia does a lot of work. We just don't see most of it because we spend little time in the office. Minfilia is an administrator. Her job is to assign the right tasks to the right people and make sure everything runs smoothly, not to do everything herself. While I don't really like Minfilia as a character, there's no denying that she is very good at what she does.

[Yshnal]

None. Both of them were basically useless (not just combat wise), causing more trouble than they solved, and served no purpose other than stealing the focus from the individual that was doing everything for them (namely, us).

Other scion characters like Alphinaud, Thancred, or even Yda, are/were way more loveable than Minfilia or Lyse. And if we talk about leaders, Hien, Raubahn, Nanamo, and Aymeric, for instance, beat them by far too.

[Bright-Flower]

None. Both of them were basically useless (not just combat wise), causing more trouble than they solved, and served no purpose other than stealing the focus from the individual that was doing everything for them (namely, us).

Other scion characters like Alphinaud, Thancred, or even Yda, are/were way more loveable than Minfilia or Lyse. And if we talk about leaders, Hien, Raubahn, Nanamo, and Aymeric, for instance, beat them by far too.

I don't really see this as a problem to be honest given that the WOL is pretty much just a player self insert and the story never ceases praising us and making us the center of attention. What does Lyse do that actually steals attention away from the WOL? Sure she gets a moment here or there I guess like getting the finishing blow on Lakshmi int he 4.1 fight by and large I never felt like the focus was being taken away from the WOL.

[Cetonis]

On a re-play for a datacenter alt, at least until Yanxia I'm finding Lyse more likeable / believable than her reputation. I know much of it has to do with Conrad foisting her up around Ala Ghiri, but I recall being more annoyed by the personality change the first time around.

Perhaps it's a matter of having less of a gap this time, but it feels... smoother? Like it feels like she's still "Yda", but under the shackles of having to actually give a damn because Papalymo's not there to make decisions for her. With the pressure of her father's shadow and resulting expectations etc. So that part of her personality is changed, but it feels reasonable; otherwise she's still kinda dumb and likes to punch things.

Not sure if I'll feel different by the time SB is through though.

[Yshnal]

I don't really see this as a problem to be honest given that the WOL is pretty much just a player self insert and the story never ceases praising us and making us the center of attention. What does Lyse do that actually steals attention away from the WOL? Sure she gets a moment here or there I guess like getting the finishing blow on Lakshmi int he 4.1 fight by and large I never felt like the focus was being taken away from the WOL.

Allow me to re-word it: they get everything handed to them, making it hard to believe that they get to where they do, and forcing us to see them as protagonist characters on par with many others. Especially Lyse, which got put as a leader when she did no actions or took any decisions worthy of deserving that over other characters (M'naago? Or anyone else that had been in the Resistance for ages?). Hien, for example, which didn't need to do it because he was the heir, still earned his place by acting like a leader and doing actual stuff. I think that that's part of the problem, that we got these other characters side by side and it's easier to see the flaws.

Hopefully Lyse will get more development in the future without being gone like Minfilia before doing that. Still, that won't change how she got to where she is right now.

[Bright-Flower]

Allow me to re-word it: they get everything handed to them, making it hard to believe that they get to where they do, and forcing us to see them as protagonist characters on par with many others. Especially Lyse, which got put as a leader when she did no actions or took any decisions worthy of deserving that over other characters (M'naago? Or anyone else that had been in the Resistance for ages?). Hien, for example, which didn't need to do it because he was the heir, still earned his place by acting like a leader and doing actual stuff. I think that that's part of the problem, that we got these other characters side by side and it's easier to see the flaws.

Hopefully Lyse will get more development in the future without being gone like Minfilia before doing that. Still, that won't change how she got to where she is right now.

Oh that I can agree with. I don't feel like Lyse draws attention away from the WOL but definitely got the job too easily. I think part of this was because of the Ala Mhigo/Doma split. With so much of the msq being done overseas, Lyse didn't have the time to properly grow into that role and it felt rushed.

Minfilia idk. She was just already leading the scions by the time we join in 2.0 and a lot of her job is doing boring leadership stuff we don't really need to see much of.