Unpopular Opinions: 5.0 Edition

[Alexandre_Noireau]

I think the 24 man raid is a mistake.
Im deeply worried by the trailer words "Till our Friend Returns". Specially in the context of so many Single Player focused implementations and testings lately...

I cannot be the only one who thinks Hydaelyn is amazing on it's own and we have no need to explore, visit or have things so forcefully "fit" into our world...? This is starting to feel like the complete opposite of what ARR felt... ARR was kinda darker, very focused on it's own thing. And Heavensward was even darker, but also began to explore other venues... Like a whole lot of change happend... The cash shop massified... Along with other worrying marketing practices...

Final Fantasy XIV is starting to feel... Like mere fan service, like a bad japanese fan service anime... Or more like a very bad filler arc in otherwise an amazing series that has troubles keeping up with it's main plot... Yeah... We need more Hydaelyn. We need more empire, we need more ascians, more primals and beast tribes, definetly more warfare, or more exploration of our own world, the lands we have yet to visit, the instancing of massive chunks of lore, worldbuilding, the massive time bubbles the game has... Hydaelyn is cool man... I also had a slight hope, that the robed child was Unukulhai... Not... Sigh... Why? I thought we were done with 1.0? It was the whole point of the Warriors of Darkness, yet again another recycled concept.

What is this mess...? Why are we not preventing the use of Black Rose? Why is what we SHOULD be doing, being done by someone else and we kinda just get that teased...? Im talking about Ascian fighting. Yeah, Elidibus, remember him? Remember Zodiark? Can we please explore OUR world and OUR story?

[DashingDanny]

The "Trust" system seems to be an additive to solo play like Command missions. Sure its nice to be able to queue instantly to grind but implementing more solo experiences just spits in the face of an MMORPG. It's just weird.

[Kazgrel]

The "Trust" system seems to be an additive to solo play like Command missions. Sure its nice to be able to queue instantly to grind but implementing more solo experiences just spits in the face of an MMORPG. It's just weird.

Guild Wars 1 let you run with NPC "henchmen" upon release in 2004. So being able to use NPCs in this manner isn't exactly new.

[DashingDanny]

Guild Wars 1 let you run with NPC "henchmen" upon release in 2004. So being able to use NPCs in this manner isn't exactly new.

But Guild Wars 1 was even argued during its time to be a COOPRPG rather than MMO. As someone who played it straight from launch and into the release of GW2, yea I'm well aware it's not new but again its not a popular MMO system.

[splinter1545]

Guild Wars 1 let you run with NPC "henchmen" upon release in 2004. So being able to use NPCs in this manner isn't exactly new.

To be fair, GW1 had that because the only time you'd see another player is in some form of hub. Aside from those, you'd be put in your own particular instance of that zone once you leave them.

[Tharne]

What is this mess...? Why are we not preventing the use of Black Rose? Why is what we SHOULD be doing, being done by someone else and we kinda just get that teased...? Im talking about Ascian fighting. Yeah, Elidibus, remember him? Remember Zodiark? Can we please explore OUR world and OUR story?

Talking like that without knowing what happens in part 2 of 4.5 is short-sighted, maybe 5.0 is a result of fighting Ascian and because we made the light too strong something worse than a calamity (as it is said in the trailer) is happening. Also talking about "our world", "Hydaelyn" and "Zodiark" but not wanting to go to other shards (or even wanting to have anything to do with them) is weird since that's the whole shtick of Hydaelyn and Zodiark battle...

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Talking like that without knowing what happens in part 2 of 4.5 is short-sighted, maybe 5.0 is a result of fighting Ascian and because we made the light too strong something worse than a calamity (as it is said in the trailer) is happening. Also talking about "our world", "Hydaelyn" and "Zodiark" but not wanting to go to other shards (or even wanting to have anything to do with them) is weird since that's the whole shtick of Hydaelyn and Zodiark battle...

Other shards i get it. But those other shards are still hydaelyn. We are just the core shard.

For that to happen, 4.5 would have to:

Solve Unukalhai - Alpha Serpentarius/Zodiark maybe, or heavily zodiark related. Yeah, everyone has forgotten we have an Ascian with a name that means "Alpha Serpent" right next to us.
--------------------> Bring back Hydrus in any way shape or form, honestly i belive him is the only one who was able to protect or steer the emperor, his lost was not only a narrative mess and waste but ill not dig too deep.
Solve Zenos - Yeah. Not happening.
Solve the whole imperial War - If that is not the main scenario of 5.0, it has to be done in 4.5b and honestly, from both the trailers and zones so far shown, we are nowhere near going into garlemald, so we are basically taking another "break" from this.
The whole dialog of Y'shtola/Matoya sounds like the start of a training arc... "Till our friend returns i will hold them". Is she somehow use imba archon/matoya OP powers to hold against the imperials/light overflow while we go somewhere else? To find something?
Also, minfilia is back, and she shouldn't, the whole point of the warrior's of darkness and her becoming hydaelyn's avatar and helping the WoD in their source world is an allegory to saving 1.0 and then letting go... I honestly always thought the white robbed child was Unukalhai.

Yeah, we are going into a training expansion, to delay the confrontation even further, another expansion wasted into silly unrewarding side stories(anything ala mhigo "revolution" related), unnecessary character leads (lyse), unnecessary region additions that tease more content and divert the storyline from moving forwards rather than help it out (all othard related things)... Nah, let open every single thread, we might possibly need it in some future if things go nowhere... Which is honestly 4.0 till 4.5, where finally things started to flow again... And now we cut to some inconsequential sidequesting and more franchises pandering, fan servicing and marketing...

[Renato]

Final Fantasy XIV is starting to feel... like mere fan service, like a bad japanese fan service anime... Or more like a very bad filler arc in otherwise an amazing series that has troubles keeping up with it's main plot... Yeah... We need more Hydaelyn. We need more empire, we need more ascians, more primals and beast tribes, definetly more warfare, or more exploration of our own world, the lands we have yet to visit, the instancing of massive chunks of lore, worldbuilding, the massive time bubbles the game has... Hydaelyn is cool man... I also had a slight hope, that the robed child was Unukulhai... Not... Sigh... Why? I thought we were done with 1.0? It was the whole point of the Warriors of Darkness, yet again another recycled concept.

This pretty much sums up how I feel as well. If anyone has played PSO2, you can start seeing the comparisons which worries me because that game literally throws away it's years of lore to pander to anime fans using collabs with other games/media to create content. They've crossed over with anything from Monster Hunter and Nier to even King of Fighters...In a PHANTASY STAR GAME.

What worries me about collabs is that games tend to lose their identity bringing in other franchises. Each FF had it's own thing going on. It created new characters, locales and lore based in it's own world. FFXIV had that but then it began relying too heavily on fanservice.