Exploring Eorzea's Existing Lore

[JunseiKei]

Eh, some of this looks like backpedaling to when were just an adventurer and not the known and trusted Warrior of Light to our leaders of their respective city-states.

Specifically, beastmen rights and protesting for them just don't make sense. 1.x showed beastmen working with the other races. What changed was the Ascians and teaching them summoning and then being enthralled by their own summons' wishes. Uh, yeah, no rights for the enthralled. We've already seen the city-states are perfectly fine with beastmen not under the influence of their patron primal deities, from the sylphs just outside of Gridanian to the beastmen quests that we can complete.

Other stuff of this is covered in the lorebooks you can buy and other things just don't make sense (like technological advancement, sure, but when you cross into another city-state without permission, that's called invasion and would be in violation of an alliance). IE: A lot of the races migrated to different areas as well as their places of origin are all mentioned in the lorebooks.

Also, Ishgard pulled out of the Alliance when the Garleans made it clear they were coming for Eorzea, as well as Gridania and Ala Mhigo entwined in their Autumn War. It's hard to want to support a nation that left of their own volition and didn't want to help its former allies (especially, as we have come to find, the Dragonsong War was of Ishgard's own creation and their leaders at the time knew it). Also, the reason the Ishgardian church is reeling is because their faith was based on their leaders' lies.

I wouldn't mind seeing former fleshed out NPCs again, but I equally don't want them to dilute the story and the main focus of each arch [read: expansion] simply for the sake of having X NPC there. Honestly, I think that's part of why Stormblood feels so lacking, especially when compared to Heavensward, is because of the constant splitting between the Far East and Ala Mhigo. We never really made a connection to Hien, Gotetsu or Lyse (we know "YDA") on the same level as someone like Aymeric, Haurchefant, Ysayle or Estinien (Yugiri is an exception as we've been in on-and-off contact with her since before the release of 3.0). It's the same way I feel about Thancred and Minfillia; Minfillia sat at the Waking Sands and called us to say go take care of that primal. Thancred was possessed for 2.x and 3.x had him running errands or being missing while 4.x had him spying on the Garleans until he was taken by whatever is going on with the Scions currently.

I feel like SE would have to meet some really high standards to revisit a lot of the things mentioned by the original poster that would still leave me feeling attached to characters like I was in 3.x. I don't really see that happening.

[Jaywalker]

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I'm kind of ://// on lorebooks exclusively, it feels like telling instead of showing. Not good form in stories, also flattens the world we can interact with in-game to a series of informed qualities.

I'm not talking enthralled beastmen either. Limsa Lominsa has some beastmen but Gridania and Ul'dah? Haven't seen 'em, and it's explicitly brought up that an exception is being made for Mamool Ja in the Blue Mage questline. Also, while the Amal'jaa of Zan'rak are totally enthralled I don't get the sense that the Kobolds, Ixal, or Sahagin are. I think it was mentioned that not all primals temper all the time? Some are more prone than others, like Lakshmi and Ifrit, and even with Leviathan my sense was that non-Sahagins were more likely to be made thralls.

I'm confused how some Gridanians being interested in foreign technology would be invasion. I'm not talking about Ul'dah invading Gridania against their will. I'm talking about there is technology in the world of Final Fantasy XIV beyond airships. It might be an interesting conflict to see different Gridanians having different opinions on what kind of lifestyle they want and how they'd like things to develop, especially with travel between city states.

I'm squinting at you a bit on the Ishgard points because it looks like you're trying to moralize this and are getting defensive. I'm talking about how different residents of Ishgard might feel, realistically. I'm not saying I personally would find them right. I'm saying it would be an interesting conflict that could continue fleshing out the world and society.

I disagree with you on Stormblood also tbh. I felt very invested in the characters and plot, although with less investment in Yugiri because I don't think as much concrete, specific, mundane characterization was shown for her. It also resonated with me having studied the impacts authoritarian regimes can have on people and what tactics they use, as well as looking at how various psychologies played out in different characters. If you want evidence to back things up I can do that for you. The thing is, I do not think you need to like things but there's a big difference between "I like/dislike X" and "X is well done/poorly done". They're not the same thing. You can like a story that is poorly done on a technical level, you can not like something well done on a technical level. I don't think there's any technical reason there would be a problem with the stuff I mentioned. If you personally just don't want it that's fine, but it's kind of weird you came to a thread where the spirit is "I hope XYZ happens what would you like to see" and went in the spirit of "I hope XYZ doesn't happen". We're both just fans with no power here. It's not a threat to you.

As one last bit, in terms of going back to "just an adventurer"? You missed me there. I'm talking about getting reminders to when things were just messes made by people. I don't think those have less value or interest than say, a massive primal, Allagan monstrosity, or Garlean warship. If anything it might ground things in further personal investment because you can see how everything effects the people in the game. Also, having these issues side-by-side grants a wider range of possible plots in this series than needing to come up with new world-ending threats bigger than Bahamut every new arc. You still have really high stakes but the tone shifts between antagonists.