Final Fantasy 16 was announced

[Amnmaat]

Ahh, yes, the Avatar of Illusion. Powers include not appearing in any cutscenes, being forgotten by the developers until the end of the second game, and being immune to anyone talking to/at him.

Only Barraind understood what I meant haha. But yeah your character would not be the main character at all, not even part of the known world in any sense. The main character would still be that emo guy they showed. Your created character would just be a party member you create as a bonus, and you don't even have to create him/her. It's not about your character being part of the story, it's about you being able to create your character in the game. A lot of games, specially western games do this now.

[MomomiMomi]

No no, you're thinking of player character as in XIV, but that's far from what I mean. You'd just be a "soldier" that joins the party, who's never acknowledged by the story at all. The townspeople might acknowledge you lightly but not in a real story based kind of way. It'd just give you the option to have a character you actually like being in the party, as opposed to the effeminate main character they always seem to make; with a supporting cast that's not much better (depending on which FF, it's just been the case a lot lately).
You'd have to have played games like White Knight Chronicles to really get the gist of it.

That was my least liked part about WKC. Hard pass for me.

[Gameovers]

Only Barraind understood what I meant haha. But yeah your character would not be the main character at all, not even part of the known world in any sense. The main character would still be that emo guy they showed. Your created character would just be a party member you create as a bonus, and you don't even have to create him/her. It's not about your character being part of the story, it's about you being able to create your character in the game. A lot of games, specially western games do this now.

Nah I hard pass on that too. I want main characters that are characters. If you're going to let me create a character they should matter. XIV does it almost well enough. We should matter more not less. But I'm not a fan of WRPGs either.

[Amnmaat]

I'm not proposing this to be popular about it though. I just know friends who will not touch an rpg they can't make a character in. It's one of the biggest reason why a wrpgs do better overall; such as the Souls series for example. People love customizing their characters, whether it's a story based rpg or not; a character creator as a bonus can only add more value to the game, specially to the western customers.

[Gameovers]

I'm not proposing this to be popular about it though. I just know friends who will not touch an rpg they can't make a character in. It's one of the biggest reason why a wrpgs do better overall; such as the Souls series for example. People love customizing their characters, whether it's a story based rpg or not; a character creator as a bonus can only add more value to the game, specially to the western customers.

FF fans aren't WRPG fans tho. What I mean by that is WRPG fans were most likely not the target group for a large part of the Final Fantasy fanbase and just adding a blank CC for a numbered single player FF game would do it no service. Now you are making me think about that age old question on which is better .. a JRPG or WRPG... but that depends on the person. I perfer JRPGs myself.

[Amnmaat]

FF fans aren't WRPG fans tho. What I mean by that is WRPG fans were most likely not the target group for a large part of the Final Fantasy fanbase and just adding a blank CC for a numbered single player FF game would do it no service.

In what way would a cc do FFXVI no service? I see no drawbacks to it, in fact it can only benefit Yoshida's team in their pursuit to one day upgrade FFXIV's cc. You're talking about the same franchise which prides itself on experimenting and breaking boundaries; if we have DMC styled combat, California/Nevada as a setting (FFXV), why would a cc as a bonus feature do the game no service? Even japanese rpgs are including, as the aforementioned White Knight Chronicles, Code Vein, and others.

[Hycinthus]

In what way would a cc do FFXIV no service? I see no drawbacks to it, in fact it can only benefit Yoshida's team in their pursuit to one day upgrade FFXIV's cc. You're talking about the same franchise which prides itself on experimenting and breaking boundaries; if we have DMC styled combat, California/Nevada as a setting (FFXIV), why would a cc as a bonus feature do the game no service? Even japanese rpgs are including, as the aforementioned White Knight Chronicles, Code Vein, and others.

Even though I don’t really like creating a character for JRPG, but I get your point and I do support variety of a cast of characters, diversity, and customizations.

Agree that it can get tiring to get another cast of 4 emo guys again, so sure, hope there will be some female party members who are equally important and other members. Also, if we can customize hair styles, accessories, tattoos, scars, and clothes, I’m okay with those.

[Gameovers]

In what way would a cc do FFXVI no service? I see no drawbacks to it, in fact it can only benefit Yoshida's team in their pursuit to one day upgrade FFXIV's cc. You're talking about the same franchise which prides itself on experimenting and breaking boundaries; if we have DMC styled combat, California/Nevada as a setting (FFXV), why would a cc as a bonus feature do the game no service? Even japanese rpgs are including, as the aforementioned White Knight Chronicles, Code Vein, and others.

For the fact that other than this very game here. ( Even though you can make a debate if it's so lately ) Most FF titles the main character is a character you play as, so they can tell their story to the fullest without dealing with the silent protag thing. We wouldn't have major fan favs like Squall, Cloud, Lighting, etc etc if a CC was in there. Not a full one anyway, and I don't think a mainline FF nonmmo game will ever put one in. Now if you're talking about something like being able to change the clothes and whatnot like what we got in Lighting returns or FF15 then that's fine. And I think that's as far as they would go honestly... unless their making another mmo.

[Amnmaat]

For the fact that other than this very game here. ( Even though you can make a debate if it's so lately ) Most FF titles the main character is a character you play as, so they can tell their story to the fullest without dealing with the silent protag thing. We wouldn't have major fan favs like Squall, Cloud, Lighting, etc etc if a CC was in there. Not a full one anyway, and I don't think a mainline FF nonmmo game will ever put one in. Now if you're talking about something like being able to change the clothes and whatnot like what we got in Lighting returns or FF15 then that's fine. And I think that's as far as they would go honestly... unless their making another mmo.

Up until XV no FF had done an action type combat system like you'd see in Kingdom Hearts or Devil may cry.
So the up until now phrase is very hollow when it comes to FF

Moreover, I don't think you're understanding what it means to add a cc to create an off shoot character. This character will not be the one you control as you go through the story. It'll just be one of the options in your party, mainly for battle content and specialized quests. The way it would work is that the choice is yours, to use the main character as the character you do battle content with or you use the regular cast, but giving you that choice adds a lot of value to the game; cc is being seen as a widely accepted part of any modern "adventure/rpg" type game. Even games which are story heavy like Assasin's Creed eventually figured out where the trend was going, the trend is going to character creator. It doesn't take away from the main game and its story, it just adds more value to the game beyond just a 50 hour story clear.

[Dalmacus]

Up until XV no FF had done an action type combat system like you'd see in Kingdom Hearts or Devil may cry.
So the up until now phrase is very hollow when it comes to FF

I like how people casually forgets the recent FF7 remake...