Is it just me, or did 5.3 represent a big decline in storytelling? (spoilers)

[Arallir]

I understand that in MMO gameplay plays the main role. Players need battles, challenges. I understand that technically this trial was needed. And I liked it very much, as well as the plot twist. But what prevented the player from returning to convincing Elidibus after the battle?

In addition, a successful outcome in convincing opponents offers the potential for interesting interactions with truly different and unique characters. In the end, all of Scions, city leaders and other "our pals" are monotonous; they are all like good guys and nothing more, almost licking the protagonist’s heels in adoration. Not only does it seem to me that the adoration pouring from all sides is smeared into one and only feeling towards the main character from all over the world, and it does not seem deserved and therefore especially dear to the heart, but it is more interesting to observe those relationships in which there is a conflict. Not the hate, don’t get me wrong, but having different points of view where you can say “they both have correct statements in their beliefs”. That’s also what makes a good drama.

In other words, I really hoped. And now I feel like a hungry man with a waved meat in front of his nose, and then showed the fig. (Technically speaking, it is impossible to speak within the framework of the game about a thing \ action, and not give an opportunity to do it. There will certainly be someone who want to do such thing. Someone can remember other Final Fantasies, so I’ll try to explain myself. In the single games, the main character is always fixed - we just watch his story, be it Cloud or Noctis, or someone else. If that character makes a successful attempt to convince someone - we are happy, if he is not successful - we get upset, but we do not have a feeling of being deceived. If he does not try, we can be angry with him, but not angry with the people who wrote the script, realizing that this is the idea, this is a character - his story, nature, path. All this does not work if the character is not fixed, and we "write" him ourselves.) Right now, I am waiting for the end of the Sorrow of Werlyt with Gaius and his “kids”. And for some reason I have little hope that this time something will change.

[Arallir]

2) Implementation of an attempt to convince. We are venting frustrations on Elidibus, waste our time on stupid questions like: "What are you up to?" Although the game itself immediately gives much more interesting things that you can cling to and use in that confrontation. Lost memories, which we see immediately in the first meeting, and I am not talking about the question of Elidibus whether we called him here or not. In Amaurot, we can state once that there can always be a compromise. But without a specific suggestion, these are nothing more than empty words. He himself appeals to ideals, which also makes sense, but first I would like to ask, who sees a compromise in what exactly? Where can there be a compromise? Bend a knee to us, for we live now and we far more deserving than you? Since recalling the last Rising event, I would like to recall the words of one of the characters there. Why should only one side compromise? Moreover, if at the very first objection of your opponent you wave your hand with the words “you do not leave me a choice,” from the outside it looks as if you are not interested in peaceful solution. If you raise the issue of compromise, if you believe in it, you need to be more persistent, you need to persuade, and offer. Finally the ending of the patch. I wanted to bash my head against the keyboard. Honestly. “All your friends are dead / You won't bring them back” and “You have nothing to fight for” is all that you can squeeze out of yourself, especially after words about compromises?! Yes, logically speaking those statements are correct. But if a person is in despair, on the verge of breaking and has lost literally everything, including his memory (Our memories are what make us ourselves. By losing them, we literally lose ourselves. It's scary. It's very scary, it’s worse than death), he will cling to his " duty” even stronger, without any influence of the eikon \ primal, having heard such a thing. It's like saying to someone standing on the edge of the roof: "You are a loser, you won't get a job, your beloved dog died, and your girlfriend is mine now." And after that do you honestly believe he must decide - life is beautiful, why should I jump from the roof? It doesn't work that way. Where are the arguments at least? Not to mention, this is the moment to suggest an alternative if you see one. Remembering how Ryne fought to help and save Gaia, all the same way as Arenwald with Lyse did that for Fordola - I want something like that.

[Arallir]

From what I personally saw, the story with Elidibus is the reverse of our story with Emet-Selch. What was his achievement? He showed that the Ascians are not evil fanatics of chaos and destruction, but people like us. Who fought to save their world. We needed to do the same. So that in the end, we

needed at least to listen, and not erected walls of an emotional barrier. For this you need to talk. Talk first. Behavior in the style of "you’re guilty" - will not help the persuasion. But the game itself ascribes behavior of the protagonist in this way. And G'Raha’s at the same time.

Again, I understand that rich and ramified dialogues are not and never have been Square Enix strong forte. And they are still very conservative in this regard. But in such cases, if you said "A" then you need to say "B". Or not say anything at all, as I see it. Sometimes half measures are worse than none. So, according to the results of the game’s implementation, our hero looks like an insensitive asshole in my eyes.

[Arallir]

It is possible that we would have failed. There are many reasons from the loss of memories and natural ones like the past millennia of life to more complex ones. More than one reasons can have an impact. I had a theory that the personality of Elidibus does dissolve inside the Zodiark. The other side of the duality of its current nature. (The last story convinced me of that even more.) The mechanism I see is something like this: on the one hand, it, being the heart of the eikon, merges more and more with it over time; plus Elidibus’s own aspirations to save everyone, to be needed, to fulfill his mission, being refracted through the prism of the eikon's programs, as it were, raised to a degree; plus all the theme with heroes. But the more he tried to strengthen himself due to the connection with the eikon, and the more he went into dedication to his goal, the more he was absorbed by the Zodiark. That is, his feelings for everyone allowed him to return, and later it played a cruel joke on him, further accelerating and strengthening the process of merging. But on the other hand, he was not yet completely absorbed. If you watch carefully, you can also see that he shows doubts, at times even trying to see something in us, and sometimes even delineate where he is and where the eikon program is. Or maybe, absorbing the aspirations of the characters, he became their reflection, ceasing to be himself (this would explain the final scene)...

[TheMightyMollusk]

You can edit a post to get around the character limit.

[Arallir]

Ultimately, almost everyone can be convinced. Sometimes this is limited by the allotted time, often by the available information. And absolutely always - by desire. I did not see this in the implementation of our "attempt". While it would seem, after the finale of the original Shadowbringers, after the promise to remember – this is the chance to do what Emet-Selch did to us. Not everyone will want to try that, yes. That’s the point of Roleplaying. That is why I repeat, you need to either go all the way and write a full-fledged dialogue, (even better with a different outcome, returning to what I said above) or not touch this topic at all. In order not to seem contradictory to myself: I did not expect a favorable outcome with Elidibus before the release of the patch. My brother was hoping. I told him that the probability is 1% at best. But since everyone turned around in the patch itself, with the "convince" theme specifically raised, it left me devastated and mad. And for months now I have not been able to stop scrolling in my head what else could be said or done. I already keep silence about the fact that in the whole story starting from Realm Reborn, I saw a character who needed help most of all. NOT in the adventuring form "give me this or bring me that", and not "kick someone’s ass", but in human participation. For all this reason, I remembered Undertale with how to play through the game without killing anyone and make Flowey Asriel again. Usually such things pay off. Why does low-budget game created by only two people all that, and that is not available for a very high budget game?

[Arallir]

3) From here I pass directly to the third point. The ending. So contrasting that I again want to ask - why? Why show that our opponents are also people who also suffered and fought for their world, only to say in the game: " He’s dead and good riddance!” Now we can have fun with G'Raha. You can feel it in the atmosphere, in details like the words of Landaniel, and even Unukalhai! God, I wish I hadn't gone to see what he had to say ... There is no sense of justice in this. Because, let's approach everyone with the same morale. We either say that intentions are important and it’s enough, as in the case of Arbert and his team, with whom the fact is carefully glossed that, willing or not, they did cause the Flood, and then came to destroy the Source to save the First. Yes, and G'Raha is ambiguous in this light, since with all the promise of a "paving a path for the tomorrow" he did not try to save the future in which he woke up

(and there at that moment more than one generation passed), but preferred to save the past and us specifically ... By his success, by the way, he simply erased all people from that future. I don’t know how anyone, but for me it is not much different from the Ascian genocide. They also were saving their world, and those who were dear to them. (And, by the way, whether we like it or not, thanks to them races of the Source and Shards also live, in particular thanks to the sacrifice of the same Elidibus, since if they had not stopped their ancient catastrophe, it is very likely that the world would be dead and everyone would not be in it. Whether the decision to summon the Zodiark was the right one or not, but the fact does not change from that).

Or we say: "it doesn't matter what you wanted, it is important how you got there." Then no participants should be justified. For example, tell the whole truth about Warriors of the First, including their ugly episodes. Let everyone decide for themselves whether they are heroes or not. But no, certain people want everyone inside the game to remember Warriors of Darkness as heroes and heroes only.

[Arallir]

My point is that with such a picture, a second chance had to be given either to both sides of the conflict, or to none of them. So it would be fair and there would be no hypocrisy. The producer's letter, as I remember, said that they wanted to make the ending both bitter and hopeful at the same time. But the problem is that it only works for G'Raha’s fans, which I admit are the majority. Which does not mean that they are the whole fanbase of the Final Fantasy XIV. (I will return to this later) For people like my brother, and me for example, there was no hope, and everything was drowned in that same bitterness and despair. Because yes, the Ascian’s theme emotionally hit me the most. In the light of what was revealed, I saw in them as another unfortunate people, drew a parallel between Convocation and the Scions, and even saw Lahabrea from a different angle (although if you listen to the original Japanese voicelines and not the dubbing, it already feels differently). Although in the Final Fantasy XIV itself there were storylines successfully implementing all this. For example, the Hildebrand storyline in Heavensward. There is also a sad note - Gigi, having spent the entire ether, turned off; and that very hope - that if he picks up enough ether, he will be able to wake up again. And sense of justice is present – the Grand Sers did not get back their youth, but they are alive and have found something else in return. Or the storyline of Omega, where there is a line of succession to Omega represented by Alpha.

[Arallir]

I also still see the final scene after the fight before my eyes. Everything about it somehow feels wrong. Again comparing: Yotsuyu got a second chance, did not use it, but found her revenge in the end; Omega realized what he was missing (and to be honest, the words and behavior of Sid, exactly like Alpha, are more sane than what is attributed to the main characters in Shadowbringers). And here what? A semblance of peace? When they say “when the duty is done, we will be together, but you are not here,” I don’t feel it at all.

It's funny, but after all this, I emotionally coincide with the Ascians, and not with "our bros" - I feel offended and enraged. As if something dear to my heart was taken from me in order to give it to someone else, and in return they gave me G'Raha. Even wishing to revise the final cut scene on top of the Crystal Tower, I found that only the part of it with G'Raha was preserved in the "diary". They didn't even leave that part of Elidibus to me. And no, I previously treated G’Raha well, but on this basis I am starting to quietly hate and despise him. And I want to say to developers: you can keep him, I don’t want and don’t need G’Raha.

[Arallir]

4) Role-play. The game openly started to describe who and what the player's character once was. And it would be okay if it just said that he was a member of the Convocation with a certain name. But we are told that he was always an adventurer. I always think over all my characters: their motives, views and goals, biographies, etc. This is the only way, I believe, to make roleplay possible. And not all of them are adventurers. Yes, the game presents us as an adventurer, but in the "present world" I can still mentally "delete" the Adventurer’s Guild from my character’s history if it does not fit, or imply that the others see “the adventurer” due to their perception, but when the game tells me: "you have been an adventurer at

all times" - it becomes somehow hard to ignore. (And the last of the stories even went into the modus operandi of the Azem) All this would be okay if the protagonist was a prescribed character like in the old Final Fantasy games. But we have Main Character as a "blank sheet", “hollow shell” due to MMO genre.