Thank you for returning to "original stories" for Raids in Endwalker

[Kesey]

The thing about Final Fantasy is the series always seems to take from real life. We can spend all day talking about the references.

The most recent Christmas event was a metaphor for the Covid epidemic and to have hope for a vaccine. It even has you communicate with friends via letters because circumstances beyond their control have prevented them from being with you for the holidays.

The rising event even referred to the most expensive piece of glass art that was broken by children playing near it. This is a thing that really happened where children playing near a full glass replica of Disneyland and broke it accidentally.

I think things like Nier or Ivalice being in the game are not only fan service, but continue to expand what Final Fantasy can tackle. There are not many universes that can take anything and then repurpose it to make the lore bigger. But Final Fantasy is one of those things that can.

[Alleo]

References are nice but if you stop just doing references and full out just include NPCs and whole story lines from other games then it just gets too much, at least for me. I cant see it as part of the world anymore but more like a big advertisment for other games.

We already get a lot of reused monsters. Do we really need reused NPCs and storylines too?

What I for example liked was how they dealt with the savage version of the last eden. If they would have gone pure fanservice they would have just stuck a certain boss as the last one but instead they went much more subtle with the hints. That is something I like because people will get their fanservice and those of us who dont care or dont know about it will still get a story that at least feels like it could happen that way.

Nier is the worst because its not a reimagining of something, as far as some said the creator of Nier even counts that as canon for his series..which means we are dealing with his characters. Characters that are not really a bit fleshed out and we only have one part left.

Also right now it honestly does not really flesh out the first in any ways. Like someone has said, why not explore the left over parts of the first history for it? Instead we get androids from somewhere.

[Cilia]

Seasonal events can be topical because they're limited time things, with each year bringing a new one to the plate as it pertains to the event in question. There... isn't always a real-life event reference to them, though; the Little Ladies' Day events with the Songbirds were basically just indulgence in Japanese idol culture adapted to fit the setting (barely).

A lot of side stories allude or make reference to previous titles, but things are very heavily remixed. Eden, for example, pulls Eden's name and appearance from VIII along with the ending being an abridged recreation of VIII's. Everything else is just allusion (to wit: Gaia is a blend of Squall, Rinoa, and Ultimecia; Ryne plays a similar role to Rinoa but has a more grounded personality; Mitron plays (and in JP is true named) similarly to Ultimecia but mixes in elements of Seifer; the final tier alludes to the protracted final battle of VIII; Eden's Promise has a similar body type to Ultimecia's Final Form; and Gaia's "Oracle of Darkness" form in 12S has access to Griever's Shockwave Pulsar and Ultimecia Final Form's Hell's Judgment), so a thorough knowledge of VIII isn't necessary to understand or fully appreciate the story because it's set in XIV's world with XIV original (or pseudo-original) characters and has an original story.

Now, if we come back after Endwalker only to find an accelerated amount of time has passed, they've turned Eden into a mercenary school, and built a nearby town and named it "Balamb"... well.

Everything in Return to Ivalice... already happened. In Ivalice. In the games set in Ivalice. If I want to enjoy the War of the Lions story, I can just go play that game... yes?

Whatever story the writers want to tell, there's no reason they can't use original characters and plotlines to do it.

(Yes, I am aware the Crystal Tower being adapted from III's endgame set a precedent... but that was integrated much more organically than "these major locales on Ivalice are here too, and the War of the Lions also happened 'cept Ramza and the Zodiac Braves could only seal Ultima away.")

Bozja... ehh, I'm not enjoying it because of how predictable it's been so far. Knowing Matsuno's proclivity for class conflict, Misija being a traitor was pretty predictable after she was harassed by those Corrupt Bigoted Nobles™. Even without a Field Record page on the subject, I quickly guessed Misija wanted to (incarnate) summon a primal after she kidnapped Mikoto, with the Resonance machine pretty much confirming it. The ruins were an obvious trap.

I dunno, maybe Matsuno's style just ain't to my taste. Either way, it's clear this is content (or at least a story) that wasn't made for me. (I strongly dislike the Southern Front and can only take Delubrum Reginae in small doses.) /shrug

The YorHa stuff I was initially interested in trying to figure out how it fit into the world, but after Puppet's Bunker I just kind of gave up because it doesn't look like Yoko Taro's even trying. I'm not happy about it, but I can certainly respect it.

Anyhoo, yeah, I'd much rather see original content than fanservice raid after fanservice raid. Looking forward to what they come up with.

[GoldStarz]

I can agree that the NieR raids don't contribute much if anything to the lore and that their plots have been way too slow up until the 5.4 quest, but how in the world do the Alexander raids provide more backstory to the world than the Ivalice raids which introduces us to the current state of Dalmasca and the resistance forces that are currently in operation there. By your own admission, Bozja adds to the lore of the world but Bozja wouldn't exist without the Ivalice raids as a connecting force. Even the Omega raids (which I'll admit are kind of bare in terms of plot outside of Cid haven't to confront the parts of himself that are holding him back) at least wrap up a pre-existing plot point.

I enjoy all of these raids, but it would be silly to pretend that just because something is acting as a tie-in means it will inherently contribute less overall. NieR raids are the outlier.

[Alleo]

I can agree that the NieR raids don't contribute much if anything to the lore and that their plots have been way too slow up until the 5.4 quest, but how in the world do the Alexander raids provide more backstory to the world than the Ivalice raids which introduces us to the current state of Dalmasca and the resistance forces that are currently in operation there. By your own admission, Bozja adds to the lore of the world but Bozja wouldn't exist without the Ivalice raids as a connecting force. Even the Omega raids (which I'll admit are kind of bare in terms of plot outside of Cid haven't to confront the parts of himself that are holding him back) at least wrap up a pre-existing plot point.

I enjoy all of these raids, but it would be silly to pretend that just because something is acting as a tie-in means it will inherently contribute less overall. NieR raids are the outlier.

I think for quite a few of us its not that Ivalice does not introduce lore but that it introduces lore that is bascially way too similiar to the FF it was taken from. They could have easily taken all of that and just but in a huge twist like Ramza being a bad guy or something. Take the places and NPCs but make a whole new original story. (As an example)

[Bright-Flower]

The Ivalice stuff to me felt sufficiently integrated into the world lore. it really wasn't any worse for me than crystal tower etc. Both have locations and characters taken from the source games and put into FFXIV's world history. I don't really see how CT is 'good' but Ivalice is 'tacked on.'

Omega I agree upon. having the first nine bosses being part of a lazy tournament arc where nothing much really happens. The story does FINALLY start to pick up in Alphascape but it was pretty dull in Delta/Sigma. Not that I didn't enjoy the fights, especially Sigmascape. But the story was extremely lackluster.

The Automata raids I'm really holding out for the last one to see how it answers some questions. These are helped for me by the fact that the interesting parts of this are the Dwarf parts rather than the actual scenes with the Androids. So far it feels pretty tacked on but we haven't really gotten answers yet. Maybe we won't. We'll have to see I guess. It's also a new take on things, even though I played automata I haven't been able to guess where the story is going and the raids, while they use famliar locations, have mostly avoided being too reliant on 'hey remember this from the game?'

[Tracewood]

I'm happy to be back in original raids. Don't hate Neir, just never played it (or really plan to) so it's hard to get invested but I do want to see how it plays out. Wish the glamour options were better, they seem samey.

[Ceasaria]

I am not a fan of Nier, gave him a chance in FFXIV, but obviously, it's for me the worst raid ever we got.
At least I appreciate he tries new things like exploring the instance alone to gather materials, quests in 5.2 and 5.4 patches, but that's all.

[Bright-Flower]

I like the bosses and environments of the Nier raids, but the story has been pretty lackluster. Which is sad because I really liked Automata but they did so little work to tie them into the lore of anything. The third raid 'might' fix this but it'll probably feel like too little too late. The only interesting stuff has been the dwarf related elements, not the androids or machines. I don't mind the Nier crossover in theory but in execution the story/lore aspect leaves much to be desired.

The bosses, music and for the most part glams have been good though, but the glams suffer from being a bit samey. The factory ones alleviate this somewhat by having different models for each gender and both raids having dyable gear, something we don't normally get from alliance raid gear. But there isn't much variety in style. I hope the third raid improves on this with its glams.

I'd say crystal tower and Ivalice handled the lore integration better, but it doesn't bug me as much as the first nine fights of the Omega raids did lore wise.

[Jirah]

I agree....to some extent.

some of the ideas weave into the plot pretty decently and come off as endearing rather than a pointless reference like the Warring triad, but some are just pointless like most of Omega where it was just back-to-back references and at the time it was good since some of the trials were unqiue enough (using the Phantom trains entirety as a dungeon like raid was a missed opportunity) and worst of all Neir being a cross over that hogged a entire expansions worth of raid content. I dont mind stuff like that like Monster hunter and Yokai pulled it off. but ff14 should focus on its OWN lore rather than just milking its franchise cannon. Eden being my least favorite set of trials asside from 2 or 3