I don't think the game's direction is sustainable anymore (ending spoilers)

[zcrash970]

Listen I'm not opposed to going back to basics at all, once again it's what I want more than anything, but I worry about the reception or if they'll manage to make good battles out of it. But I suppose the responses in here are heartening.


Bro what

Yeah it was heavily implied that his residual aether is still a threat and no idea what its lingering is going to do

[RachelM]

I see a thread like this after basically every expansion, lul. The writers have never failed to disappoint all these past expansions so, unless they get an entirely new novice writing team, I'm not worried about where they take the story.

[Lunalepsy]

Through the years, this game has constantly ramped up in scale in numerous aspects.

Story wise, we started as a humble adventurer struggling to kill primals and now we're at the point of vanquishing an intergalactic monster intent on destroying all of existence. Anyone can see that the story has peaked at this point. After all, what's a bigger threat than something stronger than the god(s) that ruled our world? We just saved the universe... so where do we go from here? There's literally no possible threat that we can struggle to defeat, everything is beneath our scope. We even defeated Zenos, the only known being at our same level. Most of the ascians are dead, and those who remain are the sundered who no longer have a god to serve. But their story is done anyways, isn't it? The ascian threat is gone.

If anything Emet foreshadowed before the end carries any weight, it seems like they're going to attempt to wind things down back to a worldly scale, but how do you reconcile that after everything we've done? Will there even be any primal summonings? Will they reintroduce the ascians, or instroduce a new enemy force that functions similarly to them? Or is the solution just to keep trying to get bigger and badder threats somehow?

My point is: regardless of where the story goes, this will be seen as its highest peak, and it'll be controversial regardless. If the threats keep becoming greater, many of us will grow exhausted and find it contrived. If the threats become smaller, people will complain that it's boring. And should the threats be smaller, how will the story be compelling? How could we possibly struggle against anything? Primals are a joke to us now, only a god offers us a challenge.

At this point, anyone would assume that our character's story is over, yet the plan is to sustain the game for a couple more expansions at least. This worries me to say the very least. While I personally would love to go back to the scale of ARR-HW-SB, many people won't, and I realize that doing so will have narrative issues regardless. Is the only way to accomplish that through some sort of power level reset?

I guess we'll find out in 6.1 onward, but I can't say I'm not anxious. I don't want to see the game go downhill or become less loved.

The story has reached a literary threshold. It's time to wrap it up and give it a good ending before it collapses!

[IdowhatIwant]

The story has reached a literary threshold. It's time to wrap it up and give it a good ending before it collapses!

7.0 we are going to the void where we find an all powerful being hell bent on doing something possibly bad to something. We won't find out any information about his motives or what his goals are until 7.4. His true evil power is he ruins the lore of every character, villain, and story aspect of the last 5 expansions.

[SturmChurro]

I don't like how they effectively killed off the entire universe, and potential discovery or threats from it (aside from some Omicrons out there). I get that there is a lot left to do on the source and it's shards, but it's just unbelievable. Every single race in the universe wanted to die, and was wallowing in despair? It's absolutely ridiculous, frankly. We defeated a threat that was so powerful, they were speeding up the destruction of the ENTIRE universe. It was a bit much.

[Nihility]

I don't like how they effectively killed off the entire universe, and potential discovery or threats from it (aside from some Omicrons out there). I get that there is a lot left to do on the source and it's shards, but it's just unbelievable. That every single race in the universe wanted to die, and was wallowing in despair? It's absolutely ridiculous, frankly. We defeated a threat that was so powerful, they were speeding up the destruction of the ENTIRE universe. It was a bit much.

I think they made it fairly clear it was mostly the Omicron's doing. Was a bunch of story about how they just went world to world wiping everything out and using the spoils of war to enhance themselves. They even directly tied to what happened with the dragons
The vast majority of her list was wiped out civilizations, a few races that have come to strange conclusions is certainly possible too.
They never really gave much scope either. seemed like it only took a short while to travel to where she was. Is this all in one galaxy? one arm of a galaxy? a small star system? using the term star in place of planet confuses things quite a bit too

but to the original question we have a whole ton of our own planet completely untouched and we have a boatload more shards to see. Restoring the one overtaken by the void seems like a pretty solid end goal that we already have tie-ins to. We also have a spaceship now so can go all scifi and apparently the crystal tower is a timegate now. Whole list of stuff Emet-Selch listed off could be low stakes adventures to start a story. Could even try to unsunder now that the reason for it is gone... The amount of potential they just left laying around is kind of crazy
kind of hoping to start an adventure with G'raha and Krile they seem to still not be super fully developed like the rest and coincidentally went together after the split up

[GrizzlyTank]

Want to see unsustainable storytelling, just look at a certain other mmo.

FFXIV is doing perfectly fine as it is, with plenty of room to expand on, not to mention that they have access to Square's entire library to borrow from if needed.

[SturmChurro]

I think they made it fairly clear it was mostly the Omicron's doing. Was a bunch of story about how they just went world to world wiping everything out and using the spoils of war to enhance themselves. They even directly tied to what happened with the dragons
The vast majority of her list was wiped out civilizations, a few races that have come to strange conclusions is certainly possible too.
They never really gave much scope either. seemed like it only took a short while to travel to where she was. Is this all in one galaxy? one arm of a galaxy? a small star system? using the term star in place of planet confuses things quite a bit too

but to the original question we have a whole ton of our own planet completely untouched and we have a boatload more shards to see. Restoring the one overtaken by the void seems like a pretty solid end goal that we already have tie-ins to. We also have a spaceship now so can go all scifi and apparently the crystal tower is a timegate now. Whole list of stuff Emet-Selch listed off could be low stakes adventures to start a story. Could even try to unsunder now that the reason for it is gone... The amount of potential they just left laying around is kind of crazy
kind of hoping to start an adventure with G'raha and Krile they seem to still not be super fully developed like the rest and coincidentally went together after the split up

It is funny that all the Omicrons had to do was encounter a sensitive bird girl, and they met more than their match. Even if Meteion was only a galaxy wide threat, this will trivialize anything after. Sure, there is still more than enough room for potential discovery, and good storytelling, no doubt, but I do think they did go a bit overboard here. In terms of travel, who even knows anymore? Dynamis, aether, or whatever else explain all of that.

Oh God, I am dreading the "promise" we made to G'raha. I really am not looking forward to an adventure with him. Personally, I preferred the companionship of Hythlodeus and Emet-Selch. It felt right, and they are Azem's old companions, and best friends. It just clicked. G'raha, on the other hand, just feels clingy, and the relationship feels forced. The dialogue responses are overdone as well.

[Lenivy]

How you can get to the end of this story and not trust this team to write another amazing tale is beyond me.

Cos i saw similar pictures in 2 other rpgs and one of them was skyrim.

[Remish]

I'm pretty sure I recall Yoshi P saying at one point that the "Season 2" story will be independent and unique from the "Season 1" story and not really have anything to do with each other. Full of a brand new story with brand new characters and a whole new adventure to pursue.