Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

[YukikoKurosawa]

Maybe this is random, but I think the writers are far too comfortable with cutscenes involving everyone in some sort of meeting where they just stand and talk. Having binged the MSQ, every time a character said "Alright time for another meeting" I groaned internally. I get it, it's easy to animate (and that may be the entire reason), just have every character in a room standing and using basic emotes occasionally. But god it's the most boring parts of the story. Not that character's in a room together having some dialogue is innately bad, it's to be expected, but good writers often use it as an opportunity to make something dramatic or critical happen, it's usually crucial the story and doesn't feel boring. Meetings in the MSQ are generally just people talking and going over what we already know anyway and could arguably be cut and nothing of value lost. On rare occassions something actually interesting happens but usually nothing does. I've never noticed this is any other story I've ever experienced. A significant portion of the MSQ is "characters standing in a room recapping what we already know".

Obviously characters need to occassionally get together to formulate plans and such but god the writers overrely on these types of scenes far too much.

[Raikai]

Maybe this is random, but I think the writers are far too comfortable with cutscenes involving everyone in some sort of meeting where they just stand and talk. Having binged the MSQ, every time a character said "Alright time for another meeting" I groaned internally. I get it, it's easy to animate (and that may be the entire reason), just have every character in a room standing and using basic emotes occasionally. But god it's the most boring parts of the story. Not that character's in a room together having some dialogue is innately bad, it's to be expected, but good writers often use it as an opportunity to make something dramatic or critical happen, it's usually crucial the story and doesn't feel boring. Meetings in the MSQ are generally just people talking and going over what we already know anyway and could arguably be cut and nothing of value lost. On rare occassions something actually interesting happens but usually nothing does. I've never noticed this is any other story I've ever experienced. A significant portion of the MSQ is "characters standing in a room recapping what we already know".

Obviously characters need to occassionally get together to formulate plans and such but god the writers overrely on these types of scenes far too much.

It is slower... yeah. But I realized when I went back to wow for a short period of time when BfA released that I prefer this to the overworld dialogues where you feel way too distant from the NPCs :P.

[YukikoKurosawa]

It is slower... yeah. But I realized when I went back to wow for a short period of time when BfA released that I prefer this to the overworld dialogues where you feel way too distant from the NPCs :P.

That's not really the problem. It's that most of these meeting scenes are extremely dull and don't actually add anything. There's little to no actual character development, new information, or anything dramatic happening. It's an excuse to recap what everyone knows thus far, and formulate some sort of plan, which isn't innately a problem, but they happen so often in the story, and they're generally so dry that it gets tiresome. It's partly the way the story frames them that make them boring. They're extremely low energy, and the writers rarely make use of them to have something interesting happen. Like, I can predict exactly what's going to happen the vast majority of the time. It's just "lets have everyone go meet in a room, barely animate, recount what we've learned thus far, plan our next move" and absolute nothing else happens except in rare instances. I genuinely think it's partly a crutch for the animators to get away with not having to animate, because characters standing in a room talking is the easiest thing to do as an animator, especially since the character models already have a wide variety of pre-existing emotes they can just use, along with it just being plain easy to write.

It's just lazy storytelling. For example, I just read a scene in a novel I'm currently reading of characters in a room talking where a lot actually happened, it was filled with drama, plot twists, character development, and actually moved the story forward on top of all of that, in only 9 pages. It was an incredibly interesting chapter and I couldn't put it down until it was over. The problem with most meeting scenes in the MSQ is that nothing actually happens. Characters just stand, recount what we know already, and make new plans. It's the most dry writing imaginable. But were they to do a scene like I just described from the book I'm reading, it would be A LOT of animating. So ofc, it's easy to just plop characters in a room and have them just stand around and I suspect thats the main reason they do it. But god it is ever tiresome, but fortunately these kind of scenes aren't super commonplace, not since ARR anyway, which was almost entirely just that.

[Seera1024]

That's not really the problem. It's that most of these meeting scenes are extremely dull and don't actually add anything. There's little to no actual character development, new information, or anything dramatic happening. It's an excuse to recap what everyone knows thus far, and formulate some sort of plan, which isn't innately a problem, but they happen so often in the story, and they're generally so dry that it gets tiresome. It's partly the way the story frames them that make them boring. They're extremely low energy, and the writers rarely make use of them to have something interesting happen. Like, I can predict exactly what's going to happen the vast majority of the time. It's just "lets have everyone go meet in a room, barely animate, recount what we've learned thus far, plan our next move" and absolute nothing else happens except in rare instances. I genuinely think it's partly a crutch for the animators to get away with not having to animate, because characters standing in a room talking is the easiest thing to do as an animator, especially since the character models already have a wide variety of pre-existing emotes they can just use, along with it just being plain easy to write.

It's just lazy storytelling. For example, I just read a scene in a novel I'm currently reading of characters in a room talking where a lot actually happened, it was filled with drama, plot twists, character development, and actually moved the story forward on top of all of that, in only 9 pages. It was an incredibly interesting chapter and I couldn't put it down until it was over. The problem with most meeting scenes in the MSQ is that nothing actually happens. Characters just stand, recount what we know already, and make new plans. It's the most dry writing imaginable. But were they to do a scene like I just described from the book I'm reading, it would be A LOT of animating. So ofc, it's easy to just plop characters in a room and have them just stand around and I suspect thats the main reason they do it. But god it is ever tiresome, but fortunately these kind of scenes aren't super commonplace, not since ARR anyway, which was almost entirely just that.

Some of those meetings may be more for the player benefit than to move the story along or develop the character. Let's get characters together to summarize the last plot points since it may have been awhile since the player last played and they may need a refresher. Like how shows will do a "last time on..." section that will include relevant pieces from past episodes.

Especially if they fall at the beginning of an expansion or patch.