Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

[BaconBits]

Hot Take: Villainous characters with sympathetic backgrounds are too damn prevalent in this game. We need more despicable characters like Valens that don't overstay their welcome.

[Shiro--Tsubasa]

Hot Take: Villainous characters with sympathetic backgrounds are too damn prevalent in this game. We need more despicable characters like Valens that don't overstay their welcome.

this kind of funny, because in most other cases the opposite is the problem. xD

[Liam_Harper]

Hot Take: Villainous characters with sympathetic backgrounds are too damn prevalent in this game. We need more despicable characters like Valens that don't overstay their welcome.

Honestly I think this is intentional and the game itself, lore and design, is somewhat built around the type of community they wish to foster.

A game like WoW has a strong theme of war, faction divide, competition and a good dose of purely despicable characters. They even refused to add things like personal gathering nodes because they felt players should "compete" for resources. We all know the type of community WoW has.
FF14 has a strong theme of teamwork, cooperation, understanding and a large majority of the villains are redeemable. Resources are shared. Even PvP is under mutual consent by lore. I do feel this is reflected somewhat in the community. We're far from perfect, but you don't have the same level of sheer aggression towards fellow players that you have in other games.

[BaconBits]

Honestly, all I want is an antagonist I can look at and say "This is my favorite character, I hate this guy ". Valens Van Varro came close to that. The unrepentant megalomania, the moments of blind fury and his jealousy of Gaius, the entire "Burn out the bad" scene. And when he inevitably got his comeuppance and had his head popped like a grape, I was genuinely happy. He had his time to shine during the Sorrow of Werlyt series and was killed off before he could overstay his welcome and start wearing thin on player's nerves, unlike a certain blonde haired menace who honestly should have stayed dead after slitting his own throat. My only regret is we didn't get to slap him silly ourselves, though Gaius besting him in single combat made up for it in my opinion.

[jameseoakes]

Honestly, all I want is an antagonist I can look at and say "This is my favorite character, I hate this guy ". Valens Van Varro came close to that. The unrepentant megalomania, the moments of blind fury and his jealousy of Gaius, the entire "Burn out the bad" scene. And when he inevitably got his comeuppance and had his head popped like a grape, I was genuinely happy. He had his time to shine during the Sorrow of Werlyt series and was killed off before he could overstay his welcome and start wearing thin on player's nerves, unlike a certain blonde haired menace who honestly should have stayed dead after slitting his own throat. My only regret is we didn't get to slap him silly ourselves, though Gaius besting him in single combat made up for it in my opinion.

I do agree with this, I also feel that most of the 'sympathetic' villains are really badly done and the sympathetic part feels really tacked on and in no way makes up from the monster they are and just results in messy uninteresting characters