Quote Originally Posted by Rilifane View Post
Estinien had an incredible character developement. He was vengeful, taciturn and reserved at first, got into plenty of arguments with Ysayle and if not for the company of the WoL and Alphinaud, they would've tried to kill each other and he always came across as so focused on revenge and bloodshed that he didn't live; as if he only lived for killing Nidhogg and when he did, he might as well just die. Then he gradually learned there is a different side to this war, saw something akin to family in Alphinaud again and grudgingly worked with his former enemy that was responsible for killing many of his countrymen and ultimately respected her to the point of visiting Azys Ly to pay his respects to her.
His thirst for revenge got him turned into Nidhoggs host. He attacked his own city, killed his own countrymen and was willing to kill himself to end it. And after that he took it as a second chance, helped the WoL from the shadows, traveled the world to keep an eye of things, forged bonds with dragons and whenever he appeared he seemed to have lightened up a bit, cared for Alphinaud more openly, showed a sense of humor. He stood his ground when he disagreed with something or just took matters into his own hands because he simply isn't the type for lengthy diplomatic sessions. He had some views others disagreed with and it was fine, he had some problematic traits and it was also fine.
The bit about the character conflict can't be over-stated, IMO. Some of the most fun encounters I had in older RPGs, like Baldur's Gate 2, was trying to manage the NPC disagreements, which would sometimes result in them fighting to the death or taking your leave of the party. These aren't the only ways to resolve such conflicts, and it's obviously not feasible to the same extent in an MMO like this one, but it helped highlight the strength of their convictions and differences in these. The closest they came in FF14 is indeed Estinien and Ysayle and, although he never joined the party, Emet-Selch following your party around on the First. This helped show more facets of the characters and thus avoided reducing them to mere sounding boards for certain viewpoints.