Critique of Endwalker Characters

[Remish]

The Golden Girls. :P Interestingly, it's because they were all so different and played well off of each other, something the Scions don't have. They've always been friends, always get along, always agree with each other (what few differences they have don't amount to much). The fact that they're all Archons or from Sharlayan like the twins doesn't help either, aside from who they were before then there's not even much diversity in their backgrounds. The main cast needs some spice.

I think if you looked in the right places, you'd find some people probably don't like the Golden Girls either. A lot of people don't even know that a lot of people dislike Endwalker that much until they visit these forums. I don't think there is anything anywhere that has a 100% approval rating because this assumes everyone will like it. Businesses will listen to the majority, not the loud unsatisfied minority regardless of their criticism. That's not to say that the criticism isn't validated. But money talks more. You need to speak with your wallet.

[Rilifane]

Ever since someone compared Zenos to Vegeta from DBZ I've been thinking, darn, he had possibilities! I would love a Vegeta type in game even if it's not him.

I believe we sort of had that chance with Gaius but he was unfortunately wasted on an optional side quest and we never saw him again. Oh, well...
- one of our arch enemies since 1.0 and early ARR
- acknowledged and respected our strength and wanted to have us on his side but entirely willing to kill us if we refuse
- a damn good veteran fighter with a lot of precious inside knowledge about Garlemald
- forged his own path after his almost fatal failure and learning the truth about the Empire without doing a 180 and holding fast to some things ("I'm still a son of Garlemald")

The potential for interesting encounters with varios NPCs was immense. It was crystal clear that our path would lead us to Garlemald and he had the most inside knowedge, much more than Nero, Cid or Lucia and Maxima lacked the military background as he was more of a diplomat/ politician.
But since it was only an optional side quest they couldn't do too much with him, his screentime was limited and they had to "get over with it" so they couldn't really add a story that slowly went from open animosity between former enemies over grudging acceptance to have need of each other's skill and knowledge to something like a difficult but still working alliance or even a mutual understanding and respect. The whole "Alright, let's work together!" went over too fast when it could've been made into a story not unlike Estinien's albeit with a former enemy instead of a vengeful ally.
He was a conquerer, he waged wars, strongly believed might gave the right to rule and killed but he also gave a Roe a pretty high rank, was strongly aganist the abuse of non-Garleans, went against the Empire by helping to stop Meteor as well as other needlessly brutal or cowardly methods like Black Rose and took in orphans, ill-fated as their story turned out to be, tried to be a sort of father for Cid and wanted to do better after his failure in Prae.
He admitted to many mistakes and openly acknowledged them in front of others but he also never cowered or denied who and what he was and still is and that some part of him will always be loyal to the Emporer.

Edit: Oh, and while we're at it: Regula. That one would've also made for an interesting character of the same category if only they had allowed him to live.

[Remish]

All the Emet-Selch merch that sold on Etsy after his seemingly permanent demise in Shadowbringers directly contradicts this. People straight up have paintings of the guy hanging in their houses. SE refusing to do any merch of him during last expansion was a hilariously bad decision as they could have easily made loads of money before and after his role in the events of Endwalker. As for all the Y'shtola merch the best way to solve that problem is to simply design a better postergirl.

Etsy is a place for artists with freedom of creativity and not big industry merchandise. Which is usually cheaper than any official merchandise so the comparison is apples to oranges. They also said their lack of Emet merchandise was that they wanted to wait until his role in the story was over. Pretty sure they addressed that at some point and from their business pov, seemed to have been pretty okay with that decision and do not regret it.

[Theodric]

Etsy is a place for artists with freedom of creativity and not big industry merchandise. Which is usually cheaper than any official merchandise so the comparison is apples to oranges. They also said their lack of Emet merchandise was that they wanted to wait until his role in the story was over. Pretty sure they addressed that at some point.

Etsy still shows that there's significant demand for merchandise based on many characters that are largely absent on the Square Enix store for reasons that, honestly, don't really hold up. Why, exactly, does a character's role in the story need to be 'over' before merchandise is sold? That certainly isn't the case for Y'shtola or G'raha.

It can't be an aversion to selling merchandise based around antagonists, either, based on the presence of Sephiroth and Rufus Shinra figurines being sold.

I daresay some characters, particularly the Scions, are artificially pushed more heavily than their actual popularity would arguably justify.

[Nav_Fae]

There is valid criticism in here. Though most posters ruin it with consistently hinting that people need to die to be of any meaningful impact.

Instead of focusing on how current character personalities annoy you, provide feedback to the devs about how a new cast of characters can be more fleshed/spiced out. Cause if you don't like someone like Y'shtola now, you are never going to like her in the future even with a personality change. Her current history is apart of her now and will follow her forever forward. It's better to help the devs create a new character instead of trying to change what already exists.

[Nav_Fae]

Etsy still shows that there's significant demand for merchandise based on many characters that are largely absent on the Square Enix store for reasons that, honestly, don't really hold up. Why, exactly, does a character's role in the story need to be 'over' before merchandise is sold? That certainly isn't the case for Y'shtola or G'raha.

It can't be an aversion to selling merchandise based around antagonists, either, based on the presence of Sephiroth and Rufus Shinra figurines being sold.

I daresay some characters, particularly the Scions, are artificially pushed more heavily than their actual popularity would arguably justify.

Because SE is a business and it's about money. Everything they do is about money. Let's not pretend it isn't. The story is an afterthought to sales. Always has been. Always will be. If those sales are achieved with the current personalities, then it isn't going to change. Their profits will speak wither or not they need to adjust character personalities. I'm pretty sure SE doesn't care what Etsy's demand for merchandise says. They have their own marketing formula and fan creations probably aren't factored into it. For the same reason Nintendo shuts down fan projects.

But we get it, people need to die to be good. That's all this thread has turned into and SE isn't ever going to listen to that feedback. That's all most of us are taking away from this discussion anymore.

[aveyond-dreams]

Because SE is business and it's about money. Everything they do is about money. Let's not pretend it isn't. The story is an afterthought to sales. Always has been. Always will be. If those sales are achieved with the current sales, it isn't going to change. Their profits will speak wither or not they need to adjust character personalities. I'm pretty sure SE doesn't care what Etsy's demand for merchandise says. They have their own marketing formula and fan creations probably aren't factored into it. For the same reason Nintendo shuts down fan projects.

The present design of male viera was directly inspired from "fan creations" as they interpreted the artwork the OP had in the first post as what fans wanted. You ask, they give. Emet-selch etsy merch and fanart comissions were extremely prominent during the Shadowbringers era, in my circles far more prominent than pictures of the same generic catgirl at least.

In any case I agree that we'd be better off with new characters. Preferably ones with contrasting personalities (see the dynamics of the trio, the dynamics of many other rpg parties really) and with sufficiently varied backgrounds so as to not have them all with the same outlook on life and how the world should be. And for goodness sake give them a hair color other than white.

In terms of heroines and postergirls, some of my favorites include Garnet, Oerba dia Vanille, Leliana, Morrigan, and Yuna.

In terms of males: Kain Highwind, Zidane, Balthier, Alistair, Ignis, Gladiolus

and in terms of villains-because the absolute last thing we need is another Hermes: Thordan, Kuja, Kefka, Ardyn, Gabranth, Caius

Also important to note is that at least once Yoship managed to acknowledge the fact that Hermes was a divisive figure in an interview sometime in January, I think. It really does feel like he was thrown in there just for the sake of "subverting expectation!" which may have worked if they had sufficiently developed him, instead of randomly thrusting him onto us.

[Nav_Fae]

Sorry but Etsy is a bad comparison and is going to continue to be for reasons already mentioned but feel free to continue to use it if you think it justifies your hatred for things. It won't change anything in the end.

[Lauront]

Because SE is a business and it's about money. Everything they do is about money. Let's not pretend it isn't. The story is an afterthought to sales. Always has been. Always will be. If those sales are achieved with the current personalities, then it isn't going to change. Their profits will speak wither or not they need to adjust character personalities. I'm pretty sure SE doesn't care what Etsy's demand for merchandise says. They have their own marketing formula and fan creations probably aren't factored into it. For the same reason Nintendo shuts down fan projects.

But we get it, people need to die to be good. That's all this thread has turned into and SE isn't ever going to listen to that feedback. That's all most of us are taking away from this discussion anymore.

No, it's more that EW would've been a good point to remove some characters whose stories have more or less peaked. And an apocalypse where the stakes are (or should be) high is as good a time as you will get to do that.

[Theodric]

Because SE is a business and it's about money. Everything they do is about money. Let's not pretend it isn't. The story is an afterthought to sales. Always has been. Always will be. If those sales are achieved with the current personalities, then it isn't going to change. Their profits will speak wither or not they need to adjust character personalities. I'm pretty sure SE doesn't care what Etsy's demand for merchandise says. They have their own marketing formula and fan creations probably aren't factored into it. For the same reason Nintendo shuts down fan projects.

But we get it, people need to die to be good. That's all this thread has turned into and SE isn't ever going to listen to that feedback. That's all most of us are taking away from this discussion anymore.

Given that Square Enix recently reported a loss of $48 million due to the Avengers game which had some, uh, 'interesting' creative decisions that didn't go down well with those of us not submerged in the Twitter sphere, I daresay the company would do rather well to look at what fans are actually asking for and shake things up a bit more as a result.

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/square-en...0its%20release.

To say nothing of the company's recent announcement that they were deciding to flirt with NFT's, a concept that has proven to be exceedingly unpopular with many gamers across the board.

Source: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ared?p=5790881