Looking back at this Yoshi P statement(story spoilers)

[Xerkrosis]

This was one of my very few gripes with Endwalker, honestly. It was the dang end of the world. A battle that led to the edge of the known universe. And...everyone's fine? Seriously, not even a scratch on anyone!

"end of the world" was a joke. It only hit Thavnair and the already dead realm of Garlemald. At the end of the story, when we departed to UT, I expected the apocalypse to reach Old Sharlayan. But no. It didn't even reach Aldenard nor Othard, which should've happened even if for the duration of the role-quests.
The cinematic trailer was quite misleading with the entire map of the three continents burning. Reminds me to SB's lacking "revolution".

[Anvaire]

While i dont really like the ultima thule sacrifice and rebirth story gimmick, I think it does serve as a precursor to the end of the scions. Allbeit temporarily. That said, i think the biggest issue with EW is that the final days dont have an overarching impact. The portion within Radz at han is impactful. But also is resolved too easily (though i love the G'raha moment) Personally i think Allisai should have fallen and become a blasphemy. Not because shes a bad character but because out of all of the scions she is the one who struggles the most with emotions. Having A scion death here, would have been impactful. Would have given room for the others to come to terms with it and something that Alphinau in particular would have had to overcome. But beyond this, it would have made the scions feel vulnerable which is something that is sorely needed.

[Rilifane]

Have nothing against people having a different option (taste) in a game and yea the game of throne reference came to be because my friend was showing meme from that show while i was typing. I guess it just boggle my mind about making a new thred about discussion that was in another thread that i thought that came to a close guess i was wrong about that

It shows that it's a persistent problem for many.
I doubt people are asking for NPCs getting killed for cheap shock value - if you read through the responses carefully, you'll quickly see that they want meaningful and reasonable death. No off screen deaths out of nowhere, no blood bath for shock value.
And the concept of "comfort characters" prevents that. Every time it would have been reasonable to lose a main character they didn't and instead went out of their way to protect them.
SE wants to present the world as dangerous, they want us to see that the stakes are high - except for the main cast, when it comes to them they make it as fluffy as possible.

Hinting at something but not going through with it is a good story telling device if used sparringly.
Always hinting at something but never going through with it, on the hand, ends up making the story and their depiction of conflict, war, apocalyptic scenarios etc less believable to the point of people shrugging any "dramatic" scene off with a "Oh, well. Another bait, not falling for it".

And it gets even worse when they explain right away that everyone might look death but don't worry, they're not really dead because you have this megapower you are absolutely not, under any circumstances, allowed to use but obviously end up using.
I'm not saying I wanted all of them gone in Ultima Thule but I'm taking this as an example of how they not only bait but now also telling us right away that we don't have to worry (just in case we had fallen for the bait even for a minute) because no lasting harm done and all.
ShB and EW were full of scenes that could've turned into a meaningful death that opened up a lot of opportunities for good stories and character exploration.

A death of a loved one is a traumatic experience and, if done well, can add so much to a story. I liked how they depicted the aftermath of Haurchenfant's death. How it affected our character and the other NPCs. It greatly affected and changed Aymeric and the Fortemps family. One of the driving forces behind Emmanellain's character growth was the death of his half-brother.
And I know that most people don't care about his character much (neither do I, tbh) but it did make for a really good character arc and what happened to him could happen to more characters that people do care about.
One door closes, another opens. Or even plenty of others.

[DPZ2]

So it seems here even Yoshi P understands that a story like 14's needs to have some sacrifices/death to make it realistic, and that going forward we should essentially expect to part ways with some characters, yet after playing Endwalker this doesnt seem the case at all. Im curious on what changed. I would think such a high stakes, major conflict/battle as he calls it would be the prime time for something like this yet....nothing.

From a different interview, released a month or two before Endwalkers: “As we’re moving towards that climax [of the Haedalyn and Zodiark story], we need to think about how the stages of that progression unfold, but we don’t feel, for example, as part of that we need to kill off a character. If a character dies that doesn’t spell the end of the whole story, or the end of everything happening there. So I think that’s one aspect that we think differently when it comes to creating and developing the story.”

The Fanbytes interview the OP is quoting was written before the 5.3 patch dropped. Each may draw their own conclusions.

Personally, I don't believe that "sacrifice" has to mean "death" in this game. The best example I can think of is an individual who we have known since the day we officially joined the Scions, at least you'd know them if you wandered around the whole complex in the Waking Sands.

[ReynTime]

I think it's funny those comments came after 5.3's ridiculously obvious fanservice driven epilogue doing a 180 on a long foreshadowed sacrifice.

[Alleo]

I see his statement more as him not wanting to spoil anything. People are able to keep up the suspense if they would kill of someone or not. Just look at the part in the trailer where Alphinaud talks. So many posted that this must mean that he will die. The fear is still there even if at the end they survived.

I lost quite a few NPCs that I liked so I am happy that the scions made it.

Also a bit interesting how some of the scions should die so that the story is more dark while at the same time we somehow should have just saved the whole Ancient world by changing their past. That imo would have made the story way less dark than it was and would have made the power of the WoL even more unbelievable. Not just defeating Despair itself but also somehow creating an alternative future for a race long gone.

[LeonKeyh]

Whenever the last zone started, the first person that disappeared I thought was really gone. I thought that it was somewhat unceremonious, but that it was an ok sacrifice and I could have lived with it (though, I wanted _more_).

As the last zone went on I realized that there were no stakes, or rather, I trusted that.

There were essentially two scenarios:

1. All of this is real and writers that have been knocking it out of the park up until this point just phoned in cheap shock factors or let their 4 year old write the story.

2. All of it was going to be undone in some way.


The big issue is that we're way past the point where we need another death to return suspense to the game. The fact that everyone just keeps surviving has really caused me to not worry at all when something happens.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Did you really need to make a new thread about this,this discussion has been going back and forth in What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker? Thread ( https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...y-in-Endwalker )

This is not game of thrones where people are kill left and right

I´m getting a little worried about you and this weird obsession of why none of the main cast die scenario

That thread isn’t specifically for that, and i thought it would be nice to share this quote of his.

I don’t need you to worry about me, it seems more like you don’t agree with my opinion and you want me to quiet down about it. I don’t think it’s very crazy to want to see some grim and darker situations actually affect the main protagonists and not some random npc’s we’ve known for a few minutes, especially if the game is going to advertise itself as high stakes, end of the world apocalypse etc etc. It’s been 3 expansions now with no significant deaths. Many ff games in the series have had prominent characters deaths that it used to help drive the story forward, and i feel it would make a lot of situations here feel a lot more impactful. As it is many people feel the final days were a joke. Only essentially reached a total of 2 areas and the scions all came out literally unscathed. Now imagine if they had actually had consequences or one of them died, it would leave a much more lasting impression. Even Yoshi P in this quote seems to agree, in a story like this you need sacrifice on both sides so i’m not sure why so many people are acting confused. This isn’t supposed to be a fluffy anime game, or at least it never always was.

[Fayt1203]

That thread isn’t specifically for that, and i thought it would be nice to share this quote of his.

I don’t need you to worry about me, it seems more like you don’t agree with my opinion and you want me to quiet down about it. I don’t think it’s very crazy to want to see some grim and darker situations actually affect the main protagonists and not some random npc’s we’ve known for a few minutes, especially if the game is going to advertise itself as high stakes, end of the world apocalypse etc etc. It’s been 3 expansions now with no significant deaths. Many ff games in the series have had prominent characters deaths that it used to help drive the story forward, and i feel it would make a lot of situations here feel a lot more impactful. As it is many people feel the final days were a joke. Only essentially reached a total of 2 areas and the scions all came out literally unscathed. Now imagine if they had actually had consequences or one of them died, it would leave a much more lasting impression. Even Yoshi P in this quote seems to agree, in a story like this you need sacrifice on both sides so i’m not sure why so many people are acting confused. This isn’t supposed to be a fluffy anime game, or at least it never always was.

Pls If i would want you to be quiet about it you would know it. I never been one beating around the bushes on matters and would say it outloud

I posted that link because it was there where the discussion started and went on for several pages and that post just felt like a follow up from that discussion.

It is true that i don't share your opinion on that matter. But I'm also not disrespecting your opinion on the matter. i have tentice to use poorly wording when i'm typing and what i want to say translate poorly on paper or computer because of the language barrier which also make my posts sometimes sound more hostile than it should be, English is not my main or second language, I rarely use it in daily live. Need to work on that

[Illmaeran]

They could kill Krile probably and be fine, but that wouldn't have any weight so why would they bother?

Smol Lalafell, I see what you did there.