Looking back at this Yoshi P statement(story spoilers)

[linayar]

Its pseudo stakes.

Ok, let me spoil you on something: our character would survive as long as the game continues without any replacement mechanic.

Threats are possibilities of bad ending and are not bad endings themselves. That's why there can be many threats, but there is only one permanent bad ending. Thus, the stakes are real every time there is a threat regardless if we can overcome them until there is that one threat that we can't overcome, which will just be the final one for us.

[Mapleine]

Concerning the story Endwalker, I felt it was very good and had a fairly satisfying ending but it would've been far more impactful had it not ended like a Simpsons episode: Everything is alright, nothing of importance has really changed, reset to zero. Not much in the way of enjoyable bittersweet moments or any lingering melancholy that people like from stories like this. It's just... kinda over.

The expansion had plenty of wonderful dialogue, a great weight to it, a fine balance of personal drama and spectacle and a lot of interesting places traveled to, it was all very well made. Most of the expansion was excellent but the ending had low impact on me, I felt like it mildly cheapened the rest.

Also, as someone whose first RPG was FF4 they (IMO) chased having their FF4 prayer moment too hard. I was surprised how blunt and obvious they made it, telegraphing harder than a normal mode raid boss with another round of fake-outs when they had the wisdom to juke us with Zenos/Zemus bait in the trailer.

Not saying kill everyone or necessarily anyone just feels like... wow, that eight year climax sure came and went didn't it? Remember that time we had an apocalypse?

[TaleraRistain]

Even if they showed all the characters and things we over came like they did towards the end, it still would not provide the feeling that your player had to overcome some sort of despair and hardship in the expansion.

The WoL did, though. We have to take ourselves the player out of things. Our WoL doesn't have our player perspective. Our WoL watched numerous people die in front of them or turn into horrible blasphemies and had to take on the task of putting them down. We as the WoL didn't know our friends were coming back in UT. That debuff we get walking to the end isn't just there for show. Our spirits are low. Our friends are gone. We're walking alone to the end. We were sitting and drinking coffee and having laughs because we all knew character wise that those could be our last days doing so.

That's why we send them away in the end. We choose to sacrifice ourselves facing Endsinger alone rather than put our friends at risk again. We as the WoL might die, but we made sure the friends we just got back would live on.

[IdowhatIwant]

. But it seems like this community can’t really handle death, considering they still get triggered by Haurchefant references 6 years after his death.A lot of antagonists or villains are beloved, yet they arent spared from being killed off, so why should the protags be?

When EW was first released there was a lot of posts and threads made about the Garlean Suicide thing and many of the deaths in this expansion and how they should not have put them in the game. So I can agree that the community is part of the reason why the devs and writers will not kill off characters and try to kill as few characters as possible.

That was represented directly in the Scions sacrificing themselves and indirectly with the fact that it took the cooperation of the people to help in the solution, which showed the scale of the problem and its solution.

To this whole discussion on high stakes. I think a major issue with EW was some of these high stakes situations also just were not shown to us either. Again we saw very little of the end of days over all. We did not see anything involving the aftermath of Anima and the orders given to the tempered to just kill everyone. A lot of these high stake things were just resolved off screen while we are talking to bunny people on the moon about how people eating more things than carrots.

[IdowhatIwant]

The WoL did, though. We have to take ourselves the player out of things. Our WoL doesn't have our player perspective. Our WoL watched numerous people die in front of them or turn into horrible blasphemies and had to take on the task of putting them down. We as the WoL didn't know our friends were coming back in UT. That debuff we get walking to the end isn't just there for show. Our spirits are low. Our friends are gone. We're walking alone to the end. We were sitting and drinking coffee and having laughs because we all knew character wise that those could be our last days doing so.

That's why we send them away in the end. We choose to sacrifice ourselves facing Endsinger alone rather than put our friends at risk again. We as the WoL might die, but we made sure the friends we just got back would live on.

Yeah, at this point that is about a normal week for our WoL. We fought in multiple wars, and defeated gods. We literally are dealing with all this after preventing the apocalypse of another star.

[linayar]

To this whole discussion on high stakes. I think a major issue with EW was some of these high stakes situations also just were not shown to us either. Again we saw very little of the end of days over all. We did not see anything involving the aftermath of Anima and the orders given to the tempered to just kill everyone. A lot of these high stake things were just resolved off screen while we are talking to bunny people on the moon about how people eating more things than carrots.

I can understand that point of view, but I'm someone who can accept intentions behind a portrayal. They focused on Thavnair as an example and then branched out to the role quests to show that the problem is spreading, as it did for the Ancient, and not something that just happened overnight.

I think that is sufficient portrayal for me, while it may not be for others. I don't require them to belabor the point, but maybe others do, and that's fine.

The idea behind not showing everything also points to the scale of the world, that things are happening with or without our character knowing about their details.

[Rulakir]

I was all set to simultaneously cry a lot over G'raha's expected death, and appreciate it at a storytelling level, and be sad on my character's behalf at any further reminders of him.

Now that you mention this, as someone who adores G'raha, I would not want his hypothetical death to be milked like what they've done with Haurchefant. I thought it was annoying enough with characters I didn't care about or didn't even like in some cases, but thinking about it being done with characters I am attached to sounds worse. Hell, I feel that way about Emet. I'm still ticked off they brought him back just to off him two more times. It's sadistic.

Ysayle's about the only character death I've felt has been appropriately handled. She's remembered, but not overly so.

I feel guilty about Wilred.

I'm still angry about that because it was directly my fault for recruiting him. Everyone else who has died on the protagonists' side did so of their own volition.

[DPZ2]

Its pseudo stakes. Its just like when we're given the threat of turning into the light warden, or Graha disappearing, or the scions souls being at stake in ShB. These threats are constantly being raised but nothing ever comes of them.

You do realize that there is no "Game Over" in an MMORPG, right? Unlike single player games, the main character in an ongoing MMORPG has absolutely no means of permanently dying.

It's the dirty little secret that we all agree to when we play. Our avatar matters ... our avatar will overcome whatever major villain or circumstance is in the current expansion ... our avatar will return triumphant.

Even in single player games, you can restart the game from the last 'save', with no consequences for your character, or the story line.

[Theodric]

I think it's rather disingenuous to ignore the many MMO's and single player games with meaningful consequences as part of their narrative. MMO's are, by their very nature, are designed to appeal to a broad range of players with different tastes.

It isn't unreasonable for the narrative to take itself seriously enough to have consequences from time to time and for the occasional character of note on the side of the protagonists to die.

Putting aside the simple fact that the game has a very bloated cast already, it allows new and existing characters to step up - and it seems most of the opposition to actual stakes is coming from those opposed to anything happening to their chosen comfort character(s) which is pretty odd to me in itself.

[KizuyaKatogami]

You do realize that there is no "Game Over" in an MMORPG, right? Unlike single player games, the main character in an ongoing MMORPG has absolutely no means of permanently dying.

It's the dirty little secret that we all agree to when we play. Our avatar matters ... our avatar will overcome whatever major villain or circumstance is in the current expansion ... our avatar will return triumphant.

Even in single player games, you can restart the game from the last 'save', with no consequences for your character, or the story line.

Yes, i understand that. Which is why, one of the only other few ways of giving consequences in the story on the ally side is to either kill off someone in the main cast or at least give them consequences, like how Flow did. The problem is this hasn’t happened for a long time now. The story has been completely one sided in favor of the main cast and in this quote yoshi recognizes this. It makes everything feel incredibly lackluster and less impactful knowing everyone important will survive.