Looking back at this Yoshi P statement(story spoilers)

[DPZ2]

The problem with this is, the WoL is very hard to depict a personality for. Theyre effectively a blank slate in most regards, so it falls onto the supporting main cast to flesh out the realistic and emotional responses, thats why their themes fall flat when the main cast contradicts or doesnt have to deal with the themes at all. Again, what is the message here? Garleans and thanair people have to suffer, but if youre the main character you dont? You get to succeed and succeed and will always have something to bail you out and save you so you dont have to lose? Sorry but their whole message about suffering and loss consistently rings hollow when the main cast is exempt from it.

One cannot truly believe their avatar has no personality. You are the Warrior of Light, the personality you choose to role-play is your avatar's personality. Your avatar's emotional responses to the journey you've taken are those you choose to role-play. Since not everyone has the talent for role-play, the game provides minimal hints along the way indicating what the storyline believes your character would do in a given circumstance. For those who do have talent for role-play that can be extremely frustrating at times. Many can differentiate their avatar-as-main-character-in-a-story from their avatar when engaging in the role-play aspect of MMOs. Given the nature of the written narrative, players might engage in the equivalent of writing fan fiction for their character. The whole role-playing community encourages such engagements.

The written narrative is focused on the Warrior of Light. The cast of Scions purpose is to move the story along. They are catalysts for our own actions. There is a familiarity to them that ensures we have their support when necessary. But the path is not theirs to take, it is ours.

As for why we constantly succeed, despite what are bitter odds ... we don't, always. I certainly didn't expect to get beaten down, twice, by Zenos. Nor did I anticipate running away from Rajit. This is an ongoing MMO with multiple players. The outcome of every battle is going to be success, eventually. The day we cease to succeed is the day the servers are turned off for the last time.

That is the nature of video games. To go against that nature, as in "We deliberately made this game to be unbeatable", is to occur the wrath of players for whom a successful outcome is expected.

Would the tragic death of one of the Scions really have cured the dissatisfaction you've expressed in this expansion so far? I know it wouldn't do so for any number of those who've also expressed their own dissatisfaction with the storyline, because the death of a major character wasn't what they focused on.

[KizuyaKatogami]

One cannot truly believe their avatar has no personality. You are the Warrior of Light, the personality you choose to role-play is your avatar's personality. Your avatar's emotional responses to the journey you've taken are those you choose to role-play. Since not everyone has the talent for role-play, the game provides minimal hints along the way indicating what the storyline believes your character would do in a given circumstance. For those who do have talent for role-play that can be extremely frustrating at times. Many can differentiate their avatar-as-main-character-in-a-story from their avatar when engaging in the role-play aspect of MMOs. Given the nature of the written narrative, players might engage in the equivalent of writing fan fiction for their character. The whole role-playing community encourages such engagements.

The written narrative is focused on the Warrior of Light. The cast of Scions purpose is to move the story along. They are catalysts for our own actions. There is a familiarity to them that ensures we have their support when necessary. But the path is not theirs to take, it is ours.

As for why we constantly succeed, despite what are bitter odds ... we don't, always. I certainly didn't expect to get beaten down, twice, by Zenos. Nor did I anticipate running away from Rajit. This is an ongoing MMO with multiple players. The outcome of every battle is going to be success, eventually. The day we cease to succeed is the day the servers are turned off for the last time.

That is the nature of video games. To go against that nature, as in "We deliberately made this game to be unbeatable", is to occur the wrath of players for whom a successful outcome is expected.

Would the tragic death of one of the Scions really have cured the dissatisfaction you've expressed in this expansion so far? I know it wouldn't do so for any number of those who've also expressed their own dissatisfaction with the storyline, because the death of a major character wasn't what they focused on.

Except we now learn this expansion everything was already pre determined. I didnt have a say in anything, i didnt even get a chance to express myself to Venat and how much i disagreed with her actions, so no, the WoL isnt me, if it was believe me things would be a lot different. My WoL truly seems like they have no personality, 90% of the time the way they react to things is through palm punching, fist clenching, and "menacingly" stepping forward. Endwalker ws probably the expansion with the highest stakes and biggest threat ever, and its also the expansion that had the least amount of consequences and suffering for the main cast. You can make it where the main character loses and still have a game, even in a mmo. Lets not act like this is some baffling claim, even the devs themselves said they were thinking about a rejoining plot for 5.3+ so clearly its possible.

They've already had moments in the game that you're describing. You're very narrowly looking at EW, which already has suffering outside of the main characters enough already. Everything bad that happens from halfway through EW on is indirectly caused by the WoL going hero on Zodiark. We go through a whole dungeon right after that's all about people suffering indirectly from our actions.

In ARR, Alphinaud's heroic ideal fails and he creates a military force that nearly ruins everything and ends up with a (fake) dead Sultana and eventually leads to Shinryu being summoned to cause a new calamity. Our WoL is exiled from the rest of Eorzea (but we still get to go there bc MMO). That's followed up with us going on an elf adventure to see the dragons and 2 of the "main characters" in that story each finding out they're wrong and they've been continuously killing for nothing and feeding into a cycle of hate. Lyse deals with the loss of her sister and her country as well as her best friend who sacrificed himself in vain to save the world from Shinryu. Thancred's whole story in Shadowbringers deals with his failure to save his quasi-adopted daughter on the Source, who he only got in contact with because he failed to save her real father. He tries to cope through Ryne but learns to let it go. Urianger also has his thing about Moenbryda which is resolved in EW and his guilt over his events at the end of Heavensward's patches. Y'shtola on the other hand I don't really feel like is a full character, but she still goes blind trying to save the Scions.

They could have killed a character at some point but I feel like it would have broken the plot flow, it would have been unnecessary, it would have removed all potential for keeping that character around in the future, and it could have alienated fans. Considering the devs didn't do that, they feel the same way. At this point, the main cast is over 10 years old. You can look at the Disney Star Wars trilogy as an example of how badly fans took the deaths of old characters for the sake of their newer, less well done characters.

Yes, other expansions, expansions where they didnt throw in your face constantly and try to preach that suffering is necessary. I dont need you to try and remind me of events that happened 6+ years ago. I find it absolutely humorous how you and others say things like a character death would have ruined the plot flow in an expansion dealing with loss and sacrifice, yet dont seem to think the constant death baiting,and fakeout deaths dont ruin the plot flow. To each their own i suppose but i find it to be an incredible double standard. How would it have been "unnecessary" if you dont even know how they would do it? Alienated fans? Are you serious? So it isnt really a matter of it being a hindrance to the story, its a matter of fans not being able to handle the deth of their comfort characters. I've already shown you a quote from Yoshi p saying he agrees that there needs to be losses on the main cast side lol. So no, he doesnt feel the same way evidently.

I think theres more than enough proof that newer characters are well liked considering popularity polls showing the ancient characters like Emet are much more popular than the scions.

[DPZ2]

I've already shown you a quote from Yoshi p saying he agrees that there needs to be losses on the main cast side lol. So no, he doesnt feel the same way evidently.

Evidently Yoshi P must have had a change of heart, as I quote from my response to this OP days ago. (emphasis added):

"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."

[kpxmanifesto]

Evidently Yoshi P must have had a change of heart,

Of course he did.

Yoshi P: "Can't make any changes to the game that would upset the players and hurt SE's profits now, can we?"

[DPZ2]

Of course he did.

Yoshi P: "Can't make any changes to the game that would upset the players and hurt SE's profits now, can we?"

Ummmm. The quotes both the OP and I have are verbatim from the articles involved. Which article do you have with that quote?

Should I have started this response with your famous "Lmao"? Would that make it more true?

[kpxmanifesto]

Ummmm. The quotes both the OP and I have are verbatim from the articles involved. Which article do you have with that quote?

Should I have started this response with your famous "Lmao"? Would that make it more true?

Ooo someones upset. Pride gets petty when poked, they say.

[MikkoAkure]

I've already shown you a quote from Yoshi p saying he agrees that there needs to be losses on the main cast side lol. So no, he doesnt feel the same way evidently.

He may have said that before, but after EW you should find that either that statement ended up not being true (at least for main characters minus Hydaelyn) and a fake-out, or he changed his mind on the whole situation. The after-EW interviews have him support the main cast, talk about their main-character-ness and goes on to gush about Urianger. Either way, the game's story ended up not being the one you expected it to be and to continue to go on about it feels more like a long-winded rant than a critique.

I think theres more than enough proof that newer characters are well liked considering popularity polls showing the ancient characters like Emet are much more popular than the scions.

Emet was snuffed in his first appearance so there wasn't really any bringing him back regardless of his popularity, unlike G'raha. Plus, with as much as you harp on about G'raha, would you really have preferred they kill of Thancred, Urianger, and Y'shtola to satisfy your urge for blood only to have the rest of the game be "The Adventures of G'raha and the WoL"?

[DPZ2]

Plus, with as much as you harp on about G'raha, would you really have preferred they kill of Thancred, Urianger, and Y'shtola to satisfy your urge for blood only to have the rest of the game be "The Adventures of G'raha and the WoL"?

I wanna play "The Adventures of G'raha and the WoL"! Please, SE, please, please, please!

(Or not, I'm happy with the story lines so far. And no, I didn't really enjoy that part of the novel Giants in the Earth where they didn't find Per Hansa's body until the snow melted.)

[KizuyaKatogami]

He may have said that before, but after EW you should find that either that statement ended up not being true (at least for main characters minus Hydaelyn) and a fake-out, or he changed his mind on the whole situation. The after-EW interviews have him support the main cast, talk about their main-character-ness and goes on to gush about Urianger. Either way, the game's story ended up not being the one you expected it to be and to continue to go on about it feels more like a long-winded rant than a critique.



Emet was snuffed in his first appearance so there wasn't really any bringing him back regardless of his popularity, unlike G'raha. Plus, with as much as you harp on about G'raha, would you really have preferred they kill of Thancred, Urianger, and Y'shtola to satisfy your urge for blood only to have the rest of the game be "The Adventures of G'raha and the WoL"?

Or,perhaps higher ups had him change his mind in fear of how the community would respond. Apparently Ishikawa's initial draft for the story was pressed to be changed, i wonder why hm? You're free to try and denounce my claims but its exteemely disingenuous to do so, these are the public forums, im expressing my critique for how the devs have filled their story with plot armor and convoluted plotlines.

How do you mean there wasnt any bringing him back? They brought the scions back from essentially death lol. Please. I mean, they could have killed off Graha, idc, but i do find it interesting you keep obsessing over death when ive said countless times it didnt even have to be death, it could be some other form of consequence like actual injuries or scars.

[MikkoAkure]

Apparently Ishikawa's initial draft for the story was pressed to be changed, i wonder why hm?

Ishikawa said she had to rewrite the first draft because it didn't put the pieces of the plot together in a compelling fashion. I don't think that's the smoking gun you're looking for.

How do you mean there wasnt any bringing him back? They brought the scions back from essentially death lol. Please. I mean, they could have killed off Graha, idc, but i do find it interesting you keep obsessing over death when ive said countless times it didnt even have to be death, it could be some other form of consequence like actual injuries or scars.

After a whole expansion where he's the antagonist, and then his long, drawn out epic death cutscene followed by an emotional scene with him saying "remember us", it would have been a bigger fake-out death than anything the Scions ever had if Emet just randomly showed up alive just because he's popular. His popularity already led to his return in Elpis and his narration of EW and that was already more than expected.

I'm not sure how getting a scar equals consequences. Either way, it was very obvious retroactively that they wanted all of the main characters together for the climax of EW at Ultima Thule and considering that entire zone involves 0 fight scenes, there was nothing going to happen during that. I'm not sure what they could have done through all of previous EW stuff to give them an injury that gives consequences and still have them show up for the climax that wouldn't be treading ground they've already done. They already had Y'shtola get sliced up and require immediate healing magic which cancelled out any consequence from her injuries except "Zenos bad and dangerous" and make it so the writers don't have to deal with Y'shtola for the rest of the expansion.

Like I said, Zenos slashing another Scion who would just end up getting healed so they can show up at the end wouldn't have added much since it's already been done before. Zenos in WoL's body shooting a Scion would certainly be shocking, but these forums already went crazy over the fact that WoL was being controlled at all and for something like that to happen wouldn't have gone down very well. Jullus injuring a Scion would sour fan's disposition towards him and it's obvious they plan to bring him back for more. A random Terminus creature injuring someone wouldn't have the same impact as a named character doing the same. And there's no way they'd have a Lopporit actually injure someone badly. That's pretty much it for points where I could've seen something happening.

But there's still moments that show us how much is at stake and show us where we failed. Everything that's happening is because our WoL exists and Zenos wants to cause bad things to happen so that we will get angry and fight him again like we did that one day on top of Ala Mhigo. So everything is already indirectly our fault. And then we kill Zodiark which makes it worse and leads to a leader getting eaten and a child being stomped on, which is one of the hardest scenes to watch in the whole game. The Garleans don't trust us and due to their propaganda would rather die out in the cold with the monsters and that's exactly what happens and we fail to foresee it or prevent it. The Twins' failure to convince their father that they're competent and know what they're doing leads to Sharlayan not lifting a finger for us until the very end.