Quote Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami View Post
We’re gonna get some fluff about thanking all of the super nice npcs that helped us in EW and give them muffins and throw a super kawaii party for them. Then we’re gonna go to sharlayan and have a small tidbit quest where we get to watch Yshtola talk to some of the teachers there and just be absolutely smarter than any of them and have a funny haha moment where they get annoyed with her and she gets super smug. Then we’re gonna get some urgent news about some dragons or garleans and the dungeons will be an early visit to corvos or meracydia and the blasphemy problem will be completely solved with barely a mention. Oh and Graha at some point will start getting all sparkly eyed and worshipping us and Estinien and doing his uwu adorable ear wiggle when he gets excited.
This describes the likeliest sequence of events for the 6.1 MSQ. Ideally, I would have liked to be introduced to our new main party members this patch in order to replace some of the more stagnant scions. I would have liked to go into 7.0 with a party composed of the spiritual successors to Venat, Hades, and Hythlodaeus and kept as few scions along as possible.

We could have used this interlude leading up to 7.0 to get to know our new cast members in "campfire-after-the-battle" scenes as opposed to slice of life college scenes in Sharlayan. We could visit the now retired scions and check up on them as the world starts showing signs of the next major threat, likely the void or some unforseen side effect of leaving the world bereft of its two main gods.

A priority for the writing would be to ensure that new cast members contrast with each other well through various means, from hair color to personality and homeland. Another important point would be to logically re-establish dominant supernatural forces in the world to contend with later on, which would eventually converge upon the main setting of 7.0 and drive the conflict there.

The interlude should also highlight the most visually distinct of FFXIV's zones, like the Azim Steppe, Dravanian Forelands, and deal with Garlemald in such a way that the country is put on a road to recovery that doesn't end in it becoming another Ishgard/Ala Mhigo-like republic. A new emperor or even empress would be crowned, and even one of the new main party members could be Garlean.

Leading into 7.0 we would go on to a location rich in high fantasy and European aesthetics, for a grounded adventure on the scale of Heavensward. Future antagonists would lean towards "human" and have reasonable motives like Emet-Selch, Ardyn, etc. Direct moralizing would be kept to an absolute minimum, with in-game actions speaking and getting through to people in ways that endless speeches never could.