Lore Forum Decorum - Just What is Meant by Good/Bad Faith?

[Ryaz]

It still goes against the themes of the story lol. Loss and fire and faith yet loss is never felt on the protag side, purely the antag side or minor npcs. As far as empathy goes, i’m a very empathetic person irl, so i don’t think we can jump to those conclusions based on films or video games. I feel far more for the antagonist side actually because they lose a loooot more than the protag side ever does because as i mentioned before, the story is very one sided. Horrible things happen to the antags but the protags are kept safe and sound or magically come back to life. It’s very boring and predictable.

We've lost a LOT through 8 years of this game. Characters we cared about, characters the Scions cared about. To say there was no loss is ignoring the last 3 expacs plus ARR. And if you find the game so boring and predictable, I suggest playing WoW. I hear that story is nothing but twists and turns.

Honestly, I have to ask why so many people who play this game seem to hate the story and more importantly, what did they want out of it? Did they want Meteion to win and destroy everything? Did they want the Ancients to survive and thus get rid of the future we know? Did they want the Garleans to conquer the world and take away everyone's freedom? What exactly did the detractors want to happen?

[Theodric]

Characters such as Moenbryda died nearly a decade ago for anyone who has played consistently since the days of ARR. Furthermore, tastes differ and not everybody is going to consider the demise of certain characters to be a 'loss' if they don't particularly care for the individuals in question in the first place.

As for WoW, though it went too far in the opposite direction and eliminated too many major characters in ways that were arguably less than satisfying I have to give it some credit for at least being willing to change who ruled a particular region in order to keep things fresh as the story advanced.

It'd be nice to see more balance where FFXIV is concerned. I wouldn't be upset if someone on the level of Y'shtola or Merlwyb happened to be killed off next time there's a huge, dangerous threat lurking in the background.

Given that MMO's are designed to appeal to a wide range of different tastes, I think FFXIV could easily move between hopeful, low stake stories and darker, more high stake tales. That'd be a good compromise, I reckon.

[Kaurudim]

Character death is such an odd subject for me. I would be the very first person to admit I don’t want it - both because Moenbryda, Haurchefant, and Ysayle all destroyed me, but also (and more importantly for me) because I personally dislike arguments that stories with downer endings or death are inherently more meaningful. Which can, at times, be what arguments for character death sound like - that a story or its stakes would be more meaningful if someone died in the process of the plot.

In FFXIV’s case, though, I start fighting with myself over that, my opinions swinging back and forth like an erratic pendulum.

When it comes to protagonist or ally deaths, pretty much all meaningful or memorable ones are 3.X era or earlier, making it VERY unbalanced. Minfilia is an odd case, but I do think you can count her as functionally dead in 3.X, considering her role thereafter. For an expansion with opening lines about how freedom is bought with the blood of our brothers, SB has one NPC death of an older character on the protagonist side. Tesleen in ShB is memorable, but mostly for the shock value. Minfilia gets Death Part 2 in ShB as well, but it’s more tying up lose ends than it is an actual death.

Meanwhile, I don’t think arguments about fake-out deaths “recently” have a leg to stand on, because the entire bloody banquet is just mass death fake-out. EW also showed terror and despair through both NPC death as well as other means (loss and fire and faith etc etc). This is what I liked about EW - it did not tie itself down to “make people sad through character death,” but let itself explore a couple different ways big and small that people could fall into despair. I also agree with another sentiment in this thread (I think? I’ve been thread jumping for a while) that Ultima Thule never tried to convince us these characters were dead. It was a summation of their character arcs, their answers for what was worth fighting for, and a reminder that even when we are fighting by ourselves, we are never truly alone.

In summation, I guess my general takeaway is less “FFXIV needs more character death” and probably a bit more “they sure went nuts on that at the beginning, huh?” lol

[Rulakir]

The Scions continuously place themselves in high risk situations involving war and world ending threats, yet don't manage to lose as much as I have in real life just from normal existence. It's not that I lack empathy, it's that from my POV the Scions are incredibly privileged to have experienced as little suffering and despair as they have under any circumstances.

Given the player is the WoL they obviously can't ever lose, but the problem is that anyone who aligns themselves with them has benefited extensively from that shield since HW. It's probably too simplistic to blame it all on lack of deaths, although, if the writers don't want to kill anyone they probably shouldn't be writing war or apocalypse stories. A couple of people have said FFXIV is the tale of "the power of friendship", so I suppose it's on me that I expected something more given the themes.

I have cried my heart out for the Ancients since ShB. I've found their story and their characters far more heartbreaking than anything I've seen from the protagonists. So, yes, I did want to see them with a happy ending (i.e. alternate timeline), rather than their tragedy be rehashed for the same outcome.

[Fenral]

Yes, they're pixels. I was exaggerating a bit when I said people are sociopathic, however, it does show an empathy difference. They actually did a study on it when it comes to horror films that people who really enjoy them tend to have less empathy than people who don't. It doesn't mean they're killers in real life, they just don't get invested in the characters as much.

And this is the part where you run into the circular arguments of deeply empathetic people who refuse to consider the other side at all.

For FFXIV to survive as a long-running serial, it's moved into the style of storytelling adopted by mega-hits like One Piece and Berserk, with a stable core cast serving as the eye of the storm in increasingly dire situations. Both series continue to be incredibly popular worldwide, so there's simply no argument to be made that the writing is somehow deficient or risks alienating any significant portion of the fanbase.

Hell, Berserk hasn't killed a named allied character since the 90s! Except Tonio. He was a good man.

[Lauront]

And this is the part where you run into the circular arguments of deeply empathetic people who refuse to consider the other side at all.

Yes, and then you have those deeply empathetic people who struggle to understand that different people have different storytelling tastes and thus resort to allusions of sociopathy which they swiftly back down from. That sort of "deeply empathetic" person, right?

[OhNooo]

Honestly, I have to ask why so many people who play this game seem to hate the story and more importantly, what did they want out of it? Did they want Meteion to win and destroy everything? Did they want the Ancients to survive and thus get rid of the future we know? Did they want the Garleans to conquer the world and take away everyone's freedom? What exactly did the detractors want to happen?

The fact that so many people are spending time to debate/discuss elements of the story just shows how passionate we are about it. Why is any type of criticism or any opinion that doesn't simply say "the story was amazing" met with replies like "if you hate the story so much why are you playing?" Asking for higher stakes in an end of the world scenario doesn't have to mean everyone dying or having a villain win.

To give you an example: one of the things I loved about Shb was the tension you felt as your character dealt with the light corruption. Of course, as the audience we all knew that we would be ok in the end, but we didn't know how. Sitting there watching my character almost turn into a lightwarden was one of the most edge-of-your-seat moments I've had in this story, and it was so well done! I wanted something like that in EW and I didn't feel that from the final zone at all.

One thing that would've put me at the edge of my seat is having one or more of the scions almost give into despair and seeing them start to turn. Rallying together to encourage them and bring them back from the brink of turning would be a wonderful scene. There are so many ways to bring that tension and I just did not feel that at any point with our character or the Scions. Nobody had to die to give us that tension either.

ETA: **There are so many ways to bring that tension and I just did not feel that at any point with our character or the Scions (except for the body swap part which ended pretty quickly. I wish they would've done more with that).

[AnEmissary]

Did they want the Ancients to survive and thus get rid of the future we know?

Hello, brand new to the forums here--please bear with me as I learn to use them. Actually pretty much made my account for the express purpose of replying to this.

Yes--this is exactly what I wanted. My primary interest in the story from day 1, and I've been here for a very long time, has been the Ascians, and I only joke that I've liked them longer than the Garleans because Lahabrea showed up on screen before Gaius did. I have little to no interest in the present-day section of the story, and from a moral sense I regard the Sundering as a bad thing. I was specifically excited headed into EW to see WoL taking up their legacy as Azem and figuring out a way to restore the world that did not involve such harsh methods as the Ascians employed, and instead I'm seeing the story argue that the broken state of the world is just fine, actually! Not a problem with this at all, nothing to see here, go back to your workaday lives in rejection of the idea that society could be better and more highly evolved than it is.

All of the characters I had any interest in at all are dead. I guess I'm going back to being a hardcore raider whose only interest is prog, as I was in WoW before moving to this game in 2013.

[SannaR]

I think a huge problem with this section of the forums us that many of us have been around for years. Some since 1.0 like Moose. Some like myself since Beta phase 3 of ARR launch. Yes I know that my current account doesn't have the proper join date. Part of that was due to my old account being tied to another person's who ended getting us both banned for things most posters would let slide. That and some RL stuff that caused me to start from scratch and miss about a year and a half. So there are people who will butt heads regardless because time and again both sides and I include myself in this have proven that they will not see eye to eye or even agree on things. Then there's just posts that come off even if you try to take them in the best light ect come off as though they took a bath in the Bog of Stench but instead of smelling as the deadliest combination of the most foul of dog farts and month old sweaty gym socks it's dripping with the most poisonous vitriol to the point where even if you try to understand the other side or ask what changes to the story that they would want. That they come off as though they wouldn't still be satisfied or have their mind change. And end up with them doing their best impression if Artax standing in the middle of the swamp of sadness. So, yes there are times when it just feels as though we're well entrenched in trench warfare. Especially when it gets to the point where at least one, sometimes both sides are trying to split an already thin hair. I know one should use citations from in game or other sources that we know are written by the dev team to back up our statements, but I also don't think we should have basically write thesis papers covering every granular spec of sand just so someone won't go "Ah, but you left out this miniscule detail so you must be wrong and now I shall be completely ornery about it."

It even feels extremely what in the actual heck when "discussion" starts dismissing the EEs just because they're technically written by someone in universe even though we know they're written by the lore section of the Dev team. Heck when the person who wrote the cookbook had to do multiple back and forths with the Devs so that you can take any of the things mentioned in it as fact it shouldn't be dismissed as something questionable. Unlike the fourth Mass Effect story. Which was written by a person who knew nothing about that game's world and probably is in some purgatory while never getting the promised rewrite that's supposed to fix any and all grievances fans have with it. Also Vyreus you're not as bad as I am.

[Lyth]

...

Welcome! Always good to see a new old friend. Just a little Ascian joke for you there.

I think it's perfectly understandable to feel frustration when characters that you enjoy are moved out of the focus. Sometimes that means moving on to things you enjoy more. That's a really healthy approach to it.

By the way, that's a fantastic in-game character name. I think one of the posters above you really likes it as well, given their character design up until a couple of days ago. Either way, enjoy your time here!