Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Havenchild]

The WoL doesn't have a choice. Venat is the one with all the knowledge and power, we have but ever been a pawn. We can disagree with her and still have to do everything the same because she's given us no other option except to flee. The Scions could have chided her, as they should. Instead, we start off with Krile, who was supposed to be questioning Hydaelyn's motives upon learning she's a primal, willingly offer up her body to her because apparently she was too charming to resist and ending with Alisaie yelling, "No, this can't be happening!" upon her defeat. Our moral paragons consistently fawn over, so I can't accept that it's presented as morally grey. The only person who calls Venat out is herself and she has no regrets, the outcome is exactly what she wanted.

Meanwhile, dialog options for the WoL are abysmal. Something as simple as, "I don't agree with what you've done, but you've left me with no choice but to see this through," would have made a difference. Aside from being able to tell her you can't trust her on the boat, there's never a single other dialog option that's not positive towards her throughout 6.0.

That's basically my point though. These options are not present because they have to push the story forward in a compelling and "consistent" way. To use your own example, "I don't agree with what you've done, but you've left me with no choice but to see this through", doesn't really add much. It's basically just a false narrative that ultimately is dropped in the next sentence. Nothing to expand on that point in the MSQ. You essentially disagree but you do everything she needs you to do anyway. I think that falls short imo because it will have no impact on the actions the character takes which I think would actually break immersion for some. With such a big "choice", it feels lackluster to allow disagreement but not see it through to the end.
But maybe that's just how I read that. I hate half assed measures in story writing personally. Either commit to give us full on narratives where we have the true and willfull choice to disagree and the story can follow through, or move the story forward in a centralized and controlled way.

From inception, the PC is by story design, a neutral to lawful good character in a morally grey universe. The morally grey comes from multiple clashing perspectives both players and in-game characters will have after experiencing the story events, not necesarily the choices you can make. PC COULD understand or disagree with the motives/actions of characters, but they ultimately side with the option that saves the most lives (or at certain points mankind). That alone already forces the story in a controlled narrative. The initial remark to Hydaelyn in the beginning of EW about "not trusting" her fits into the narrative post SHB after clashing with Emet, as he painted Hydaelyn in a completely negative light and many questions were "up in the air" at that point.

Those extra options are just bones they toss dissenters however, and I don't think you can even satisfy this group with that alone by just adding more of them. Least not from what I've seen from the feedback on the forums. Seems like people want more diverse expression thats impactful to the story or at least the feedback you get from characters, but it's still very hard to do so while controlling the narrative of the story and pushing it in a certain direction. Atm it's cohesive enough, but adding more layers (or outliers) of differing opinions would be a big undertaking and they would have to drastically change how they handle the story telling.

Might be an unironic shortcoming of FFXIV but this isn't exactly Fable either.

[Rulakir]

It's basically just a false narrative that ultimately is dropped in the next sentence. Nothing to expand on that point in the MSQ.

That's how it's always been. People know going in that they'll be playing through a story on rails, FFXIV has never offered much in the way of choice, but it allows the individual player some measure of agency even if it amounts to nothing.

Perhaps if this were applied consistently it'd be less obvious, but it's particularly egregious when it comes to certain characters you're simply not allowed to like or dislike. The one exception I can think of is Zenos at the end of 4.0. I could choose to accept him, which is only time I remember being given a non-aggressive response to an antagonist. SB in general I recall as offering much more in the way of diverse dialog options, it's gotten increasingly worse to abysmal in EW to where I feel like it's back to ARR levels with my character just nodding in agreement to everything. It's dull.

From inception, the PC is by story design, a neutral to lawful good character in a morally grey universe. PC COULD understand or disagree with the motives of characters, but they ultimately side with the option that saves the most lives. That alone already forces the story in a controlled narrative. Those extra options are just bones they toss dissenters, and I don't think you can even satisfy this group with that alone. Least not from what I've seen from the feedback on the forums.

I'd argue it's less dissenters than those who'd like to maintain the illusion of having some agency in their character. Aside from dialog options, EW has also imposed a personality upon my WoL now. Suddenly I'm a traveler who's interested in fighting ever challenging foes. Since when? It honestly feels like I'm just playing Yoshi-P's interpretation of the WoL at this point and it sucks. There's so much we won't ever know about Azem because they say they don't want to tread on 'headcanon' and yet they consistently trample over what little headcanon we're allowed to have even as the WoL. I think if I'm just going to be RPing as an already developed character there's no real point in having dialog options at all. Three different ways of saying the same thing is what's pointless. It's not even an illusion of choice at that point, it's just insulting. :P

[Havenchild]

That's how it's always been. People know going in that they'll be playing through a story on rails, FFXIV has never offered much in the way of choice, but it allows the individual player some measure of agency even if it amounts to nothing.

Perhaps if this were applied consistently it'd be less obvious, but it's particularly egregious when it comes to certain characters you're simply not allowed to like or dislike. The one exception I can think of is Zenos at the end of 4.0. I could choose to accept him, which is only time I remember being given a non-aggressive response to an antagonist. SB in general I recall as offering much more in the way of diverse dialog options, it's gotten increasingly worse to abysmal in EW to where I feel like it's back to ARR levels with my character just nodding in agreement to everything. It's dull.



I'd argue it's less dissenters than those who'd like to maintain the illusion of having some agency in their character. Aside from dialog options, EW has also imposed a personality upon my WoL now. Suddenly I'm a traveler who's interested in fighting ever challenging foes. Since when? It honestly feels like I'm just playing Yoshi-P's interpretation of the WoL at this point and it sucks. There's so much we won't ever know about Azem because they say they don't want to tread on 'headcanon' and yet they consistently trample over what little headcanon we're allowed to have even as the WoL. I think if I'm just going to be RPing as an already developed character there's no real point in having dialog options at all. Three different ways of saying the same thing is what's pointless. It's not even an illusion of choice at that point, it's just insulting. :P

I'll agree that if you are in a position where you do disagree with something, you aren't presented enough options or dialog for that matter to support it, which as I mentioned is likely an unironic shortcoming.
But no matter how immersed you could hope to be, to acknowledge the game is on rails but disagree when the identity of something is placed on you seems like contradicting opinions no?

[Rulakir]

But no matter how immersed you could hope to be, to acknowledge the game is on rails but disagree when the identity of something is placed on you seems like contradicting opinions no?

Going back to SB, of course I'm going to have to help Ala Mhigo, but being ornery every step of the way is exactly how I felt about it and the option to respond that way was both fun and cathartic. I certainly would have enjoyed it a lot less if my WoL were presented as loving every moment of it.

EW pushed my boundaries. Too much hard coding an identity for the WoL (or Azem, by extension) is not going to work for me, not at this stage in the game. It was a significant contributor to my not liking EW as there was never any point where I could express not being cool with what was happening and instead watching my character behave in ways contrary to how I was thinking and feeling during several key moments. I think that's the main factor for me. This side of the screen I'm angry or sad while my WoL is offered 3 different options to express how happy they are. I'd never felt so disconnected and that's saying a lot after ARR.