What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Theodric]

I suppose I can sort of see what they were potentially going for with that in mind, though I can't claim to be particularly religious so a lot of it consists of belief systems I am fiercely opposed to. I'm a fan of the idea of mitigating suffering rather than glorifying it as well as striking a balance between allowing people agency and freedom but in a way that doesn't lead to 'anything goes'.

Personally I prefer deities to be written as largely unfathomable in terms of how they operate. It adds a bit more mystery. With that said, I never really viewed the Ancients as 'deities' deserving of a fall from grace. Instead of trying to force some sort of brutal origin story for the Sundered, I think the Sundering itself should have simply been presented as a horrific accident or a spiteful act. Trying to portray it as a 'good thing' simply takes too much stretching and the glorification of suffering makes light of anyone who doesn't conveniently have the many perks afforded to the protagonists.

[aveyond-dreams]

The post I had already written got erased due to a connection error, so I will summarize it briefly below:

Omega's interactions during the 6.15 quest were more entertaining and less obnoxious than our interactions with the majority of the Scions.

This robot would make for a better party member and all rounder to replace the catboy who must not be named.

Although this patch is also giving us Hildibrand and Tataru quests I refuse to do either because my patience for "humour" has already been exhausted by the MSQ, and I refuse to subject myself to more of that without a significant reward attached to it.

I can only hope that the writing gets back on track in 6.2. "Lighthearted" start of an adventure is one thing, meme circus is another situation entirely and write now the (English version) of FFXIV is leaning more and more towards that with how characters continually degrade themselves for the amusement of the social media crowds.

Atrocious early gameplay aside, you would struggle to retain me as a player or even sell me FFXIV if all I had to look forward to was memes instead of gods battling each other in cutscenes in the late game, especially when you combine that with a Summoner job that is as restrained as it is now, the victim of 8 years of mismanagement only for it's rework to come a decade too late.

As a Final Fantasy fan, you need at least either story or gameplay to remain a strong pillar holding the game up. Significant consideration needs to go into ways of fixing both.

[Theodric]

I think they mostly cater to 'nerdy' tastes when it comes to humour these days. I can't say I have much interest in that sort of thing but it is what it is and social media does unfortunately lap it up.

It's certainly contributed to eliminating a lot of my interest in the game. I unironically mostly play it for the sake of PvP and player housing at this point. Even then, I'm prepared to jump ship as soon as a genuine competitor arrives on the scene.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I think they mostly cater to 'nerdy' tastes when it comes to humour these days. I can't say I have much interest in that sort of thing but it is what it is and social media does unfortunately lap it up.

It's certainly contributed to eliminating a lot of my interest in the game. I unironically mostly play it for the sake of PvP and player housing at this point. Even then, I'm prepared to jump ship as soon as a genuine competitor arrives on the scene.

Have you tried Lost Ark?
I hear its much better then FFXIV

[Rulakir]

This is long overdue:

Hermes

A character who clearly has not received enough criticism in large part due to the controversy surrounding Venat. He is someone who has passed under the radar and given that the Famitsu interview and Omega quests seem to imply he had some positive benefit on mankind this needs to be addressed.

1. I've not gotten the impression from anything I've seen that it was Ishikawa's intention to depict Hermes as mentally ill, autistic, or any other diagnosis I've seen applied to him. (Feel free to post information to the contrary.) He is spoken of as a rational individual with no disorders that would have led him to making the decisions he did. This is important because many of his thoughts and actions have been excused for these reasons.
2. There's no indication that the Song of Oblivion was anything short of an extinction level event. Not just for Etheirys, but the universe. How am I to accept the Final Days as a 'test' rather than an execution sentence? Additionally, the fact that Hermes is a universal issue rather than localized to Etheirys seems to be ignored. Assuming I accept that the Final Days served a purpose, what about all the worlds that didn't survive them? Do we write those off because Etheirys benefitted?
3. Hermes knows how the Final Days play out due to the WoL. Just because he erases his memories with Kairos doesn't mean he doesn't already know the end result, he does. This makes it more likely it was spiteful rather than any true test of mankind.
4. The gaslighting with him is eerily similar to Venat. We're told he has a "pure" and "noble" soul, yet he acts in contradiction to this. He may have moments where he expresses a seemingly sincere desire to change society, but beneath that appears to be a deep seated resentment towards others not thinking and feeling the way he does. (This seems to be a theme of EW that if people aren't behaving the way you want it's okay to force that behavior through violence.)
5. Learning from Meteion's report that Etheirys is essentially the best place in the universe must have been particularly galling given his issues with his people. As Teraq said, he's a first world problem. :P
6. If the Final "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" Days is somehow a net positive, then why doesn't Omega acknowledge that rejoinings would also make Etheirys and the people on it stronger? The double standard between rejoinings and the Final Days (and Sundering) is still perpetuated. This quest line seemed to have been meant to address some of that, but it continues to condemn one type of genocide while asserting the other two had benefits.

Random list of thoughts I've had that I couldn't figure out how to write coherently any other way. I'd like to know if anyone else had an issue with how Hermes' character has been presented in interviews and this quest chain? Do you think he had a point? Do you think the Final Days taught mankind anything or improved them in any way?

[jameseoakes]

Hermes

I think there are a lot of good points, at this point with Hermes I just think the writers had no idea what they were writing with him, there is nothing pure and noble about him. He's a mass murderer both as an ancient and as a ascian, I just can't understand what the writers where trying to get across with him, good people don't erase there friends memories and instatage the horrendous death by fire and monsters of there own people. The man is pure evil

[CrownySuccubus]

I think there are a lot of good points, at this point with Hermes I just think the writers had no idea what they were writing with him, there is nothing pure and noble about him. He's a mass murderer both as an ancient and as a ascian, I just can't understand what the writers where trying to get across with him, good people don't erase there friends memories and instatage the horrendous death by fire and monsters of there own people. The man is pure evil

Again, I think this is a translation/cultural disconnect on the notion of "purity".

English-speaking cultures would likely equate "purity" with something akin to the Christian God, Jesus, angels or...at the very least...a child innocent in the ways of the world. However, in Japanese, the concept of "purity" has a LOT of different words that can be used which can mean anything from "innocent" to "undistracted". The term which is most commonly used, however, is Makoto. To quote TvTropes: "[Makoto] means "pure (heart/mind/soul/motives)". It basically means a mind free of distractions, unnecessary thoughts, doubts, or fallacies and is mostly used in the context of hard work, loyalty, determination, and intense emotion. Makoto, while considered a "good" thing, is not limited to good intentions. For example, a villain completely dedicated to villainy, a Fully-Embraced Fiend, a Knight Templar fanatically and self-righteously obsessed with a cause, or someone making destructive knee-jerk decisions would be demonstrating makoto. Their dedication is "pure"; their goals, not so much."

That definition (and especially that last part, about making knee-jerk decisions) is what I get the sense was meant to apply to Hermes. I think the developers wanted to portray Hermes as someone who was guided by his heart and what he thought was the right thing. Hermes let nothing else distract him from his goal. He isolated himself from other Ancients, conducted his experiments in secret, and skirted around the protocols set by his own facility and the Convocation because he was 100% positive that what he was doing was the only proper course. Even when confronted with the knowledge of how wrong he was, Hermes rebels simply not to go back on his word to Meteion that he would hear her report fully, and his final action is predicated by a desire that he MUST have the final answer he sought even if it risks destroying all life as we know it to get them.

Makoto is one of those traits that looks good on a hero (for example, a battle manga protagonists who NEVER GIVES UP and keeps fighting from PURE DETERMINATION), but looks terrible on an anti-hero or morally-gray character. Because it's more about being "determined" or "loyal" than it is being actually correct...but really, it's the exact same trait and the only difference is whether the story rewards it or not.

All the above being said, I have gone AT LENGTH to tell people how much I despise Hermes as a character and will never, EVER give him a pass or ever say that Venat is "worse" than he is. Hermes can rot for all I care. I know what the writers were going for with him, but in doing so, they also demonstrated why there are certain moral frameworks I can never agree with.

[jameseoakes]

Again, I think this is a translation/cultural disconnect on the notion of "purity".

English-speaking cultures would likely equate "purity" with something akin to the Christian God, Jesus, angels or...at the very least...a child innocent in the ways of the world. However, in Japanese, the concept of "purity" has a LOT of different words that can be used which can mean anything from "innocent" to "undistracted". The term which is most commonly used, however, is Makoto. To quote TvTropes: "[Makoto] means "pure (heart/mind/soul/motives)". It basically means a mind free of distractions, unnecessary thoughts, doubts, or fallacies and is mostly used in the context of hard work, loyalty, determination, and intense emotion. Makoto, while considered a "good" thing, is not limited to good intentions. For example, a villain completely dedicated to villainy, a Fully-Embraced Fiend, a Knight Templar fanatically and self-righteously obsessed with a cause, or someone making destructive knee-jerk decisions would be demonstrating makoto. Their dedication is "pure"; their goals, not so much."

That definition (and especially that last part, about making knee-jerk decisions) is what I get the sense was meant to apply to Hermes. I think the developers wanted to portray Hermes as someone who was guided by his heart and what he thought was the right thing. Hermes let nothing else distract him from his goal. He isolated himself from other Ancients, conducted his experiments in secret, and skirted around the protocols set by his own facility and the Convocation because he was 100% positive that what he was doing was the only proper course. Even when confronted with the knowledge of how wrong he was, Hermes rebels simply not to go back on his word to Meteion that he would hear her report fully, and his final action is predicated by a desire that he MUST have the final answer he sought even if it risks destroying all life as we know it to get them.

Makoto is one of those traits that looks good on a hero (for example, a battle manga protagonists who NEVER GIVES UP and keeps fighting from PURE DETERMINATION), but looks terrible on an anti-hero or morally-gray character. Because it's more about being "determined" or "loyal" than it is being actually correct...but really, it's the exact same trait and the only difference is whether the story rewards it or not.

All the above being said, I have gone AT LENGTH to tell people how much I despise Hermes as a character and will never, EVER give him a pass or ever say that Venat is "worse" than he is. Hermes can rot for all I care. I know what the writers were going for with him, but in doing so, they also demonstrated why there are certain moral frameworks I can never agree with.

That's a good counter point, I guess I still really struggle with how they are trying to push Hermes as in any way virtuous, I really struggle with that line of reasoning especially as the game as often been a lot harsher on characters with much better arcs to explain why there are on a villainous path. I just don't understand how the writers want him to be seen given the character they actually wrote

[CrownySuccubus]

That's a good counter point, I guess I still really struggle with how they are trying to push Hermes as in any way virtuous, I really struggle with that line of reasoning especially as the game as often been a lot harsher on characters with much better arcs to explain why there are on a villainous path. I just don't understand how the writers want him to be seen given the character they actually wrote

Put simply, they were trying to make the Emet-Selch lightning strike twice.

From post-6.0 interviews, it seems that the writing team were completely gobsmacked by how Emet-Selch wound up as such a popular villain. I don't know what kind of antagonist they thought they were writing, but apparently they "accidentally" wrote one of the most compelling, sympathetic, charismatic and entertaining villains in all of videogames and had no idea exactly how they did it.

You can tell from their confusion that people didn't receive Hermes nearly as well. They directly asked "Why does everyone have so much sympathy for Emet-Selch and not Hermes?"

I think they feel that because Hermes' surface-level character is that of a confused, sensitive and emotional mess, that people would be more understanding of the lengths he went through. But they failed to realize two things: first, that Hermes is also portrayed going behind the backs of his fellow Ancients, abusing the resources of Elpis for his own ends, throwing a tantrum when criticized about his past actions, directly CHOOSING to abet the destruction of entire world, and then violate the minds and agency of everyone who tries to stop him, while ALSO allowing himself to escape direct consequences by disguising himself as one of the victims. All of this, to a LOT of players, effectively erases all sympathy that you could have for Hermes' fragile personality and mental state. He comes across more as a sociopathic manchild than a desperate cry for help.

The second thing they forgot is: Hermes f---ked over the fan-favorites, Emet-Selch, Venat and Hythlodeus. Trying to make Hermes a popular character by having him be the entire SOURCE of Emet-Selch's torment and emotional anguish wasn't so much of an "uphill battle" as it was trying to climb up a metal wall with no handholds and a titanium ceiling.

[jameseoakes]

Put simply, they were trying to make the Emet-Selch lightning strike twice.

From post-6.0 interviews, it seems that the writing team were completely gobsmacked by how Emet-Selch wound up as such a popular villain. I don't know what kind of antagonist they thought they were writing, but apparently they "accidentally" wrote one of the most compelling, sympathetic, charismatic and entertaining villains in all of videogames and had no idea exactly how they did it.

You can tell from their confusion that people didn't receive Hermes nearly as well. They directly asked "Why does everyone have so much sympathy for Emet-Selch and not Hermes?"

I think they feel that because Hermes' surface-level character is that of a confused, sensitive and emotional mess, that people would be more understanding of the lengths he went through. But they failed to realize two things: first, that Hermes is also portrayed going behind the backs of his fellow Ancients, abusing the resources of Elpis for his own ends, throwing a tantrum when criticized about his past actions, directly CHOOSING to abet the destruction of entire world, and then violate the minds and agency of everyone who tries to stop him, while ALSO allowing himself to escape direct consequences by disguising himself as one of the victims. All of this, to a LOT of players, effectively erases all sympathy that you could have for Hermes' fragile personality and mental state. He comes across more as a sociopathic manchild than a desperate cry for help.

The second thing they forgot is: Hermes f---ked over the fan-favorites, Emet-Selch, Venat and Hythlodeus. Trying to make Hermes a popular character by having him be the entire SOURCE of Emet-Selch's torment and emotional anguish wasn't so much of an "uphill battle" as it was trying to climb up a metal wall with no handholds and a titanium ceiling.

Yeah I just struggle to see how they thought Hermes would do that you do a great job going through the issues. I find Hermes to be a creepy slimy man, even not taking into account his direct actions in the amount of death he caused. I just really struggle with how the writers thought Hermes would be well received it just boggles my mind.