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

[Rulakir]

Listen, at least in the scenes I played, Venat was nice to me and smiled at me and played a nice song about how I was her brave little spark and talked at length about how much she loved me and how I was her light the future. Meanwhile, did you see Azem's soul being torn apart? No? Then it's moot, okay? <_<

My brain doesn't work like this. D: It's also why I hate Urianger. His duplicity has led to harm to my character more than once, I want him off my team. I don't care what he's like now, he can't be trusted.

I saw it as them parasitising on his popularity to lend her credibility. It worked to some extent, I guess.

No doubt. I can only hope Ishikawa wasn't directly responsible for that dialog or, if she was, she was hate-writing it. Elidibus was more bitter and he didn't even know the truth of it all.

[Theodric]

It's just a case of finding and striking a healthy balance. The game is meant to appeal to a broad range of players, not a select few - or whichever group is mistaken for the loudest and most popular. I'd be pretty bored if the game decided to give me everything I wanted to see with no different perspectives present whatsoever. On the opposite end of the spectrum, pretending as if every character is just 'stubborn' or 'foolish' for not following some vague declaration of 'moving on' strikes me as rather bizarre. Much in the same way as how I strongly resist the idea that if someone is X, Y or Z then they absolutely must think, feel and act a certain way. I'd rather avoid either myself or my character being part of a hive mind.

[CrownySuccubus]

That balance is hard to find both ways. For all of my complaints about Endwalker's story and themes, that doesn't change the fact that I'm glad it attempted them. A lot of people have stated they just want their FF game to be an experience where they can just turn their brain off and escape, without thinking about things like "themes" or relevant moral dilemmas, but that's the attitude I can't disagree with enough. When I first got into FFXIV, the friend who brought me in warned me "DO NOT skip the story -- even the slow bits. Trust me," and I'm glad I didn't. As teeth-grittingly frustrating as FFXIV's story, plot and characters can get at times, I'm glad the writers tried.

Endwalker (post-Elpis) was more miss for me than hit, but I'm still glad I went through it, because (if nothing else), I'm glad I got to actually sit and think about what parts and elements of the story bothered me. Naturally, I would definitely like the story more if these bothersome elements had been done better, but if there hadn't been anything at all, I just wouldn't care. I'd rather debate for hours about what a story did that didn't work than put it down and think "Okay, that happened, I guess".

[aveyond-dreams]

Depends on how the themes and moral dilemmas are presented. FFX handles its criticisms of religion and racial divisions well, and it does not feel like you are being straight up preached to when you play that game. FFXIV however has been failing at this. Whenever Alphinaud opens his mouth I feel like I'm about to be lectured on the virtues of democracy for the 99th time. The message has gotten stale and the method of its delivery has only become more and more blunt.

Also, apparently this merely one massive troll thread according to Zepla as of her recent stream which I checked out of curiosity today. Wouldn't be the first time recently that people disagreeing with each other has been equated to the other side lying or trolling.

[Lauront]

Depends on how the themes and moral dilemmas are presented. FFX handles its criticisms of religion and racial divisions well, and it does not feel like you are being straight up preached to when you play that game. FFXIV however has been failing at this. Whenever Alphinaud opens his mouth I feel like I'm about to be lectured on the virtues of democracy for the 99th time. The message has gotten stale and the method of its delivery has only become more and more blunt.

Also, apparently this merely one massive troll thread according to Zepla as of her recent stream which I checked out of curiosity today. Wouldn't be the first time recently that people disagreeing with each other has been equated to the other side lying or trolling.

Just checked, and you are not wrong. Very disappointing and dismissive approach.

[Theodric]

Also, apparently this merely one massive troll thread according to Zepla as of her recent stream which I checked out of curiosity today. Wouldn't be the first time recently that people disagreeing with each other has been equated to the other side lying or trolling.

That's pretty disappointing and also pretty arrogant, to be quite honest. It's always amusing to me when people try to claim as if the official forum is some wild, untamed mess with no redeeming qualities. The likes of Reddit, Twitch and Twitter are by far more volatile and exceedingly poorly moderated by comparison. I went to go and double check for myself and you are right - this thread was specifically highlighted.

Urging people not to go and leave feedback on the official forum would, ideally, be something that the development team disapprove of. Not that I expect them to do anything at this point but double down and try to pander to the streamer crowd even more than they already are.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Depends on how the themes and moral dilemmas are presented. FFX handles its criticisms of religion and racial divisions well, and it does not feel like you are being straight up preached to when you play that game. FFXIV however has been failing at this. Whenever Alphinaud opens his mouth I feel like I'm about to be lectured on the virtues of democracy for the 99th time. The message has gotten stale and the method of its delivery has only become more and more blunt.

Also, apparently this merely one massive troll thread according to Zepla as of her recent stream which I checked out of curiosity today. Wouldn't be the first time recently that people disagreeing with each other has been equated to the other side lying or trolling.

GUYS WE'RE FAMOUS! THE FUNNY HILARIOUS TOTALLY ENTERTAINING BUNNY EAR STREAMER NOTICED US!!!!

On a more serious note though, i find it incredibly ironic that she marks off this thread of 500+ pages as nothing but trolling and bad opinions. Like....has she looked in the mirror or?

[aveyond-dreams]

I mean if we follow this line of logic I suppose the male Viera and female Hrothgar megathreads are just examples of mass trolling as well? Goodness forbid people have an issue with the direction the game goes in when it comes to races/content/story.

[Lauront]

Although it is a large thread, and so it's understandable that one can't go through it in its entirety, throughout it there's been some very vivid and well articulated discussion of the story and people's frustrations with it, free from sites that stifle such discussion, so I can only assume she didn't spend much time sifting through it, if any. It'd be like me dismissing her streams on the basis of a few minutes here and there taken as samples. Oh well.

I mean if we follow this line of logic I suppose the male Viera and female Hrothgar megathreads are just examples of mass trolling as well? Goodness forbid people have an issue with the direction the game goes in when it comes to races/content/story.

And ironically they did fall prey to such accusations, even though they were, for the most part, an expression of many players' fervent desire for the missing counterpart of each race to be added - successfully, too, since the devs did eventually decide to change their tune on it.

[CrownySuccubus]

It's always amusing to me when people try to claim as if the official forum is some wild, untamed mess with no redeeming qualities. The likes of Reddit, Twitch and Twitter are by far more volatile and exceedingly poorly moderated by comparison. I went to go and double check for myself and you are right - this thread was specifically highlighted..

The forums and those sites aren't that different, from my experience. The main difference being that the short-text Twitter format and cross-your-fingers-and-pray moderation consistency of Reddit make those areas a bit harder to parse.

Zepla can think whatever she wants, since she never actually read the the thread and just looked at the title.