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

[Theodric]

It's just another aspect of the cult of personality surrounding this game that makes me really cross my fingers and hope that one of the upcoming MMO's proves to be a smash hit. The more I think on it, the more it certainly feels like anyone who wants FFXIV to have a thought provoking story with solid game play is being 'pushed out' despite many of us criticising the current direction having played for far longer than the newcomers.

Oh well. I've been playing ESO more than FFXIV recently and both Ashes of Creation and Pantheon are shaping up to be to my liking. If FFXIV improves and throws a bigger bone our way? Great! If not? Well, that's a shame but following the trajectory of WoW will lead to the exact same outcome in the end.

[jameseoakes]

It's just another aspect of the cult of personality surrounding this game that makes me really cross my fingers and hope that one of the upcoming MMO's proves to be a smash hit. The more I think on it, the more it certainly feels like anyone who wants FFXIV to have a thought provoking story with solid game play is being 'pushed out' despite many of us criticising the current direction having played for far longer than the newcomers.

Has 14 always been like this? I always use to find the 14 community to be decent if maybe a little defensive, but though I don't like the terminology it seems to be getting more like cult in a lot of online spaces

[Theodric]

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.

Too many social media sites promote fly by commentary rather than deep discussion, unfortunately. I don't bother saying much on Twitter and instead use it for fan art/watching game trailers. I don't think the downvote function on Reddit promotes healthy discussion, either.

Has 14 always been like this? I always use to find the 14 community to be decent if maybe a little over defensive, but though I don't like the terminology it seems to be getting more like cult in a lot of online spaces

I'd say it was pretty relaxed back in ARR and HW. SB was a bit divisive and did Ala Mhigo dirty but I don't recall much vitriol being spewed at anyone who criticised the game. ShB and EW both have progressively more hostility aimed at anyone who suggests that something could be better.

On some level I think it's due to the game's age. It really should arguably be doing more to shake off the rust but we're still getting more of the same.

[CrownySuccubus]

Too many social media sites promote fly by commentary rather than deep discussion, unfortunately. I don't bother saying much on Twitter and instead use it for fan art/watching game trailers. I don't think the downvote function on Reddit promotes healthy discussion, either.

I don't disagree about Twitter, but Twitter is a lot less niche of a community than here. This place settles into its own division of cliques and echo chambers, doesn't allow people who aren't currently playing the game to comment, and has an annoyingly restrictive post limit system. And I'm not any more of a fan of upvotes than downvotes.

I'd say it was pretty relaxed back in ARR and HW. SB was a bit divisive and did Ala Mhigo dirty but I don't recall much vitriol being spewed at anyone who criticised the game. ShB and EW both have progressively more hostility aimed at anyone who suggests that something could be better.

On some level I think it's due to the game's age. It really should arguably be doing more to shake off the rust but we're still getting more of the same.

ARR and Heavensward were largely positive because people were "wow"ing over how improved 2.0 was over its predecessor, and HW was an almost universally-beloved expansion. That latter is also true of ShB to an extent, and Stormblood was nearly the opposite, with most people finding it lackluster.

EW's "problem" is that it's super polarizing. People either absolutely love it or absolutely hate it and revile anyone who doesn't agree with their personal opinion. I personally think the people who dislike the expac have more thought-out opinions than those who do not, but the hate train bandwagoning doesn't take long to go full steam.

[KageTokage]

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?

I find it ironic that she of all people would make such a statement after she was one of the only ones who was openly displeased with how the Elpis storyline played out; mostly in regards to how it generated false hope and entertained the possibility of change without it actually happening (Unless it did create an alternate timeline but they simply haven't shown it to us yet).

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time someone dismissed this topic strictly from the title instead of actually looking through more then first two pages and prematurely judging it as "trolling".

[YukikoKurosawa]

One of the problems I have with trying to discuss criticisms with this game's writing in most places outside of here is that 99% of the people who dislike the story dislike it soley because they have to "read". Too many times do I see complaints from people who complain about the story, or streamers, does their complaint ultimately boil down to "too much reading, if it was fully voiced acted it'd be good tho". Ask them about any actual deeper criticisms and they'll just repeat "I hate having to read so much, I'd have no problem if it was voiced completely". I have seen people trash the story soley because of the reading involved then go on to praise GW2 because it's fully voice acted (this is despite the fact that GW2 is almost universally reviled for some of worst writing in MMOs, if not video game, history, and the voice acting is extremely cringe outside of a few talent actors like Steve Blum).

People either really love the story without complaint, or hate it only because of the amount of reading involved. Those with actual serious, deep criticisms of the writing are very few and far between.

However I think the problem lies with the fact that most people really only enjoy a story on an absolute surface level, so they do not actually care about deeper nuances in writing, and would never take issue with narrative flaws, inconsistent characterization, etc. Just give them le epic poggers moments, le funneh reddit meme humor, le super emotional moments and voice acting (don't you dare make them read) and they're most likely good and will look no deeper into a story. So naturally they will get filtered by a story that asks them to read but not a story with massive plot holes, horrendous moral lessons, characters acting inconsistently, etc.

And, sadly, this is the criticism the devs are seeing primarily. So maybe we'll get more voice acting in the future, at least.

[Lunaxia]

I don't actually disagree with the forums being a hotbed of trolling, there are typically some fairly dire posts on the front page containing varying levels of spite, vitriol or complete nonsense, and when you view the JP forums by comparison it is actually embarrassing to witness. It also seems to have gotten much worse lately, possibly in relation to the game's increased popularity.

But the irony in singling out possibly one of the overall least inflammatory threads that, a few troll posts from angry dissidents aside, has mostly been a source of debate/ discussion at a reasonably consistent level... it's just more of that childish and increasingly prolific rhetoric on social media that anything critical or even remotely questioning equates to "negative", which for some reason now has a permanent connotation of being "bad" and automatically wrong. It's frequently used as a method for silencing anyone who disagrees with any of the given established hiveminds that are unnervingly rampant online these days, and is far from limited to the FFXIV player base. I just don't bother engaging with it. Knowing my place in such spaces is tolerated so long as I join in the bland positivity of glamour screenshots and fluff comics and don't breathe a word against one's beloved comfort character/ plot point isn't a particularly fulfilling or enjoyable experience, and it's at the point now where I'll scroll through feeds and everyone just talks and sounds exactly the same anyway.

[Xirean]

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

Did she even read the thread? She only looked at the title in that clip. Seems like an odd thing to call a troll post considering she pointed out the page length.

[Brinne]

Yeah, EW is simultaneously my second favorite expansion after Shadowbringers, and my least favorite expansion. The parts I enjoyed and found compelling and well-written were still moreso than, again, anything except Shadowbringers, whereas the parts I disliked are the parts I probably most disliked in all of FFXIV and made me consider, for the first time ever, starting to skip cutscenes. It was, uh, sort of a stressful experience overall, in that way!

I've always said that I don't think the "bad" aspects of it were done maliciously, and that's part of why I'm willing to talk about it on the much-maligned official forums - a very, very naive hope, especially for a product-based corporation like this, lmao, that perhaps if the writers understood what had happened and what they actually ended up writing, it might actually mean something to them, and they might course-correct. (And perhaps they are...? Omega Quests Good, Please Continue In This Direction)

And for better or worse, I'm still talking about it and thinking about it actively, moreso, again, than any other expansion besides ShB - six months after the fact. Does that say more about me or the game? It Is A Mystery.

[Xirean]

Has 14 always been like this? I always use to find the 14 community to be decent if maybe a little defensive, but though I don't like the terminology it seems to be getting more like cult in a lot of online spaces

Considering you can get banned from certain 14 discords for expressing a critical view of nearly any aspect of the story/characters; it's pretty frustrating. Not sure if it's always been this way, but theres' A LOT of varying types of people that play the game. Imo that's part of the reason for the hyper defensiveness. Also to be fair, a number of people have even commented that people in this thread push de-scenting opinions out that aren't critical. Regardless if that's actually the case or not, people get that impression. Being critical or debating can easily be construed as trolling or looking for a fight/drama; quite sad if you ask me.

Edit: On the note of discords though. Is there one for this sort of discussion or would people in here be interested in forming one? There's clearly a lot of people interested in the general topic.