The feeling of beeing Home ...

[SentioftheHoukai]

You can find that for literally any noteworthy character in the game. Venat is just more noticeable right now because she's the latest one.

I mean, seriously, I've stumbled across some for primals and beastmen. And not just the more human-looking ones like Shiva. The internet is a disturbing place.

I've seen questionable fanart of WoLs with everyone. Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus too. Emet is more of a non-Scion poster character than Venat in my honest opinion.

Hardly the same. Emet and some others aren't the ones being framed in the narrative as the WoL's pseudo-mother at worst and mentor at best. The best case scenario you can hope for, would be rather scummy since Venat would have to be taking advantage of the skewed power dynamics in a teacher-student relationship.

[XiRon]

You cannot hope to keep my long term attention if the story you're going to tell me is devoid of meaningful character growth that is punctuated by events such as loss, change, or death. Now that the longstanding and relatively well-liked antagonist faction has been done away with, attention now turns to the scions that they've decided to keep around. These characters however have either regressed in terms of their growth or have fallen into cyclical loops where they go through the same plot points repeatedly just in different settings. It's gotten old. Please do better.





As a Final Fantasy game that now aspires to bill itself as being on par with other single player titles, I expect more to come from the main party than what we've seen done with the scions so far. "Heroines" like Y'shtola who show so little in terms of character progression or vulnerability under the guise of being a strong or independent character just isn't interesting. Celes Chere is a general for goodness sake, and she was able to show a wider range of emotions over the course of her story than Y'shtola.

FFXIV as a whole needs to be bolder with how far they're willing to go with the main party - and that doesn't mean adding more humor, slice of life scenes, or magical girl transformation sequences. What this story needs is for the party to have moments of greater substance. We had them in Heavensward. Please bring them back.

The trouble here is they can never do anything to the Scions.
Ever.
Each of them is hotglued to some kind of side content that is not at all mandatory (yet). Alisaie and Alphinaud in Bahamut, Yshtola in Alex, Urianger and Thancred in Eden, now Graha in Eorzeas 12. Were they to ever decide to nuke one of the chernobyl-disaster-proof Scions they would have to make either massive rewrites to increasingly old content or do something extremely lame and give wol some kind of harry potter time turner plot device to explain why a corpse is the lead of a sidequest.
The reverse is also true. Nobody should ever get attached to any potential NEW scions because they will either get Moenbryda'd immediately or else become equally as disaster proof as the scions already are.
Suffice to say, if you feel theres 0 tension or stakes in the story you may as well just skip everything besides side content. Swhat Im doing in 6.2.

[aveyond-dreams]

You can do the warring triad quests while you play shadowbringers despite Yshtola being in the first. It’s understood that content like that takes place within a given expansion’s time bubble. This cannot be used to justify any sort of immunity conferred onto the scions.

Something has to change here, especially if they want to go through with 10 more years of this game.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Hardly the same. Emet and some others aren't the ones being framed in the narrative as the WoL's pseudo-mother at worst and mentor at best. The best case scenario you can hope for, would be rather scummy since Venat would have to be taking advantage of the skewed power dynamics in a teacher-student relationship.

Emet is portrayed as being a friend of Azem who sees them in the WoL and wants that person back. Until Elpis and Ultima Thule, where he starts seeing them as a close friend in their own right. There's plenty of shipping material there.

And this is assuming the internet needs any justification to indulge in Rule 34, which it really doesn't. The first piece of concept art is enough to, ahem, get the juices flowing, especially on any remotely attractive and/or important character.

[kaynide]

Who weren't very important to the central plot either. Granted she gave us the method we'd use to kill the ascians but that's it and the other was just a guy we did a favor for and he likes us for that. He doesn't appear all that much and he dies suddenly, which is why it was impactful.

Not sure we're playing the same game; Haurch was THE guy that sheltered us in his fort outside Ishgard when we were in exile, and THE guy who got us into the city/his household. The events of 3.0 would not have happened as they did without him. He was not necessarily holding our hands, but to say he did nothing for us is incredibly disingenuous.

Moenbryda gave us THE means to kill Ascians. That's huge. It's like saying "Oh Newton just gave us Calculus, it's not like he actually did anything for us".

And, again, here we are in 6.0, STILL talking about them. They made an appearance in the 89 dungeon as spirits guiding us, alongside other notable NPCs. The only other NPC ally death that comes close outside is Papalymo and even he was technically in 3.0.

[Eldtagg]

snip

If I may add to this;

My problem with the MSQ have always been the WoL.

I strongly dislike the "chosen" one trait thrust upon any player-made character in RPG's, but especially in FFXIV I feel that the WoL is incredibly badly handled. It's lazy.

Sure, I am not saying that the Scion's doesn't have problems themselves with character growth, which you have mentioned, but having played through ARR - Endwalker during the years I've played FFXIV, I've really come to understand why it's better in MMORPG's like ESO where the game does not focus on your character when you interact with a NPC.

WoL inserting themselves into cutscenes is also the biggest issue I have with FFXIV; The WoL is personality-wise obviously nothing like how I "head roleplay" or otherwise see my character as.

My character or rather me myself as a person (my character's are usally self-inserts) is closer to Sazh personality-wise in Final Fantasy XIII. I am also a father and Sazh story hit way home when playing through the game. Only time I've had tears in a Final Fantasy games because as a father that love my son above everything in this world I can empathize with and understand the pain Sazh is feeling.

Instead I have to suffer through cutscenes where "MY" WoL is standing around, looking incredibly stupid, awkwardly smiling, talking while being quiet, having an incredibly jarring idle stance... it is easily the worst part of FFXIV for me, period.

If the WoL is supposed to be our characters why does SquareE FORCE traits upon my character where he reacts nothing like I expect him to? Why doesn't the WoL ever struggle against anything? Why doesn't the WoL grow or otherwise get more experienced with time?

Playing the WoL as it has been up to now is unfortunately what I would call akin to backseat gaming because it feels like if someone else is playing my character for me and choosing the reactions which is out of character for mine.

Going back to your point about growth etc. I know the community will hate me for this, but; the story (MSQ) is enjoyable but "for being as good as a single player story" it's nowhere deep enough, dark enough, written well enough to get me that invested in the characters (Scions) or the world as a whole.

This is basically the MSQ every expac; Problem arises - WoL arrives - Problem solved.

Does either the WoL, Scions, Faction leaders grow during these events? Not really, we do it all over again next expac!

There is certainly a lot of golden nuggets in FFXIV and playing through MSQ is an absolutely must for me because I do enjoy it. However I find the story itself often is a bit too... teenagish? (no offence) for me to get invested in it.

Endwalker's story and the characters that set things in motions felt more like how I saw the world some 20 years ago as a teenager, then I grew up and became and adult...

The characters that moves the pieces in Endwalker didn't grow up unfortunately and they are obviously all teenagers. What it all ultimately ends up in is a pretty cringe and childish story, with some golden nuggets, but overall it's a by-the-numbers powerfantasy that I could absolutely see me adore 20 years ago.

This is a usual issue with a lot of JRPG's; they are written for teenagers and basically noone over that age group.

Final Fantasy XIV for all its bells and whistle, never goes anyway beyond that point with it's story.

Imagine if I a character like Sazh existed in FFXIV. You know "A REAL" character that actually makes sense and is not a "one-note 17 year old anime protaganist that goes to high school and has a power inside that they do not understand".

Imagine...

Maybe I grew old and cynical..?

[TaleraRistain]

If the WoL is supposed to be our characters why does SquareE FORCE traits upon my character where he reacts nothing like I expect him to? Why doesn't the WoL ever struggle against anything? Why doesn't the WoL grow or otherwise get more experienced with time?

Because it's NOT entirely our character. The WoL is not a blank slate that we build from the ground up. The WoL is a pre-established character and personality where we customize the appearance and there's some wiggle room for that "head roleplay" but it's not boundless.

It's the difference between playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect where you can build that character to be exactly as you want and getting dialogue choices with a character like Gerolt in The Witcher or Eivor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. There are some people who wouldn't have their WoL be an adventurer at all, for instance. But it's important to the story that the WoL is an adventurer. There would be no story if that wasn't a trait.

[aveyond-dreams]

There’s no way that teenage me would’ve been ok with a story that handled its world and characters the way FFXIV has been doing recently, especially in Endwalker. The ending to ARR and Heavensward’s overall writing was what sold me on this game long term, but that isn’t the sort of thing we’ve been seeing lately.

They had the opportunity to let us go back to being an adventurer but instead we’re about to go liberate the Void. This is all becoming far too predictable and the need for either the return of the Heavensward/FFXVI writing team or a new team of writers skilled in high fantasy works has never been greater.

FFXIV needs to decide just what kind of story it wants to tell and tell it well. From the protagonists to the overall state of the world, they should all be handled with more care than it currently are.

[Eldtagg]

Because it's NOT entirely our character. The WoL is not a blank slate that we build from the ground up. The WoL is a pre-established character and personality where we customize the appearance and there's some wiggle room for that "head roleplay" but it's not boundless.

It's the difference between playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect where you can build that character to be exactly as you want and getting dialogue choices with a character like Gerolt in The Witcher or Eivor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. There are some people who wouldn't have their WoL be an adventurer at all, for instance. But it's important to the story that the WoL is an adventurer. There would be no story if that wasn't a trait.

Then it's time to age up the WoL. Teenage days are over for our WoL's after everything we have been through so far.

It's time that the WoL got something in their life that they love above everything else and they would fight tooth and nail for.

Family, a home, career.

Fighting constantly for your so called "Friends" (scions) ain't it chief.

That's a childs mind.

[hagare]

Then it's time to age up the WoL. Teenage days are over for our WoL's after everything we have been through so far.

It's time that the WoL got something in their life that they love above everything else and they would fight tooth and nail for.

Family, a home, career.

Fighting constantly for your so called "Friends" (scions) ain't it chief.

That's a childs mind.

you don't have friends do you xD