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[AwesomeJr44]

This is precisely what I feel has occurred with FFXIV. It is a tragic state of affairs when those of us who mean well are continuously shut down and treated dismissively by these newer "fans" who in any other case would likely not be playing Final Fantasy games at all had this game not catered to them to the extent that did.

That's because it IS happening to FFXIV right now. We're in the invasion cycle. Newer players rushed into the game and demanded that there be no stakes and that everything be fine because they wanted their comfort game but didn't want to put in the effort to find one that already existed. Thus Endwalker had zero stakes and anyone of value was in zero danger for the entire time. Seriously, did ANY of the scions actually get put in genuine danger at ANY point other than the obvious fake out in UT?

I swear, FFXIV is gonna be the next Marvel or Star Wars soon if they don't stop doing this. It's going to be a series where the creators cater to newer 'fans' (which aren't even real fans) while casting anyone who liked the older 'movies' (in this case, expansions) aside. How long until the writers for FFXIV start calling their real fans bigots ala Rian Johnson style for not getting on board with the new direction?

[TaleraRistain]

Newer players rushed into the game and demanded that there be no stakes and that everything be fine because they wanted their comfort game but didn't want to put in the effort to find one that already existed.

Honest question, have you played other JRPGs? How many do you know where the entire cast dies? Even in the Final Fantasy series itself it's not something that happens in every game. And it's very rare (not unheard of, just rare) for a main cast death to occur at all. I'm not sure why you think new players rushed into this game demanding anything. This expansion has felt the most like one of the old school Final Fantasy single player games to me more than any other expansion. If they're drawing in anyone, they're drawing in the core Final Fantasy audience that was kept away by this being an online game. Which is exactly the audience they were trying to draw in because they had gotten that feedback that single player fans wanted to experience this one.

[AwesomeJr44]

Honest question, have you played other JRPGs? How many do you know where the entire cast dies? Even in the Final Fantasy series itself it's not something that happens in every game. And it's very rare (not heard of, just rare) for a main cast death to occur at all. I'm not sure why you think new players rushed into this game demanding anything. This expansion has felt the most like one of the old school Final Fantasy single player games to me more than any other expansion. If they're drawing in anyone, they're drawing in the core Final Fantasy audience that was kept away by this being an online game. Which is exactly the audience they were trying to draw in because they had gotten that feedback that single player fans wanted to experience this one.

I'll just leave this here for you.

I suppose this might be another post to potentially bookmark in order to keep track of the points being raised but as has been pointed out in the past it is specifically being requested that there are meaningful lasting consequences for at least some of the major protagonists.

Not just throwaway side characters of little relevance who are created with the intention of dying horribly. Not only antagonists and villains who are predictably given a sob story to induce sympathy and then unceremoniously killed off.

The occasional character on the level of Alisae, Y'shtola, Urianger, Raubhan, Nanamo or Merlwyb actually facing death in a meaningful and well written fashion would do wonders to portray some actual stakes.

I'm not convinced that one sided magic and world altering abilities are particularly engaging, either. Wanting more fantasy elements does not necessarily equal wanting them to manifest solely as an excuse to shield the major characters at almost every turn, especially when the story is written in such a way as to disallow the antagonists to score any meaningful on screen victories.

I want a compelling story and lasting consequences would achieve that as far as I'm concerned.

As has been pointed out over the numerous past occasions where the 'this is not Game of Thrones' line has been spouted, many of us aren't asking for mass death for the sake of mass death and are instead asking for death to occur where and when it makes sense. Cladding the bulk of the cast in extensive plot armour simply sends things in the opposite direction.

I would humbly suggest bookmarking this post if you're able to. It might help refresh your memory next time this same point is raised.

[Midareyukki]

Honest question, have you played other JRPGs? How many do you know where the entire cast dies? Even in the Final Fantasy series itself it's not something that happens in every game. And it's very rare (not heard of, just rare) for a main cast death to occur at all. I'm not sure why you think new players rushed into this game demanding anything. This expansion has felt the most like one of the old school Final Fantasy single player games to me more than any other expansion. If they're drawing in anyone, they're drawing in the core Final Fantasy audience that was kept away by this being an online game. Which is exactly the audience they were trying to draw in because they had gotten that feedback that single player fans wanted to experience this one.

- FF4, FF6, FF7, FF9, FF10 (kinda, especially in the new sound novel they made as a sequel to 10-2) FF13... but it's complicated. And FF15. These are all mainline games where at least one of the main playable characters dies permanently at some point.
- Crisis Core and Type-0 feature the death of the entire playable roster. Though Type-0 does have a way to avert it, but it doesn't erase the fact that those deaths still happened.
- Dissidia 012 kills off its prologue characters before the main Dissidia campaign. They're brought back somehow in NT tho.
- FFT makes it ambiguous whether or not the main character and his sister survive. We don't know whether he's actually alive, Delita's dying hallucination or just a gratuitous image to contrast the circumstances of Delita's death, like an allegory.

Death does happen somewhat regularly. It's never the entire cast except for two games: the first one is a single-player adventure, so it doesn't count, and the 2nd one has a secret ending where you can un-make the entire campaign.

Edit: If anyone's curious, the FF10 death is that Tidus is such a bigshot blitzball player and neglects Yuna for a bit, he then goes to the beach, finds a ball, thinks it's a Blitzball and kicks it. It's actually a Bomb and he dies. Yuna mourns him and tries to bring him back, but out of nowhere, Sin comes back. The end. Just... no further context, that's all the narration says xD And since there's no follow-up, he's still dead.

[TaleraRistain]

- FF4, FF6, FF7, FF9, FF10 (kinda, especially in the new sound novel they made as a sequel to 10-2) FF13... but it's complicated. And FF15. These are all mainline games where at least one of the main playable characters dies permanently at some point.
- Crisis Core and Type-0 feature the death of the entire playable roster. Though Type-0 does have a way to avert it, but it doesn't erase the fact that those deaths still happened.
- Dissidia 012 kills off its prologue characters before the main Dissidia campaign. They're brought back somehow in NT tho.
- FFT makes it ambiguous whether or not the main character and his sister survive. We don't know whether he's actually alive, Delita's dying hallucination or just a gratuitous image to contrast the circumstances of Delita's death, like an allegory.

Death does happen somewhat regularly. It's never the entire cast except for two games: the first one is a single-player adventure, so it doesn't count, and the 2nd one has a secret ending where you can un-make the entire campaign.

Edit: If anyone's curious, the FF10 death is that Tidus is such a bigshot blitzball player and neglects Yuna for a bit, he then goes to the beach, finds a ball, thinks it's a Blitzball and kicks it. It's actually a Bomb and he dies. Yuna mourns him and tries to bring him back, but out of nowhere, Sin comes back. The end. Just... no further context, that's all the narration says xD

Tellah in IV is solid and you missed Galuf in V. VI isn't a given. Shadow doesn't have to die. Aerith in VII is one of the obvious ones, of course. Vivi dies in IX offscreen and after the final battle. X is solid though X-2's canon ending reverses it and then that sound novel reverses that reversal and then reverses it again (yeah that's not confusing). LR reverses the deaths that happened in XIII. XV is solid...kind of. The intended story to my understanding would have been resolved quite differently.

But there are other series. Fei goes to the end of the world to rescue Elly in Xenogears and the entire party comes home triumphantly. The cast of Chrono Trigger travel to the past and the future and beyond to defeat Lavos and comes home triumphantly. Alex saves Luna in the first Lunar game when she's been overtaken as her Althena persona by singing their song to her and everyone comes home triumphantly. Even in the first game in this series, the Warriors of Light travel into the past and defeat Garland as Chaos and...return home triumphantly.

Some games subvert this. Type-0 like you mentioned. Rose at the end of Legend of Dragoon because she's someone out of time, though the very end gives some hope there. That's why I said not unheard of even in this series. But it's just not a trend you see in JRPGs a lot.

[Midareyukki]

Tellah in IV is solid and you missed Galuf in V. VI isn't a given. Shadow doesn't have to die. Aerith in VII is one of the obvious ones, of course. Vivi dies in IX offscreen and after the final battle. X is solid though X-2's canon ending reverses it and then that sound novel reverses that reversal and then reverses it again (yeah that's not confusing). LR reverses the deaths that happened in XIII. XV is solid...kind of. The intended story to my understanding would have been resolved quite differently.

But there are other series. Fei goes to the end of the world to rescue Elly in Xenogears and the entire party comes home triumphantly. The cast of Chrono Trigger travel to the past and the future and beyond to defeat Lavos and comes home triumphantly. Alex saves Luna in the first Lunar game when she's been overtaken as her Althena persona by singing their song to her and everyone comes home triumphantly. Even in the first game in this series, the Warriors of Light travel into the past and defeat Garland as Chaos and...return home triumphantly.

Some games subvert this. Type-0 like you mentioned. Rose at the end of Legend of Dragoon because she's someone out of time, though the very end gives some hope there. That's why I said not unheard of even in this series. But it's just not a trend you see in JRPGs a lot.

Yep, it's not. That's the point I was trying to make: that while death IS a recurring thing, they either subvert it somehow or it ends up being a very minor character\minor moment. It never is the death of the whole cast, and in Type-0, it's made abundantly clear that the cast isn't the same most loops, and that Arecia just throws it all into the bin and lets people live happily and normally.

This is how Final Fantasy is like. This is how most JRPGs tend to be, as they're often modelled after FF or Dragon Quest. I'd say the only exception is the Shin Megami Tensei series, and even then it's not something that always happens.

And death isn't meant to be the ending to the Scions. Nor was Endwalker meant to be the end of them as a group. They've disbanded just to pursue their own interests, they'd likely be back later in the future if called to it. However, this would have been the perfect chance to either expand or make a new group.

It might be too early to tell. But from what we're seeing that won't happen. They're just going to make characters they've already established take on a new role.

...also ._. I forgot Galuf despite him literally being the reason Forbidden Land Eureka exists. F.

[TaleraRistain]

...also ._. I forgot Galuf despite him literally being the reason Forbidden Land Eureka exists. F.

And in a thread about Krile, for shame

Oh and they must have changed the X-2 sequel thing a bit. Last I read about it, she did bring him back but she can't tell him and the secret X ending is supposed to be after that. Or something. It's weird. VIII's story makes more sense compared to what they did there.

[Boblawblah]

- FF4, FF6, FF7, FF9, FF10 (kinda, especially in the new sound novel they made as a sequel to 10-2) FF13... but it's complicated. And FF15. These are all mainline games where at least one of the main playable characters dies permanently at some point.
- Crisis Core and Type-0 feature the death of the entire playable roster. Though Type-0 does have a way to avert it, but it doesn't erase the fact that those deaths still happened.
- Dissidia 012 kills off its prologue characters before the main Dissidia campaign. They're brought back somehow in NT tho.
- FFT makes it ambiguous whether or not the main character and his sister survive. We don't know whether he's actually alive, Delita's dying hallucination or just a gratuitous image to contrast the circumstances of Delita's death, like an allegory.

Death does happen somewhat regularly. It's never the entire cast except for two games: the first one is a single-player adventure, so it doesn't count, and the 2nd one has a secret ending where you can un-make the entire campaign.

Edit: If anyone's curious, the FF10 death is that Tidus is such a bigshot blitzball player and neglects Yuna for a bit, he then goes to the beach, finds a ball, thinks it's a Blitzball and kicks it. It's actually a Bomb and he dies. Yuna mourns him and tries to bring him back, but out of nowhere, Sin comes back. The end. Just... no further context, that's all the narration says xD And since there's no follow-up, he's still dead.

FF9, which playable character dies before the end of the game? FF10, same. FF6, what shadow, who you can just choose not to wait for? FF15? dying at the end of the game doesn't count when we're talking about comparing it to an mmo. FF13 had timeline nonsense.

VII and IV has arguably the only meaningful character death when you're actually controlling the character. Almost none of the FF games have a death where the story continues, and you simply cannot play with that character anymore. I think it's disingenuous to try to paint FFXIV as this happy go lucky story when it's dealt with themes just as dark as any of the Final Fantasy games. Are we really going to pretend that FFVII Remake doesn't have just as much fanservice and out of place nonsense?

I didn't enjoy Endwalker really at all, I thought it read like a depressed teenager writing a fan fiction, but to say that nothing meaningful happens to characters is just wrong. If you don't like a character, just say it, let's not pretend that death would suddenly make the stakes "real" again.