What Zero Could've Been

[RukoBoshi]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

I definitely agree. I love the Scions, but i also want new characters. I would be glad if they took a step back (well most of them) to give way for new characters.

I don't want them to be write out of the story, but to fills the role the alliance leaders or Cid have : important characters that appears once in a while to help.

At best i would keep 2 or 3 of them max.
Estinien and G'raha since they haven't been here for long. And i would add Zero, Lorens from endwalker role quest, and Fordola maybe ?
We could also get 1 or 2 new characters in the new expansion.

The idea would be to have characters from differents background, that have a common objectives, but their own goals and way of thinking.
Because the 5 scholars from Sharlayan we have right now tend to always agree on the same things and are interchangeable in most scenes.

[Iscah]

That shoe quickly goes on the other foot if someone mentions liking the Ancients, Garleans, etc. Ditto for speaking positively about certain primals. What I can't figure out is why speaking positively about Ramuh is considered some grave offense. Wasn't he like... the fairest, most kind out of all of the original primals? Dude had granddad energy, but God forbid you say something nice about him on the forums.

This seems like a bizarre claim. I have never seen anyone object to Ramuh.

I also think there's a distinction to be made between someone simply liking the Ancients or Garleans, and constantly telling us we should feel bad for accepting that they are the story-designated doomed predecessors and antagonists, respectively. They've been written to exist in those roles.

I also think it's a mistake to equate "expressing a controversial opinion and having people disagree with it" and "expressing a story-aligned opinion and having people disagree with it" as equal events.

Multiple people can disagree with a controversial take because they're all basing their opinions on the same canon; it doesn't mean they're teaming up against the controversial person.

[PawPaw]

As far as the Scions go, Y'shtola is indeed the worst and continues to be the worst. The best, at least in EW? Urianger and G'raha got some really good individual scenes, at least, and I think Estinien was mostly fun, if mostly a really, really transparent late fanservice addition. In terms of how much I liked them overall versus how they were used in EW, the twins probably wound up the most unfortunate, sadly.

Hmmm, for me, Urianger was the runaway best Scion of EW. G'raha was right behind, I like to pretend Y'shtola doesn't exist and Krile was literally just a puppet. Alisae has been sliding down my ranking list but I still love Alphi, so I enjoyed him. I think the Scion with the least development in EW would have to be Thancred, for me. I adore him, but aside from getting to see him work his cool spy mojo a bit more, I didn't really feel as though he grew much. Sadly, I think that he really did complete his arc back in ShB and there might not be much more left to explore with him.

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

I would have loved a bit of a vacation from the Scions. Especially after EW when I really was just over everyone and everything and just wanted to be alone for a bit. You didn't imagine it and they really wasted no time in dropping us right back into the same old, same old. I'd really appreciate a quest line or an EP that allowed us to have that sense of independence again. Even if only for a while. I guess the inclusion of Trusts means that we always need to be surrounded by at least 3-4 people who can act as party members now?

[Rannie]

Hmm I'd rather Alphinaud and Alisaie be put on the back burner like they currently are for maybe an expansion or two, I'm finding running with the other scions a bit more pleasant. Don't get me wrong I don't hate the twins but we have been with him since half way through Arr and his sister was pretty much end of HW and on. I'm actually enjoying running with the Y'shtola the others

[SassyAssassin]

Exactly what Sanna said.

Nobody has a problem with him or whoever wants to look at attractive characters.

Its ok to want attractive characters in games, but OP takes it to an extreme asking every character to be attractive to his standards and if not, then the character shouldn’t act a certain way because they aren’t attractive enough to “pull it off”.

That’s his opinion first of all. There are a lot of men out there crazy about Yshtola.

Secondly, it’s the reason he is being labelled as “misogynistic” which honestly I can’t understand why so many of you defend.

Saying a woman should not deny a man because she’s not hot enough is messed up and there are no mental gymnastics you can do to justify that.

Thirdly, just as he is allowed to say he wants the fairytale woman/man we are allowed to say we don’t. Or did he post on a public forum expecting everyone to give into his opinion and agree?

Its a game with a lot of npcs. Not every npc will look the way one forum member wants, nor should they.

Plus don’t act like you don’t have enough good looking male or female characters in game, if that’s so important to you. Go make an au ra male character and stare at his nipple-less chest idk what to tell you at this point.

And no the scions are not my first choice of in game “friends” either but I still enjoy seeing that the characters are different and not what I expected in the end, whether good or bad.

I loved Hermes but everyone detests him and honestly thats ok, I wont be thinking of the forum members when I play the game. I still can’t make my mind about Venat and that’s fine for me as well. I don’t want inherently good or bad characters, a definite hero or vilan, Id get very bored of the same story after so many expansions. And again thats MY opinion.

You can agree, disagree or troll, it’s neither here nor there, plus I think we threw the whole high horse, mature pretense out of the window once we all started crying on the forum because the pixels are not hot enough so you’re not fooling anyone.

[Absimiliard]

This seems like a bizarre claim. I have never seen anyone object to Ramuh.

I also think there's a distinction to be made between someone simply liking the Ancients or Garleans, and constantly telling us we should feel bad for accepting that they are the story-designated doomed predecessors and antagonists, respectively. They've been written to exist in those roles.

Ramuh hasn't been a subject of debate in a long time. It was just a little something from long ago I revisited to emphasize how ridiculous some of the goings on are at this point in time. Perhaps it's just a me thing, but I definitely see a lot of arguments being made these days as every bit as foolish as the very curious things once thrown around about everyone's favorite old man with a beard heavily resembling certain dangly parts.

While I will agree with that distinction needing to be made, I would also observe the need to distinguish between people claiming we should feel bad for accepting the roles they were written into and people pointing out mitigating circumstances that do, by most reasonable standards, qualify them as sympathetic figures. A great many people on these forums, regardless of their likes and dislikes regarding lore and characters, seem to have a fundamental inability to differentiate between finding a particular demographic sympathetic and being okay with whatever hideous actions they've committed.

[Brinne]

I loved Hermes but everyone detests him and honestly thats ok

hermes rules but i'm pretty sure i love him for largely the same reasons other people hate him! if you haven't seen it, a poster named lurina made did an excellent writeup analyzing him and how people as an audience perceive him. the rest of the thread quickly descends into trainwreck territory, but.

[SannaR]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

The statement released to the public is that the band broke up. So that at least on the surface it looks as though they're not an organization. They're trying to go back into the shadows in order to try and let the leaders of the various countries handle stuff on their own. So we start 6.1 looking for adventure and get led to a guy who's got supposedly genuine map of this treasure map. Estinien buys it and we agree to go with. Now we did promise G'Raha one adventure so we go poke him. We also think about Y'Shtola as it's hinted that the mythical ruler might have stumbled onto how to travel the rift. And that's what we know she was researching about. Now I know why we get pointed towards Urianger but he is the only one I feel is shoehorned into our group. Where we also bump into Thancred who is doing whatever after not being able to locate some kind of past mentor. For me the 6.1 grouping makes sense and two of them peace out soon after the dungeon. Now could they have done it differently? Sure, but they didn't. And at least they seem to only be bringing in members when they need to. The only disappointment of 6.2 is that Urianger got used again to be the one who ends up giving our group a macguffin. At least we got him to stop it with the secrets/lies.

I feel part of the reason why Shotla come off as bland is due to her well being raised by Matoya since she was 7. That doesn't really teach a person how to pick up on some social ques. So she went and took a roll of be the cold observer who can be an exposition dumper when it would make sense for her to be the one doing so. We're just now getting to see her open up and pick up on some ques that her time in the First clued her in on.

[SassyAssassin]

hermes rules but i'm pretty sure i love him for largely the same reasons other people hate him! if you haven't seen it, a poster named lurina made did an excellent writeup analyzing him and how people as an audience perceive him. the rest of the thread quickly descends into trainwreck territory, but.

Oh thank you I’ll definitely check that out!
For me the man had a point, once I saw him be sad for killing “flawed” creatures that was it, instant heart eyes.

[AwesomeJr44]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

I think that would vastly improve the direction of the game's story. We've been around the scions for too long now, and it's time to go on an adventure by ourselves, and meet some new friends.

Honestly, as much as I like the trust system, I feel that's it's almost limited what the writers can do with the story and its characters. 6.1 was supposed to be an adventure with Estinien, yet a bunch of other scions get dragged in because we need NPCs for the trust dungeon. I get why Yshtola needed to be there, but it really felt like we were dragging the scions back in just because we need a *insert role here* for the dungeon. It feels like the story is shackled to the requirement of needing the scions for trusts. Ktisis' trust NPCs were great, but that feels like the exception to the rule nowadays. Perhaps they could take a page out of the ARR trust system's book and have the trust dungeon NPCs be random people if it would fit the story better. About to go into a dungeon and don't have enough scions in the area? Perhaps some random unnamed NPCs that you've befriended and live in the area can show up and help out.

I feel the Trust system could benefit from some randomization going forward. Rather than the Scions (barring dungeons where it is narratively appropriate, of course) accompanying the WoL into battle, the roles could be filled by randomly generated NPCs. It would do a good job of giving that "I'm fighting alongside random adventurers" feel the game lost a long time ago. Couple this with decreased Scion presence in the story, and you've got a recipe for success.

^ This. This is exactly what I'd like to see.

I don’t know why they push Yshtola so much in game, the only thing I can imagine is because she might be popular in the Japanese community since they even made an overpriced doll of her instead of any others.

She's the official mascot for FFXIV in other FF games so the dev team probably has some level of favoritism towards her.