Please don't harass people for ignoring/disliking the story

[Teeko]

Not really. You just come across as bizarrely defensive in response to someone exercising their right to post here, in all honesty. You're not "calling" anything out. You're just complaining about the fact that he posted an opinion you disliked, and not entirely unprompted, but also not in a thread where it's off topic. Let's not kid ourselves here as to what's going on here.

Wtf are you even talking about? Are you just going out of your way to misinterpret what I say as a reason to get angry?

Y'all can have this conversation lol

[Lauront]

We both know he's not telling it "like it is."

In the bizarro fantasy world of your construction, perhaps, but in reality? Sorry, nope.

Heck, around here it's effectively the opposite - say you actually like the story (or anything about this game) and watch the little cabal of negativity go to town. Case in point - when IS came out there were the usual posters with the whole "IS is terrible" threads. There was onethread from someone talking about what they enjoyed about it - and within the first several comments were several someones (I won't name names, but notably present in this thread, too) either straight-up going after them or passive-aggressively saying they were "wrong" for liking it. They're so bitter they can't even stand the thought of someone else being happy. It's sad, really.

Frankly, there's only two cases I see where people get criticized for commenting negatively on the story here. One was already taken care of by the OP - the people who skip the story and then complain about it. The second is people who act as if they're the arbiters of what is "good" and "bad," rather than just offering an opinion on something. They tend to directly and personally attack the dev team (and other players who are having a good time), and when it comes down to it, it basically amounts to a very immature "they didn't write the story I wanted, therefore it's bad" philosophy. So yes, it's a natural human response when you (a proverbial "you," not you personally) effectively harass people by claiming they're wrong for enjoying something, to get flak in return.

Yes yes, let me load up your usual script: the forum is unlike reddit - usually a cesspit of negativity btw (source: striker), - Twitter, youtube comments, blah blah blah, that all just wub wub wub the game and don't accept any negative comment (totally not cult-like in that respect, but anyway), we are just grains of sand against the striker majority tidal wave tsunami of righteousness.

If you're referring to threads that pretend to be positive but then insert not-so-subtle digs at people critical of various aspects of the game and that is challenged? It's not really a cabal of negativity. Nonetheless, I was specifically addressing comments that try to justify harassing story skippers. I do find it silly if they try comment on the story in spite of skipping it, but equally that ignorance makes it all the easier to shrug it off - much like specious claims about "majorities".

> "My love will be forever with yours, my dearest children."
> VENAT HATES EVERYONE BUT HERSELF!

cherrypicking.jpg

Well yeah, you are cherrypicking. Plenty of people do bad things to others claiming it's out of love for them. Narcissistic mothers are a thing, after all.

One needn't watch the cutscenes to understand the story. There are any number of lore repositories available at this time, many of which provide ample proof of accuracy. Is it better to watch them? Yes, but choosing not to does not automatically disqualify someone from the conversation.

The above aside, while I will agree with you on the point of people needing to know what they're talking about before trying to tear the story to shreds, more than a few of the people coming out against it do know what they are talking about.

As I said, it provides no shortage of amusement to me that the people typically bellowing "omg cutscene skipper!" tend to be some of the most ignorant on matters of the story and usually just narrate back to me some garbled interpretation of said story, laced with their own headcanon.

[Boblawblah]

> "My love will be forever with yours, my dearest children."
> VENAT HATES EVERYONE BUT HERSELF!

cherrypicking.jpg

#venatdidnothingwrong

[Theodric]

Well yeah, you are cherrypicking. Plenty of people do bad things to others claiming it's out of love for them. Narcissistic mothers are a thing, after all.

Yep. Each to their own, people can like who they like and all that though it is bizarre when the very same poster who has called people 'psychopaths' for wanting character deaths and consequences in the game's story then goes on to endlessly praise one of the characters with the highest kill count in the setting. Some consistency would be nice, though throughout all of history many have been led astray by a pretty face and vague promises of 'love'.

[Boblawblah]

Yep. Each to their own, people can like who they like and all that though it is bizarre when the very same poster who has called people 'psychopaths' for wanting character deaths and consequences in the game's story then goes on to endlessly praise one of the characters with the highest kill count in the setting. Some consistency would be nice, though throughout all of history many have been led astray by a pretty face and vague promises of 'love'.

Godwin's law being tested again maybe.

[Renalt]

Yep. Each to their own, people can like who they like and all that though it is bizarre when the very same poster who has called people 'psychopaths' for wanting character deaths and consequences in the game's story then goes on to endlessly praise one of the characters with the highest kill count in the setting. Some consistency would be nice, though throughout all of history many have been led astray by a pretty face and vague promises of 'love'.

Would the person with the highest kill count be me? I'm well past the 250,000 dead achievement and they stop keep count. I think I've killed the population of Solomon Islands.

[KatieConnr]

Some people like X game for Y reasons, and some people like Y game for X reasons...
Some people only play for X reasons, while others only play for Y reasons...
-at the end of the day it really doesn't matter!

The world is super crazy right now, and we as gamers should stick together and we can get through this!
We all enjoy playing games, and thats what matters

[Ransu]

Thats what i did with shadowbringer. Skipped away to try new jobs. Then grabbed myself a nice cup of coffee and watched the story on YouTube. Watching someone else narrate story in 20 mins videos while i can kick back and relax is much more enjoyable and i didn't miss a thing. I play ffxiv for combat, glam and trying new classes. Will do the same with Endwalker.

That just seems terrible to me (especially when FFXIV's combat really isn't all that great), but to each their own.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yep. Each to their own, people can like who they like and all that though it is bizarre when the very same poster who has called people 'psychopaths' for wanting character deaths and consequences in the game's story then goes on to endlessly praise one of the characters with the highest kill count in the setting. Some consistency would be nice, though throughout all of history many have been led astray by a pretty face and vague promises of 'love'.

Theodoric...are you alright? Who hurt you?

[aveyond-dreams]

There's very little reason for me, if any, to seek out interactions or discussions with those who are fans of Endwalker's story. More often than not it appears that its defenders seek out those of us who took issue with it in attempts to prove themselves the correct and moral ones because they "understood" the story's true message and could somehow sympathize with the likes of Hermes.

We explain our grievances, get painted as bad guys ourselves or have other strange accusations like some of the ones in this thread tossed our way, and then the current defenders of FFXIV are mystified as to why the playerbase keeps dropping and why they continue to receive pushback from more and more sides.

I believe that quite a lot of issues could be solved by the following: by setting Yoshi free to work on other games and for Ishikawa to move on to other projects within CBU3. Of the remaining team, future main story writers should be selected from the sort that produced the quality of writing we saw in 6.2's Pandaemonium quests, as well as the more mature storytelling of Ivalice and Bozja's settings.

Endwalker was an expansion that operated on feels more than substance - I propose that tide be directly turned as soon as possible, lest the game continue to self select for the sort of players that would otherwise be more taken by games outside the fantasy genre than a mainline FF title.