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

[SannaR]

I correctly called out the Eureka, Blue Mage, Limited Races, and Endwalker controversies. When my counsel has been heeded, the game does well. When it flies in the face of them, catastrophe has ensued.

Wow that's such a huge ego. I knew it was huge but the whole "when my counsel has been heeded" stuff... Hoodoo boy. Dang folks I didn't he had a family member who worked as part of the dev team. Seriously that comes off like you were a patron of Teledji Adeleji while hoping Nanamo would decide something in his favor but you somehow lost his ear.

[Boblawblah]

Wow that's such a huge ego. I knew it was huge but the whole "when my counsel has been heeded" stuff... Hoodoo boy. Dang folks I didn't he had a family member who worked as part of the dev team. Seriously that comes off like you were a patron of Teledji Adeleji while hoping Nanamo would decide something in his favor but you somehow lost his ear.

At this point, I'm starting to think he's a REALLY dedicated troll, in for the long game.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

At this point, I'm starting to think he's a REALLY dedicated troll, in for the long game.

If he ISNT a troll...then god forbid there are some issues.
But if he IS a troll...eh, with his hot takes its not a surprise.

But hey, Ive said before he is a Good Laugh sometimes.

[SentioftheHoukai]

It definitely isn't, but it could be on a downturn. I was talking about this over Discord, but EW won't really be a wakeup call for any real changes. They'd have to have a spectacular failure of an expansion, and perhaps the arrival of competent competitors for that to really happen.

I never thought it'd outright DIE (Hells, just look to World of Warcraft even today), but it's difficult to deny it's mooning the crowd with its ever more obvious rust on the near daily. Be it here, or on Reddit (maybe not Twitter, but I don't go there) more and more threads are popping up criticizing Endwalker/6.1-6.2/2022 FFXIV/what have you and its various aspects on social media. I'm choosing to believe that's indicative of something. As to whether or not that'll spur Yoshi-P and Creative Dev Team III to amend the more egregious of the game's drawbacks, well who can say really? I only know where my bets are being placed, and by now with my tenure on this forum I'm rather sure everyone else does too.

Really? We remember stormblood very differently then.

The difference rather obviously lies in the fact that the critique of Stormblood unified the community. Endwalker differs in that, at least for now, its critics are more outspoken and less numerous. However, we can already witness verifiable evidence of an uptick in the vocally dissatisfied. For far different reasons than Stormblood, though I daresay a few are rather similar.

Funny how you say this, yet FFV also didnt shy away to add in goofy humor within its plot and basic predictable rpg tropes. Which are things you "heavily criticize" with EW. Get out of here, dont drag my beloved FFV into your bs nonsense, you clearly have not played the game for you to be stating that FFV had more major character deaths (Galuf was the only person who died) and character growth than the ongoing narrative between multiple characters in FFXIV and its expansions.

I say this as somebody who loves FFV.

I'd argue that Aveyond and others' main points is that (at least from what I remember) that the humourous moments in Endwalker far outstripped the tense moments laid out in contrast of them, were injected at inopportune and I even daresay disrespectful times, and were handle generally overall rather poorly. It simply felt like the Apocalypse (and the potential loss of life and feelings associated with such) were not truly treated with the gravity such is deserving of.

[Merrigan]

The basic story mechanics of character arcs having a beginning, middle, and end with some compelling moments in between and holding on to that growth? Apologies but as far as I'm concerned I was right in that post as well. Bonus points for the visual diversity that party had as opposed to the Scions.

I'll stop answering afterwards, because there's no point.

Character stories that have to be stretched over several expansions (= several years) and those that are stretched over a single expansion cannot obey the same rules. The story arc you describe exists, and it exists for several characters belonging to the Scions. Let's take the example of Thancred:

- Beginning: not very stable. Thief. Gets tricked by the ascians.
- Disruptive element: Minfillia. Questioning, evolution, maturation.
- End: Shb. Peace with his role as a father. Grief. Ends as a tank, which is a priori in complete opposition to the thief at the beginning.

So no, there is indeed the narrative pattern you describe. You can't see it because you're old to the game, and there's always been a huge difficulty in adapting this kind of arc to long scenarios as imposed by MMORPGs. This concern (the incompatibility between the game's genre and the narrative) is not the one you're pointing at, since you're simply claiming that the NPC narrative arc doesn't exist.

[Estariel]

I correctly called out the Eureka, Blue Mage, Limited Races, and Endwalker controversies. When my counsel has been heeded, the game does well. When it flies in the face of them, catastrophe has ensued.

Sorry, but at this point it's just ridiculous.

What did you call out?

Eureka: people do this content until now, there are active discords for it, even for BA

BlueMage: I see a lot of people with BlueMage-Titles, so obviously there are people, who like this content as well.

Endwalker: you mean the 50 people (and I´m probably generous with the number) in the forum, who don´t like the story and debate without end.

Great job^^

[Cygnia]

As a longtime lurker who has been avoiding these threads...I do think the fact Endwalker is well, an end to an arc several years in the making shall inevitably lead to dissent irrespective of objective quality. Heck, there's probably an equation out there to roughly plot the percentage of dissatisfied watchers rising with each season added onto a story that must acknowledge an increasing amount of contextual weight brought into play.
Not to claim any criticism is baseless or even Endwalker good (although I enjoyed it overall in spite of its flaws so colour me somewhat biased) - simply an observation there has been very few uncontroversial conclusions to long running sagas in memory. Sorta goes with the territory.
To answer the thread title, harassment as an accusation gets tossed around with such regularity I frankly have no clue whether I'd be 'for' harassment or against it; by the classical definition its a safe 'no'.

...I like a plain cheeseburger, bacon optional. No condiments or pickles, cooked medium rare (because my usual craving for raw meat must bow to the wisdom that is health and safety regulations)

[Ameela]

The game is loaded with things named after places, peoples, or historical events that never happened on Etherys. Focusing on hamburgers as if they're the only thing to do so is silly.

I draw the line at hamburgers.

[Merrigan]

A final note: I didn't necessarily mean to unleash some kind of rage against one person. It was more a form of disappointment towards someone I rather like to read on the forum, because she is obviously passionate about the subject of video game storytelling and it's an interest I understand only too well.

We're obviously talking to someone who deeply loves this game. It's all to his credit, especially since I think there are several of us on this forum who like to rack our brains on the storylines.

Anyway. And you, your burger, do you eat it medium or rare?

[aveyond-dreams]

I'll stop answering afterwards, because there's no point.

Character stories that have to be stretched over several expansions (= several years) and those that are stretched over a single expansion cannot obey the same rules. The story arc you describe exists, and it exists for several characters belonging to the Scions. Let's take the example of Thancred:

- Beginning: not very stable. Thief. Gets tricked by the ascians.
- Disruptive element: Minfillia. Questioning, evolution, maturation.
- End: Shb. Peace with his role as a father. Grief. Ends as a tank, which is a priori in complete opposition to the thief at the beginning.

So no, there is indeed the narrative pattern you describe. You can't see it because you're old to the game, and there's always been a huge difficulty in adapting this kind of arc to long scenarios as imposed by MMORPGs. This concern (the incompatibility between the game's genre and the narrative) is not the one you're pointing at, since you're simply claiming that the NPC narrative arc doesn't exist.

A point you've conveniently left out is when I stated that such growth should occur on a per-expansion basis in order to justify a character's time and presence on screen. I don't like how Thancred sat like a log for most of Endwalker and how him and others didn't progress their arcs or regressed in them like Alphinaud did again. Have a good one, take care to be more accurate next time.

Trying to still bank on an arc that started a decade ago and expecting me to still care about a character when they cease to contribute to the plot in a meaningful way is nothing short of actually being unreasonable.