New story writer for 7.0

[RyuDragnier]

A lot of the content he's penned tend to be parts of the game disliked for pretty much every reason BUT the story, so that's a weirdly good sign; even at his worst, he's basically the best part of a bad stretch.

I like to get a bead on more than just the quality of writing, though, see if we can figure out any common themes besides 'it's good' (like, for example, Ishikawa's predilection for Sad Edgy War Criminals). And it's actually a little difficult with him, because most of his writing thus far has been in service to someone else's, either in using characters others created in the patches, or aiding Matsuno's writing in Ivalice and Bozja (and weirdly, both of those two things simultaneously in PotD). It's hard to tell what he specifically either likes to write or excels at writing, save that he seems to have written basically every single piece of side content that features voidsent since 3.0. Maybe he's why we're off dealing with them right now!

If we look at everything he has worked on, almost all of them had characters that were brand new, and seem to be genuinely interesting/compelling. So at least character wise, we will not be disappointed. Story wise, most of what he has done has been small stuff over the years. But since I don't recall hearing any complaints about the BRD/BLM/DNC questlines or the range/caster role quest for ShB, I think at worst the story will be average. At best it will be incredibly refreshing compared to what we've dealt with previously. Personally I think we could go for a good adventure expansion, where we don't really have high stakes.

[Cleretic]

If we look at everything he has worked on, almost all of them had characters that were brand new, and seem to be genuinely interesting/compelling. So at least character wise, we will not be disappointed. Story wise, most of what he has done has been small stuff over the years. But since I don't recall hearing any complaints about the BRD/BLM/DNC questlines or the range/caster role quest for ShB, I think at worst the story will be average. At best it will be incredibly refreshing compared to what we've dealt with previously. Personally I think we could go for a good adventure expansion, where we don't really have high stakes.

I wouldn't be so sure on low stakes, I think most of the stories he's written have just been in parts of the game where low stakes are the norm. It'd feel a little weird if a job quest was suddenly grappling with the fate of the world in a really big way, wouldn't it? (Excepting that Black Mage actually was preventing a Calamity; even that did it quietly.) He went big when he was writing content that could go big, remember that Mhach was about stopping a top-rung voidsent from getting world-destroying power. And who even knows what Pandaemonium is gonna end in.

Thinking about it, if there's one generally common thread he seems to come back to, it's heroes of unlikely low origins. Not unlikely as in 'I'd expect this character to sooner destroy the world than save it' (which Ishikawa did quite a bit, to generally good return), but heroes that come from the last place you'd expect. The Redbills and Guydelot both separately standing up to smack down some major voidsent; Lalai and Zhai'a stopping a meteor; the Dancers doing... the entire Dancer quest let's be honest; Erich as basically the world's worst warden (although he's got Narrative Nepotism going on where he's important because his dad is); the theater troupe uncovering the truth of the Zodiac Braves; hell, in a sort of morally-flipped version, Misija the lowborn peasant girl becoming the controller of Queen Gunnhildr and focal point of the entire Bozjan war for independence. He really does a lot with characters that I feel like a lot of the other writers would've left by the wayside.

That, I think, gives me the most hope for future content. If 7.0 onwards wants to be a fresh start with all-new characters and stakes, Hiroi might be the perfect writer on staff for the job of making the cast that would ask for.

[TaleraRistain]

If we look at everything he has worked on, almost all of them had characters that were brand new, and seem to be genuinely interesting/compelling. So at least character wise, we will not be disappointed. Story wise, most of what he has done has been small stuff over the years. But since I don't recall hearing any complaints about the BRD/BLM/DNC questlines or the range/caster role quest for ShB, I think at worst the story will be average. At best it will be incredibly refreshing compared to what we've dealt with previously. Personally I think we could go for a good adventure expansion, where we don't really have high stakes.

They tend to get a little overshadowed when talking about job quests by the DRK line, but the BRD/BLM/DNC questlines were very good.