A game for 4 year olds

[Jandor]

Endwalker's also not bloodless; I'm not sure if you're the type to weigh a raw nameless bodycount or named character deaths heavier, but Endwalker's not bottom of the list in either. In terms of nameless deaths I think it might actually be up near the top; I'd have to do an actual body count between it and Stormblood, which I won't do.

No need to count 'em up Cleretic. Endwalker wins handily in terms of nameless deaths, given its story features multiple planetary apocalypses.

[aveyond-dreams]

And right on cue, the essay writer’s guild makes their entirely expected entrance, only to espouse nonsense not worth more than a passing glance.

All in defense of what is now the most controversial of FFXIV’s expansions. Christ, give me a “meh” story like Stormblood over the disaster that was Endwalker any day.

I can only hope that as FFXIV winds itself down that the sort of people it cultivated and allowed to fester remain in more juvenile media and do not contaminate other games like Ashes and so on. Goodness knows they wouldn’t be able to deal with a story that deals with hope and hopelessness in a more compelling manner.

Plague Tale Requiem comes to mind. But doubtless too much for the types here.

[RukoBoshi]

The most controversial expansion have better overall reviews than Shadowbringers or Heavensward. It's acclaimed by both critics and players.


I can understand not liking Endwalker story, but let's not act like it's FFXIV downfall. Endwalker was the end of a saga, we are starting a new one, so it means you won't see continuation of the plot you didn't appreciated in 6.0.
To me FFXIV have always been as it's best when it tells a self contained story like HW or SHB, this is how 7.0 will start when it will introduce it's new plot.

[aveyond-dreams]

The most controversial expansion have better overall reviews than Shadowbringers or Heavensward. It's acclaimed by both critics and players.


I can understand not liking Endwalker story, but let's not act like it's FFXIV downfall. Endwalker was the end of a saga, we are starting a new one, so it means you won't see continuation of the plot you didn't appreciated in 6.0.
To me FFXIV have always been as it's best when it tells a self contained story like HW or SHB, this is how 7.0 will start when it will introduce it's new plot.

Critics that consequently stopped playing afterwards and likely didn't give the story or its insufferable themes more than the passing glance I gave to the two essays dumped at the bottom of the previous page of this thread, and players that have routinely shut out and censored negative opinions of the game. I'm supposed to put any stock in what they say?

The game is falling apart from content to gameplay to a story that spawned a 700 page thread where it's been torn apart a thousand times over. 7.0 can't come soon enough and good luck to Hiroi, because fixing the wreck that was made of this game's worldbuilding and lore under Ishikawa's tenure will be no easy feat. I do agree that self contained stories are probably the better way to go about this than the cosmic mess Endwalker tried to pull. I just want a region to fall in love and connect with like I did for places like Ferelden, Ishgard, and so on.

For all the attempts to mischaracterize me by some as someone who is impossible to please, I was quite satisfied with this game's story and the way it handled character arcs/growth in Heavensward and Shadowbringers especially. You cannot ask me to let my standards slip when Endwalker delivered a story wherein those elements were handled so poorly, expecting me to root for the Scions as the champions of hope over despair when the suffering was suffered collaterally by everyone around them, with them just making sad faces. This isn't the way things went in 3.0 and 5.0, so I will call it out when people try and defend this nonsense.

[Garnix]

Torn apart for 700 pages by what? 20 players out of a couple millions, who make most their arguments sound like trolling, and then get surprised that said "white knights" disagree with them and immediately proceed insulting them?

[MikkoAkure]

Critics that consequently stopped playing afterwards and likely didn't give the story or its insufferable themes more than the passing glance I gave to the two essays dumped at the bottom of the previous page of this thread, and players that have routinely shut out and censored negative opinions of the game.

Cleretic may have written a lot, but today I learned that about 10 sentences is an essay. I wish my professors thought the same when I was in college.

The post I replied to from you was longer than mine but I guess if you don't like what it says then it's harder to read and worthy of adding a snarky tag to the thread that has improper grammar.

[Carin-Eri]

Critics that consequently stopped playing afterwards and likely didn't give the story or its insufferable themes more than the passing glance I gave to the two essays dumped at the bottom of the previous page of this thread, and players that have routinely shut out and censored negative opinions of the game. I'm supposed to put any stock in what they say?

You know for a fact that they stopped playing?

The game is falling apart from content to gameplay to a story that spawned a 700 page thread where it's been torn apart a thousand times over. 7.0 can't come soon enough and good luck to Hiroi, because fixing the wreck that was made of this game's worldbuilding and lore under Ishikawa's tenure will be no easy feat. I do agree that self contained stories are probably the better way to go about this than the cosmic mess Endwalker tried to pull. I just want a region to fall in love and connect with like I did for places like Ferelden, Ishgard, and so on.

The game isn't falling apart just because a select few representatives of a vocal minority (i.e. some forumites) say so.

For all the attempts to mischaracterize me by some as someone who is impossible to please, I was quite satisfied with this game's story and the way it handled character arcs/growth in Heavensward and Shadowbringers especially. You cannot ask me to let my standards slip when Endwalker delivered a story wherein those elements were handled so poorly, expecting me to root for the Scions as the champions of hope over despair when the suffering was suffered collaterally by everyone around them, with them just making sad faces. This isn't the way things went in 3.0 and 5.0, so I will call it out when people try and defend this nonsense.

That's the issue here, though; you're judging everyone else by your standards and seem to have little tolerance for those who don't agree and either enjoyed Endwalker or, at the very least, liked it regardless of it's flaws.

[Cleretic]

Whining that the people you're arguing with are 'writing essays' is basically just trying to turn 'my argument is thinner than everyone else's' into a win. It's not exactly a top strategy.

No need to count 'em up Cleretic. Endwalker wins handily in terms of nameless deaths, given its story features multiple planetary apocalypses.

I was mostly going by 'on-screen' deaths and bodies. It handily wins by implied deaths (with the runner-up there being Heavensward just because it was the one that confirmed that the Ascians were mulching more than just the planet we were on), but in terms of either 'we saw a death' or 'we saw a body' I'd wager it's between Endwalker and Stormblood just because Stormblood does have kind of a lot of battles at fairly large scale, so we did run past a lot of bodies in stuff like Doma Castle and the Ghimlyt Dark. So it basically comes down to if those numbers beat Garlemald and the Thavnair revisit. However I will note that between those Endwalker's casualties were more strongly characterized, while in Stormblood we were pretty much only walking past geometry that looked like bodies, or soldiers that got no lines.

If we allow an additional tier of 'only strongly implied deaths' which include us seeing an event that logically had a bodycount while not seeing the actual bodies, then Stormblood holds the lead through the multiple military base destructions riiiiiight up until Endwalker leaps ahead with the Dead Ends' Karellian stretch, where it is strongly implied we watched a man fire the missiles that killed an entire planet. But I feel like when we start counting by that metric we're just splitting hairs for the fun of it.

[Alleo]

I am shocked to discover some of you know of or have potentially even played FFXIII.

I love the FF13 games. Yes some of the themes in that game were dark and I enjoyed the story of it (Shocking I know but one can like more than one theme) but lets not forget that at the end, at least the main characters were fine.

FF14 has also gotten some of the side characters killed over time. You know like Haurchefant, Ysayle, Papalymo, Minfilia, a big amount of scions with the raids, Ardbert and his whole group and more. These are just the named characters. So lets not pretend that this game has no death. (And no it doesnt matter if you like those character or not, death is death)

Honestly the game has probably killed of more known character than a lot of other FF games including FF13.

[SannaR]

@cleretic non named, minor, and faceless npc deaths don't count to a certain crowd. Same crowd also doesn't take in that story beats ect have to be written differently from single player games due to one being an on going saga and the other having to wrap up at some point. So one can have a fake out last most of the game in a single player meanwhile in an MMO when you need to cram the equivalent of a complete single player game into an expansion some of the things need to get shortened. Endwalker is probably the first time it's been heavily slapped into your face.

I loved XIII it has some of the best music in the series. Just it didn't give you as good of an illusion as other games in order to hide the linear-ness it had. It probably also could have allowed you to explore more before reaching Grand Pulse and maybe a go back to X but it does make sense as to why it doesn't allow that.