Review of 6.3 Story Content

[aveyond-dreams]

It's the total lack of any clear suggestion as to the "how" that's bugging me.

Even him just making some vague statement as to what's going to make that possible is how you build suspense/intrigue. Having a simple declaration of intent alone doesn't really excite me.

His progression so far has basically been:

6.1:Wants to start a war for the 13th's salvation somehow.

6.2: Wants to start a war for the 13th's salvation that involves the moon somehow.

6.3: Wants to start a war for the 13th's salvation through death that involves the moon and breaking down the boundary to the source...somehow. Has Rubicante destroy the voidgate so we can't interfere for the time being.



Compare to Elidibus in 5.0, where his progression was:

5.0: Wants to end the Scions using warriors of light.

5.1: Takes Ardbert's body.

5.2: Starts masquerading as Ardbert, moves to build faith in the warriors of light, then awakens people to the Echo. We now have enough information to get the gears turning and start seriously questioning how he's going to execute his 5.0 scheme.

5.3: Is revealed to be a primal, at which point things clicked for a lot of people and understood why he was doing what he did.


The problem to me is that Golbez is not setting up anything for us to actually parse information from or at least try to in some meaningful capacity, and it's feeling like everything is just going to be dumped on us all at once in 6.4.

This basically sums it all up...assuming we even get enough info in 6.4 since they want to save the next oooohhh secret for 6.5. I suspect that the relay-style writing of the patches is partially to blame for the general lacklustre state of them - especially the unmentionable disaster that was 6.1. I can only hope that Hiroi, who is supposed to write 7.0, has not been directly involved in some of the writing we've seen in the main story for these patches.

I can only hope that they eventually see reason or if nothing else consider whether its worth the pushback they've been getting for the way they've handled the story of Endwalker and finally ground themselves next expansion with another Heavensward. Preferably with a Bloody Banquet scene on the side. We've been long overdue for one. I want to relive the joy I had back in 2.55 when all the worst characters in the game were banished from the story, if only for a time.

Perhaps if the Scions had taken a break sooner I would not be fully in support of them all dying as soon as possible, though that too could have been avoided if they had given them some kind of arc or growth in Endwalker that completely excluded the many scenes that were little more than creative wastes of budget. If all we're going to get is one-note characters or arcs that last no longer than some patches or a single expansion - rotate the cast. The hardcore fans of these characters will get over it. Or not. It doesn't matter anyway, they should not be getting to strongarm the writers into keeping them around to the point where their presence is an active detriment to the story.

Make FFXIV the game whose story I fell for back in the 2015 era, and leave behind whatever this sorry mess is supposed to be.