What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[ReynTime]

I hope at least Thancred and Urianger (my favorite of the current Scions) quit their lives as Trusts before 7.0. It's never a good thing to keep characters around after their development and story arcs end.
And though I like Vrtra as a character I hope he doesn't succumb to the thirst for adventure idiocy and childishly sticks with that instead of focusing on his role as a leader of a nation. Assuming we finish this rescue arc before 7.0, he has no business staying in the party much longer.

I wish G'raha and Y'shtola would stay behind. But Y'shtola will probably stay a Trust forever, and G'raha just joined. So counting with Krile three of the spots are guaranteed with returning characters. This last patch gave me hope as much as the twins have their fans, they might actually find themselves busy with their own thing. I wouldn't have any problem with Alisaie staying, but Alphinaud's arc is also finished. Not only did he finish helping out carry on his grandfather's duty in saving Eorzea but also found his resolve and vocation.

Zero's development is going so fast I don't think anyone can say for sure she's not just a temporary ally for the current patch storyline, or if she will join the WoL indefinitely.

Endwalker was easily my favorite expansion. I didn’t mind Zodiark not being the final boss. It would’ve been predictable.

As predictable as the fakeouts in Ultima Thule and the power of friendship against Meteion?

Face it, if they opted to have Zodiark as the final boss, you would have just said something along the lines of "well of course, Zodiark was always going to be the final antagonist".



On another subject I'm surprised aveyond liked the SMN rework. Sure it fits the job fantasy better... But the gameplay execution is so mind-numbingly boring and repetitive even by XIV job design standards it was the worst experience I ever had in a MMORPG in 15 years. And I have never been so glad it shares level with scholar. Besides, that has not been how Summoning has worked in mainline Final Fantasy since 2001. It's interesting how the team handpicks what should be based on 90s Final Fantasy design and what shouldn't, even though those first 10 games were released more than 2 decades ago.

[DevonEllwood]

Zero's development is going so fast I don't think anyone can say for sure she's not just a temporary ally for the current patch storyline, or if she will join the WoL indefinitely.

Oh, she will be joining the WoL indefinitely, just not in the way you are thinking.

I highly doubt they would do it, but it would be hilarious. Really trying to recapture shadowbringers.

It would be pretty funny if one of the folks who claimed everyone who argues with them was a sockpuppet of one guy they hate turned out to be doing exactly that. But from what I've seen there was a point where Graeham was actually posting normally, with neither his new gimmick of pretending to be a foreigner cliché nor the disdain for everyone around them that's been oozing from most of Lyth's posts for the past few years.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6020961

Yeah, he's just a troll but now with an offensive archetype twist.

[Absimiliard]

Oh, she will be joining the WoL indefinitely, just not in the way you are thinking.

I highly doubt they would do it, but it would be hilarious. Really trying to recapture shadowbringers.



https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6020961

Yeah, he's just a troll but now with an offensive archetype twist.

I would love for that to be Zero's fate. Great way to get rid of her so a new, more interesting character can be introduced.

[Heroman3003]

I would love for that to be Zero's fate. Great way to get rid of her so a new, more interesting character can be introduced.

No new character will be 'interesting' from the getgo. Absolutely no matter what it will be, the moment new character is introduced as part of 'main group', there will be SOME loud people who will instantly start a bemoaning of how much they hate them and how boring and predictable/annoying and obnoxious/generic and unintereting the new character is and how they cant wait for them to die off to get replaced with a 'more interesting character'. All while in next paragraph complaining about scions always being there and relevant.

[Absimiliard]

No new character will be 'interesting' from the getgo. Absolutely no matter what it will be, the moment new character is introduced as part of 'main group', there will be SOME loud people who will instantly start a bemoaning of how much they hate them and how boring and predictable/annoying and obnoxious/generic and unintereting the new character is and how they cant wait for them to die off to get replaced with a 'more interesting character'. All while in next paragraph complaining about scions always being there and relevant.

No, but there are ways of making a character at least appealing enough at introduction to warrant some investment in where their story arc will go. Enough people dislike Zero that one should at least be willing to entertain the idea SE failed to do this. As well, one should acknowledge the possibility of the direction that character's development has gone in being something more than just a handful of players dislike.

Very seldom do video game characters that stick around for an excessive period of time not wind up overstaying their welcome. You can witness this in action with the myriad of Scion complaints from practically all of the different demographics playing this game. The Scions going their own separate ways after sadbird's defeat gave me a taste of something bitter: hope that SE had realized this. Unfortunately, that hope was dashed in the very next patch.

[Heroman3003]

No, but there are ways of making a character at least appealing enough at introduction to warrant some investment in where their story arc will go. Enough people dislike Zero that one should at least be willing to entertain the idea SE failed to do this. As well, one should acknowledge the possibility of the direction that character's development has gone in being something more than just as vocal minority some posters would like to represent nay-sayers as.

Very seldom do video game characters that stick around for an excessive period of time not wind up overstaying their welcome. You can witness this in action with the myriad of Scion complaints from practically all of the different demographics playing this game. The Scions going their own separate ways after sadbird's defeat gave me a taste of something bitter: hope. Unfortunately, these hopes were dashed in the very next patch.

Enough people will be loud about disliking any character to make a sweeping statement about writers' failure, won't make it any more true. Zero is by far the freshest breath of air in terms of new characters not overlapping too hard with old/pre-existing ones, IMO. And while her personality is 'bland', thats kinda the point. She's in a 'learn how to feel' character arc right now, and we haven't really had cold and distant allies since like... Heavensward I'd say, where that was only by virtue of Estinien and Ysayle being too at odds with one another to properly get closer to us. Her arc is nothing groundbreaking but absolutely nothing in entire history of FF14's writing really ever was, it was just good execution of existing tropes and subversions and that's what I like about it, nor do I expect anything groundbreaking either (and if there will be, I'll just be satisfied with a pleasant surprise). And of course, there's a big issue of introducing a whole cast of new characters to replace old ones - it will be even harder to give them all time and attention needed to be nearly as developed and likeable. Hell, even Scions were basically scattered after ARR and then slowly re-introduced few-by-few to try and salvage the fact that it was pretty hard to get invested into any scions except one(s) you meet in 1-15 MSQ. I'd say it was mostly successful for me. And I am definitely more a fan of cast being slowly altered over time rather than suddenly dumped and replaced with a bunch of literally whos. That definitely would kill investment for way more players than the few who are bored of existing characters.