Quote Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer View Post
Not that second portion I find interesting. I can't point to poeple like Hades, Hermes, Venat, Zenos or even the story surrounding one dimensional. The very fact EW is so controversial (here at least) kinda tells me it's far from one dimensional. Friendship has been present since the dawn of 14 so I can't personally use that as a point against the game. Youll always be stronger with friends, that's just statistics. The world now is still very much grounded, the scope is just wider imo (Considering we have different worlds now).
Also shame your ff3 bias (I'm joking lol)
As a counter example, look at the worldbuilding for sharlayan over the years. It’s followed the exact path that the brotherhood of steel has in fallout, losing the dubious morality and extreme isolationism in favour of the bowdlerised parody of itself. All the nuance and darker undercurrent has been sanded off, making it significantly harder to care for as a result. Ala mhigo was built up from 1.0 only to be ignored for a jaunt to the far east with a shallow revolution. I think norvrandt only got away with it because it’s the familiar twisted and in the post apocalypse. For characters, the mundanity of lolorito and both halves of that rival lalafell felt more relatable than the whole universe’s despair being thrown around. Even gaius, the invading garleans and their succession issues offered a more grounded problem. Then they decided the garleans weren’t allowed any foot to stand on with the retcon about primals draining the land. I dunno, hades worked as a villain because it was a reflection of the player character to an extent, it’s only lead to them tying themselves in knots with regard to morality since. The ascians being cackling madmen wasn’t great, but their dealings with thordan was a nice use of villains having competing goals. There just doesn’t seem to be the kind of inter character conflict there used to be. I hope this wasn’t too rambly.