Can 7.0 focus on a storyline without the philosophizing

[Theodric]

I think the game would have been better served by consistency. For years it was extremely and obsessively preachy when it came to matters such as genocide, insisting that it was a line in the sand that could never be crossed even if the reasons for indulging such an act happened to be seen as an 'impossible choice' or 'deeply sympathetic'. Endwalker swings around and suddenly when the pretty mother goddess reveals that she deliberately inflicted genocide upon her own people for a situation she, herself, helped escalate through inaction and treachery and suddenly it's 'regrettable, but necessary'.

Endwalker also launched during a time of great global strife and had the arrogant cast walk away bragging about not even earning a single scar. As well as having all the money they could ever want thrown their way. At a time when in the real world people were losing their life savings, loved ones and closing down businesses that they'd put their hearts and souls into. It's exceedingly tone deaf and the writers are clearly playing favourites and cladding certain characters in ridiculous amounts of plot armour.

Perhaps they should stick to smaller scale stories instead of trying to force some very strange and hypocritical 'morals' onto a player-base that consists of players from many different backgrounds, cultures and belief systems.

[Semirhage]

I've never been particularly interested in the sturm und drang around the "ancient genocide". It happened. It was a choice Venat made. Is it muddying Paradise Lost/Utopian poetic imagery with time travel and flesh-and-blood people? Certainly. Those narratives hit differently when they describe things that happened lost to the mists of time. Utopias are unsustainable, and always collapse. That's a trope as old as time. Making a person consciously choose to end it, combining the role of a deity and a human makes it ugly for sure.

I just don't see it that way. I see a utopia in a story, I know it's going to die. That's how it works. Did millions of people die in wars thousands of years ago? Yep. Were many of those wars waged over selfish, petty reasons? Yep. Am I going to froth and rage that we don't spend enough time decrying the eeeeeevil evil evils of the eeeeeeevil people behind those wars? Why should I? It happened. The only interesting thing about them is how people respond to them today. They're so far removed from modernity that having a personal emotional connection to them is silly.

I don't see Venat as a person. The ancients aren't people. They were firmly categorized for me as plot devices the moment I smelled a utopia narrative. All of the bellyaching about Venat is just pointless. Get over it. She murdered millions of people and felt kinda bad about it, and now she's dead. Do we need a four patch cycle where every NPC has personally-crafted dialogue where they rant about what a horrible evil wicked witch Venat was to "salvage" the story?

[Lauront]

Nah, the game adamantly presents them as a people, and has you even interacting with them on those terms both in Elpis and in Pandaemonium, and also through Emet-Selch's retelling of what was lost through her act of mass murder/genocide. If you don't see it as such? That's your prerogative, but they're no less presented as a people as any other group in the game. Seems like the real problem is Venat is your "off boundaries for criticism" zone. But I'm afraid that's your issue, not ours.

Utopias are unsustainable, and always collapse.

Weird how the game presents it such that there was even hope for the Nibirun, in that case. But here it isn't even a case of utopia collapsing, it's some nutcase throwing a cosmic scale temper tantrum and some other nutcase thinking this is a good 'test' for mankind.

Do we need a four patch cycle where every NPC has personally-crafted dialogue where they rant about what a horrible evil wicked witch Venat was to "salvage" the story?

I'm sure you can do better than some poorly constructed strawman like this. All he is doing is mentioning how it makes all the preaching in the game come across as supremely conceited and hypocritical. That's it. It's not addressed in the base MSQ and the crew is exactly the type that would normally hold any other character to a screeching session if they did even a tenth of what she did.

[TaleraRistain]

I'm really glad I'm far enough in XVI to not be spoiled by things in this thread. Stop posting spoilers for XVI on a forum that isn't even related to the game in threads that don't even mention that game. Take your CBU3 hate to the XVI forums with that.

[Xeronia]

I think the game would have been better served by consistency. For years it was extremely and obsessively preachy when it came to matters such as genocide, insisting that it was a line in the sand that could never be crossed even if the reasons for indulging such an act happened to be seen as an 'impossible choice' or 'deeply sympathetic'. Endwalker swings around and suddenly when the pretty mother goddess reveals that she deliberately inflicted genocide upon her own people for a situation she, herself, helped escalate through inaction and treachery and suddenly it's 'regrettable, but necessary'.

Endwalker also launched during a time of great global strife and had the arrogant cast walk away bragging about not even earning a single scar. As well as having all the money they could ever want thrown their way. At a time when in the real world people were losing their life savings, loved ones and closing down businesses that they'd put their hearts and souls into. It's exceedingly tone deaf and the writers are clearly playing favourites and cladding certain characters in ridiculous amounts of plot armour.

Perhaps they should stick to smaller scale stories instead of trying to force some very strange and hypocritical 'morals' onto a player-base that consists of players from many different backgrounds, cultures and belief systems.

I would agree with this even ignoring Venat(although I personally agree with you on that one), they did try to paint Fandaniel/Hermes as a forgivable mess in the 6.1 Omega quest as well. Hermes was someone who thought he was alone in a sea of people who actually did think like he did. Seriously go do some sidequests in Elpis and see how others care about their creations. He just failed to see those around him like himself which really doesn't help his narrative to me.

I personally would say while Endwalker didn't resonate with me I do get why it did resonate so hard with others but I would also like to see a story that kept everyone happy such as Heavensward. Also the patch content even from my friends who liked Endwalker would admit to it is boring and "filler".

[Renalt]

OP is a known Negative Nancy. Unless you hate the game like they do...don't expect a meaningful discussion. They want an echo chamber and that is all.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

EW had barely any character development.

Well Duh, all of the Development happened several Chapters / Expansions ago.
This is about the end of the World and overcoming it through the Power of Friendship and blahblahblah. Thats why there was all of those "Lectures" about the the meaning of life and existentialism. That was the ""Theme""
Feel free to say you dont like how it was handled, MANY people will agree with you on that, but hey, its the story they wanted to tell, and its how they chose to tell it.
Its done, it already happened.

Now for the Next story, Cant say what its about yet. Why haven't fully concluded and Branched into the Road to 7.0 yet.
Some Big Event is apparently gonna happen. We have to wait and see.

[Kailea_Nagisa]

Well Duh, all of the Development happened several Chapters / Expansions ago.
This is about the end of the World and overcoming it through the Power of Friendship and blahblahblah. Thats why there was all of those "Lectures" about the the meaning of life and existentialism. That was the ""Theme""
Feel free to say you dont like how it was handled, MANY people will agree with you on that, but hey, its the story they wanted to tell, and its how they chose to tell it.
Its done, it already happened.

Now for the Next story, Cant say what its about yet. Why haven't fully concluded and Branched into the Road to 7.0 yet.
Some Big Event is apparently gonna happen. We have to wait and see.

I swear, a ton of you people sound like you did not even pay attention to the EW story lol, these forums never disappoint with the hot takes.

[Remish]

I'm really glad I'm far enough in XVI to not be spoiled by things in this thread. Stop posting spoilers for XVI on a forum that isn't even related to the game in threads that don't even mention that game. Take your CBU3 hate to the XVI forums with that.

I have been wanting to bring this up too. There are a LOT of FF16 spoilers on this forum and none of them are marked as such. This is the FFXIV forums, not the FF16 forums.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I have been wanting to bring this up too. There are a LOT of FF16 spoilers on this forum and none of them are marked as such. This is the FFXIV forums, not the FF16 forums.

Avoid any of OP's threads and you'll avoid most of it. He spends almost as much time complaining about 16 as he does complaining about 14.