Can 7.0 focus on a storyline without the philosophizing

[Theodric]

A 'good story' without 'philosophizing'.

Aka just meaningless action for sake of action.

Just admit you don't want actual story in your RPG and move onto a different game, rather than demanding this one be brought down to your level.

On the contrary, a lot of people with criticism towards the story do want action and meaningful consequences in the narrative. Instead, we have a story that encases both major and minor characters in ridiculous amounts of plot armour even as it preaches about loss and suffering.

Having played the game myself since the days of ARR, I'd say the people asking it to be brought down to 'their level' are in fact the same people now demanding that absolutely nothing of note ever happens to the Scions or their 'scrungly blurbos' as social media dwellers are wont to say.

The game has been notoriously preachy and saccharine in recent years, with the only actual stakes being targeted at throwaway one-scene wonders such as Tesleen and anyone even remotely antagonistic. If the game wants to be philosophical then it can put its money where its mouth is and start killing at least one decently prominent protagonist every few patches. With any luck, that might lead us to have some actual variety in the cast rather than surface level differences. It's one of the few stories where every major character exists to fawn over one's self insert and just echoes the exact same opinions and morals. Anyone who has a different world view - such as the formerly cynical Estinien or the mercenary Zero - soon end up going through Scionification to erode away any interesting differences.

[Heroman3003]

This is nonsense. Have you heard of "show, don't tell"?
There are many ways to tell a story without having to preach its themes.
One of my favorite game I've played, Outer Wilds, tells his story mostly through conversations from the past. At no point it really stops to tell you what's it all about yet the message is very clear. The DLC goes further by enriching the world and its story without a single line of dialogue.

Excellent stories can be told with very little words, and the opposite is also true.

Using a game that constantly explicitly asks philosophical questions while also proposing a 'correct' answer with it's ending is used as example of a game that doesn't preach it's themes. No offense, but as much as I love OW myself, its themes are just as explicit. Maybe just not repeated as much, but it's a different medium of a game too, so that's understandable to me.

[Kozh]

Yes. This so much. Thanks OP and some others here who put what I feel into words.

Look, my favourite game of all time is ff15, and my favourite ff14 expansion is Stormblood. Both were regarded as shitty written. Yet I still love them very much because of the theme/moral of story. You would've thought I would feel the same about EW, but nope. Even as someone who's more about FeelsTM and Theme, EW message has crossed the line, from mere "moral of story" into "preaching". Though tbh I feel like it has started to go this way since shb, but it helps a lot in shb that the scions had their own internal conflict (even though it's mostly about ryne) and only get preachy nearing the end.

Contrast it to EW where nearly every major cutscene is repeating the ""theme"" over and over again, not to mention that the scions sounds like an echo chamber, ironically. Perhaps this is my bias, but I really hates it when comedic relief like the lopporits had the nerve to lecture people about it.

(of course, then there's another, yet relevant imo, issue about how... hypocritical EW is. But that's another can of worms)

But anyway, yeah, playing EW is so tiring because of this issue. Yoshi-p bragged about how long the cutscenes are compared to previous expansions, yet they're padded with characters keep repeating lore stuffs (which people already freaking know!!), story point, and their grand morality preach.

[Kazhar]

Using a game that constantly explicitly asks philosophical questions while also proposing a 'correct' answer with it's ending is used as example of a game that doesn't preach it's themes. No offense, but as much as I love OW myself, its themes are just as explicit. Maybe just not repeated as much, but it's a different medium of a game too, so that's understandable to me.

I dunno what to say if you think it's equally as preachy.
Ultima Thule alone is almost 2 hours of non-stop hammering about the themes of EW. You can hardly get more pretentious than that.

[DragonFlyy]

Learn to spot bad-faith forum posters:

Telling you to stop playing the game/doing X if you make a single criticism
Asking for hard evidence when they provided none of their own
Quoting corporate PR to use as "facts"
Proclaiming that your concern is in the minority

Be firm but polite, recognize their tactics and don't fall into their traps.

Quoting your sig for a second to address point number 1: All of the threads I have seen you start are always a criticism. After awhile, one start to think everything you bring up is negative towards the game. Therefore, the conclusion people will make is:
1) You hate the game and therefor you should stop giving money to a company that you dislike their product that they will not be changing their views
or
2) You are just another bad troll on the forums.

I'm leaning towards number 2 since you think someone calling you out for nothing but negative postings is "bad-faith" when we clearly have plenty of evidence to back up the fact that it seems you hate the game.

[Kazhar]

Quoting your sig for a second to address point number 1: All of the threads I have seen you start are always a criticism. After awhile, one start to think everything you bring up is negative towards the game. Therefore, the conclusion people will make is:
1) You hate the game and therefor you should stop giving money to a company that you dislike their product that they will not be changing their views
or
2) You are just another bad troll on the forums.

I'm leaning towards number 2 since you think someone calling you out for nothing but negative postings is "bad-faith" when we clearly have plenty of evidence to back up the fact that it seems you hate the game.

Does the intent of OP really matters?
Plenty of people already agreed with what he said regardless.
If you're not interested in discussing the subject, you're free to ignore it.

[OdinelStarrei]

This is nonsense. Have you heard of "show, don't tell"?
There are many ways to tell a story without having to preach its themes.
One of my favorite game I've played, Outer Wilds, tells his story mostly through conversations from the past. At no point it really stops to tell you what's it all about yet the message is very clear. The DLC goes further by enriching the world and its story without a single line of dialogue.

Excellent stories can be told with very little words, and the opposite is also true.
I'd even say good work doesn't need any character looking at the camera to tell you how deep it is. It speaks by itself.

Oh yeah, another Outer Wilds enjoyer, let's go. Can we talk about that game instead, because I unapologetically love that game to pieces.

It is unreal to me, that Outer Wilds of all games pretty much does an existentialist, the hopelessness and inevitability of eternity, and yet still managing to forge ahead narrative in SO little time.

EW was really fascinating and frustrating to play after I devoured all of Outer Wilds, because it pretty much did everything worse once I got into Ultima Thule/Omicron beast tribes, on top of making me feel like all people in the Final Days who had an inability to cope with their emotions or situations are at best, subhumans who need to be handheld to clarity and inner peace, or at worst, turned into monsters/genocided. Great message, SE. I don't think the Omega quests made it much better after the fact.

Pretty awful in hindsight, even through the lens of my skewed perspective. Endsinger as a concept is so right, so interesting, but so underdeveloped, it's such a shame.

[TheDecay]

The game has been notoriously preachy and saccharine in recent years, with the only actual stakes being targeted at throwaway one-scene wonders such as Tesleen and anyone even remotely antagonistic. If the game wants to be philosophical then it can put its money where its mouth is and start killing at least one decently prominent protagonist every few patches. With any luck, that might lead us to have some actual variety in the cast rather than surface level differences. It's one of the few stories where every major character exists to fawn over one's self insert and just echoes the exact same opinions and morals. Anyone who has a different world view - such as the formerly cynical Estinien or the mercenary Zero - soon end up going through Scionification to erode away any interesting differences.

Preachy is the right word here that I wish I used in the OP title. I completely agree with your assessment. The current band of characters have felt very one-note as of late. Having protagonists with different morals and possibly causing conflict because of this would be more interesting than what we have currently.

[TheDecay]

Oh yeah, another Outer Wilds enjoyer, let's go. Can we talk about that game instead, because I unapologetically love that game to pieces.

It is unreal to me, that Outer Wilds of all games pretty much does an existentialist, the hopelessness and inevitability of eternity, and yet still managing to forge ahead narrative in SO little time.

EW was really fascinating and frustrating to play after I devoured all of Outer Wilds, because it pretty much did everything worse once I got into Ultima Thule/Omicron beast tribes, on top of making me feel like all people in the Final Days who had an inability to cope with their emotions or situations are at best, subhumans who need to be handheld to clarity and inner peace, or at worst, turned into monsters/genocided. Great message, SE. I don't think the Omega quests made it much better after the fact.

Pretty awful in hindsight, even through the lens of my skewed perspective. Endsinger as a concept is so right, so interesting, but so underdeveloped, it's such a shame.

Perhaps it would be different if the story wasn't rushed. It may have been much better developed if Garlemald and Endsinger were their own expansions.

I also agree about the Omega quests. It undermined the serious tone of the area completely.

[VelKallor]

Oh yeah, all those fake death scenes on UT. What inspirational cutscenes I guess, lol.

This has been said over and over but they DID NOT DIE. They were never dead. Their souls were torn into another reality aka the First, as Yshtola said 'you can use the stone to call us back but you mustnt" - by that she meant where they were was altering the reality the WoL sees, UT was a malleable, pliable reality that was affected / influenced by emotion, "Emet -Selch "They no longer need fight their fight"., meaning that the Scions did not need to use their own spiritual power / influence to push forward, to forge ahead.

Calling them back would defeat their purpose in being there, their actual destiny to shape the path for the friend they love so dearly. They knew this could happen, they knew what they could face, but that sacrifice, that courage, that determination to forge ahead regardless was what tipped the scales, their souls and beliefs pitted against the cries of fear and despair of a thousand dead races.

Years ago, I read a Green Lantern comic, Nekron I think it was, in his plane of existence he gloated that he had taken the lives of many of Jordans friends..yet that was his undoing as Jordan exulted "Yes, but you have forgotten something...im betting that not even death can still the heart of a Green Lantern"

Dynamis is NOT a reality in the true sense, it is a form, a dimension that can be altered..what you think, what you feel becomes what is around you, infinitely changeable by pure WILL. As each Scion was swept into that plane, the bridge appeared because each of them willed it to appear again, Emet-Selch "What said path takes depends on you, so focus, focus and envision that which rejects the claim that you cannot attain your goal"

There were no fake-out deaths as they were never dead. They were no longer part of the Ultima Thule, but who they WERE remains, I keep seeing this disconnect and it always annoys me when you consider that in terms of magic, dynamis, the physical is NOT the all, it is but one part of a greater whole where physicality means NOTHING and where the mind, the heart the soul, dictate the reality you see around you.

Dynamis (δύναμις, in Greek) is a very ancient Greek word. It is already attested in Homer. We are sure that it is a very archaic word in the Greek lexicon. Originally, it meant simply ‘strength’, but it is relevant to emphasize that ancient Greek has six different words to name ‘strength’. In its semantic history, however, dynamis has meant ‘strength’, ‘authority’, ‘power’, but, especially through Aristotle, it has also been resemantized in the sense of ‘potential’.

Perhaps most importantly, dunamis can refer to “inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth

Potential. Thats the key word here. In Ultima Thule, what you BELIEVE, what you feel, what you are in your very nature, creates what you "see" around you. The mistake here is to equate physical being with existence, which is WRONG since one can and does exist separate and distinct from the other.

This body, the waking dream we call reality is but one facet of a much larger whole. After seeing God knows how many take that next step into the veil, this I know with all my being.

They never died. Their bodies were no longer there, but THEY existed, in a plane where they could, and did, fight Meteion on her own ground and win, substitute their reality, their strength, their love, fighting Meteions nihilistic despair in shaping the very ground on which we stood.

What they willed to be, WAS.