Can 7.0 focus on a storyline without the philosophizing

[Lieri]

Story wise EW feels a bit too easy, it's like everything is coming together. Compared to when WoL was separated from the scions pre HW, during HW, and the struggles during ShB, the hardships dont feel like actual hardships anymore.

I guess EW puts too much emphasis on the past, the ascians and their origins (whih of course include the blue birb). I find them kinda hard to connect to. Compared to characters like minfilia, papalymo, ardbert, etc. At the start of elpis I knew we were going to fight against the them (which happened in trial and Pandaemonium) and came out victorious and after that theyre just going to end up exactly where they are - in the past

7.0 needs to start with actual conflict within our actual timeline and physical world as oppossed to more time traveling. When it gets too confusing or complicated, they dont seem to feel important and definitely not impactful. If theyre going to kill someone and want us to cry, do it to someone who has been with WoL the whole time with actual back stories. I cant feel bad about Themis being dead whasoever. How many versions of him have been dead now? The ascian version, the WoL version in crystal tower and now the guy in white robe? Meh I bet he will return again and we will kill him again.

Tldr; no more time travelling. Learn from WoW Warlords of Draenor, too much time travelling and that ruined the meaning behind all the story buildings prior to it.

[VelKallor]

7.0 needs to start with actual conflict within our actual timeline and physical world as oppossed to more time traveling.

YoshiP has hinted at just that. All he would say was a "world changing event". He also said we will see more of Krile, which I am looking forward to.

[AwesomeJr44]

It's funny that people go "the despair the scions had doesn't count cuz it was 6 years ago real time [not even story time]" yet these same people go boo hoo poor ascians and Emet-Selch for feeling the loss of his home and loved ones, he had despair that happened 13,000 years ago story time and they suffered so much. But the scions? Nah they need to suffer MORE to get that point across. The stuff they suffered already? They should get over it... it was sooo long ago after all [only a year storywise]. Hypocritical much?

We're not talking about 6 in-game years, we're talking about 6 real life years. If the best case of 'despair' that Endwalker can point to is something that happened in an expansion that is 6 real life years (it's really more around 7 or 8 iirc) old, that really only serves to prove that the scions really don't have that much to worry about anymore as their plot armor will simple protect them. The terrible things that happened in ARR and Heavensward happened over half a decade ago for us, so if Endwalker wants to have a story about overcoming despair, it's going to need more recent examples that aren't "hey, member that character that died back in 2.4?" You can't give your characters plot armor made out of solid titanium and then try and make the story about them overcoming despair when the last real instance of true despair they've been in was three expansions ago.

[IkaraGreydancer]

None of these happened during Endwalker. These all happened before the scions were given the plot armor they have now.



Cool. But referencing story beats from several years ago isn't a good way to show your characters overcoming despair, it just shows that you have to rely on memberberries.



"The Endwalker scions have infinitely thick plot armor thus Endwalker's message is hollow"
"But what about this event from 6 years ago?"
"That didn't happen in Endwalker."
"And?"

Memberberries.

This is funny cause I didn't just say "And". You speak as if people don't sometimes take years to overcome things that have happened to them. The whole of XIVs story hasn't even been 5 years (in game) and some folks irl take FAR longer to overcome situations and experiences. So the whole "didn't happen in Endwalker" is again...off.

"Referecing story beats from several years ago shows you have to rely on memberberries". In what world? XIV isn't some isolated story with memory wiped characters each expac. They grow and learn from the past and said past is acknowledged as it should be. We humans are the same. It's not rocket science. It's how life works.

"The Scions aren't dead like I want them to be so ill use that as a justification to call EWs message hallow".
"I don't understand that XIVs timeline of events isn't even half of our time experienced with the game so many things weren't 6 years ago realistically".
"I'll create a new buzzword to make what I'm saying sound more valid".
There fixed that last part for you.

You don't have to like nor would I ever tell someone they need to, but you're being very disingenuous when it comes to how you treat the timeline of events with the game.

[AwesomeJr44]

You speak as if people don't sometimes take years to overcome things that have happened to them. The whole of XIVs story hasn't even been 5 years (in game) and some folks irl take FAR longer to overcome situations and experiences. So the whole "didn't happen in Endwalker" is again...off.

If Endwalker wants to make the entire plot based around hope overcoming despair, they can't give the scions a set of free anti-despair armor that allows them to ignore it completely. What's the point of the scions overcoming something they're nearly immune to?

"Referecing story beats from several years ago shows you have to rely on memberberries". In what world? XIV isn't some isolated story with memory wiped characters each expac. They grow and learn from the past and said past is acknowledged as it should be.

There should also be new examples of the despair that Endwalker claims that the scions are overcoming. If every major example of despair given is an event that happened in an older expansion, then it is just relying on memberberries to tell your story for you. If nothing that can be classified as true despair is occurring to the scions in Endwalker, then there's nothing for them to overcome.

This is funny cause I didn't just say "And".

Say something that isn't an intentional misinterpretation of what I've said, and I'll bother responding to more of your post.

(and of course, none of what I've said above is even touching on the hypocrisy aspect of Endwalker's messaging, with multiple other groups of people being forced through genuine true despair while being told to "forge ahead" by the scions, who meanwhile experience none of it)

Tldr; no more time travelling. Learn from WoW Warlords of Draenor, too much time travelling and that ruined the meaning behind all the story buildings prior to it.

Time travelling ruins 99% of the stories it touches.

[IkaraGreydancer]

If Endwalker wants to make the entire plot based around hope overcoming despair, they can't give the scions a set of free anti-despair armor that allows them to ignore it completely. What's the point of the scions overcoming something they're nearly immune to?



There should also be new examples of the despair that Endwalker claims that the scions are overcoming. If every major example of despair given is an event that happened in an older expansion, then it is just relying on memberberries to tell your story for you. If nothing that can be classified as true despair is occurring to the scions in Endwalker, then there's nothing for them to overcome.



Time travelling ruins 99% of the stories it touches.

That's the thing though. They aren't anti despair at all imo. They just don't deal with what the average person world most times so in that regard I can see the point made to some degree. Personally the Scions have an advantage imo because they have a solid group with all of each others backs. That alone will make things easier to deal with.

Next again you cannot make the claim that there's nothing to overcome if it didn't happen in EW...come on man. Emets situation didn't happen in EW it happened before ARR and yet he didn't get his real conclusion til EW. Same example Uri and his things with Moen started in ARR yet didn't end until EW. Zenos didn't find his answer to his life until SB despite canonically being around since ARR and didn't see it fully fulfilled til end of EW. You have to understand that things linger. They take time to overcome. Some better at it than others. Even still EW was more about the World itself overcoming Despair, not just the Scions.

Also odd you say Time Travel ruins 99% of games it touches...yet we wouldn't have ARR or anything after...without time travel. Unless you're of the mind that xiv has been ruined since ARR.

[AwesomeJr44]

Crystal Exarch, the main NPC of ShB, gets shot at the beginning of the last act of the expansion

He survives with no long term injuries.

while at the same time we're suffering from our success of killing the lightwardens and are on the verge of dying and taking the entire world with us.

We survive with no long term injuries, and a power boost thanks to Ardbert.

As well as the twins being held captive by the Garleans

They suffer no long term consequences for this.

getting pushed out of our body and needing to rush to Zenos and stop him from killing people we know while inside us.

Zenos has an on-screen kill count of 0 while possessing us, and no one suffers long term consequences from this ordeal.

No one in my examples died, but that doesn't mean there weren't stakes. "Stakes" doesn't have to always mean someone dying as a consequence of them.

No one in your examples suffered long term negative consequences of any kind. When stakes consistently have no long term impact, they lose their effect.

Killing people left and right will do nothing but make the players stop caring about the characters

Refusing to inflict long term consequences consistently will do nothing but make players stop caring about the characters in any way outside of an incredibly superficial way, as they know that all of the protagonists will suffer no consequences ever.

That's the thing though. They aren't anti despair at all imo. They just don't deal with what the average person world most times so in that regard I can see the point made to some degree. Personally the Scions have an advantage imo because they have a solid group with all of each others backs. That alone will make things easier to deal with.

If you are writing a story about overcoming despair, you shouldn't make make your characters able to deal with events so easily that they are shrugged off within 5 minutes. If you want to write a story with characters like that, you need to consider a different theme.

Next again you cannot make the claim that there's nothing to overcome if it didn't happen in EW...come on man. Emets situation didn't happen in EW it happened before ARR and yet he didn't get his real conclusion til EW. Same example Uri and his things with Moen started in ARR yet didn't end until EW. Zenos didn't find his answer to his life until SB despite canonically being around since ARR and didn't see it fully fulfilled til end of EW. You have to understand that things linger. They take time to overcome. Some better at it than others. Even still EW was more about the World itself overcoming Despair, not just the Scions.

Emet's 'situation' occurred in SHB. You keep trying to shift the discussion to an in-universe timeline when such a timeline is irrelevant. Besides that, none of these examples were introduced in EW. They are all loose threads from older expansions that happened years ago. Like I said, if there is only examples from outside of Endwalker, then that means that Endwalker is using old events to act as a crutch when it should be setting up modern examples itself. There can be callbacks and references to older material, but typically you don't become uniquely immune to new examples of despair just because you experienced it a year ago in-universe.

Also odd you say Time Travel ruins 99% of games it touches...yet we wouldn't have ARR or anything after...without time travel. Unless you're of the mind that xiv has been ruined since ARR.

Time travel being added to the plot was a retroactive change. While it has tainted earlier expansions (literally everything we ever did was preordained), it does not ruin them retroactively.

[VelKallor]

You speak as if people don't sometimes take years to overcome things that have happened to them.

Or never.

That what PTSD is, why it is so hard to even treat, let alone even hope to cure. A surgeon I worked with told me once that she never forgets in her first year she had a 6 year old accident victim she couldnt save. It still haunts her, 30 years on.

Ill restate this for our "awesome" colleague above: time changes nothing, erases nothing, alters nothing. That feeling of despair, of loss, of grief, of sorrow never leaves you alone, is never far away.

"Its six years ago, it doesnt matter today, it isnt relevant to who they are now"

Yes. Yes it is.

They suffer no long term consequences for this.

An invisible wound is still a wound. You dont have to see it to know it is there.

we're talking about 6 real life years.

You. Never. Forget.

[DiaDeem]

Wish the twins grew...

[VelKallor]

They will. Dont forget Elezen live up to 120 years, so they are relatively young still. I find it funny that they said the same about Viera..forgetting that Viera have a lifespan of 300 years.