Can 7.0 focus on a storyline without the philosophizing

[IkaraGreydancer]

Then I'm honestly not certain why you keep weighing in on story related debates, since sources are posted rather frequently within them...specifically to counter the narrative that there was 'no choice' and that the genocide of the Ancients 'had to happen'.

It's also rather strange that you're somehow able to references things I and others supposedly stated months ago but can't recall sources being posted a few days ago.

You're free to believe what you will, nobody is stating otherwise. Yet nobody is obligated to accept Venat's paper thin reasoning at face value or consider it to be good writing - especially when it goes against everything the protagonists in this game claim to stand for.

Well because I have actually seen what was said hence being able to recall. On the other hand I have not seen sources posted. Just people's opinions. Contrary to what you may think I dont spend all day on here. Whether you believe that is up to you. Emet/Venat debates are stupid anyways cause neither would have taken their actions if not for Hermes.

It's also funny because I never once told anyone they need to accept of like Venat. In fact I JUST said it's good the game let's you question all 3 people. When you say this stuff it tells me you aren't reading or are missing points. I never knew called it good writing either. Many people morals come into question when lives are on the line. The characters understood and accepted Venat and her reasoning (nuance that many here claim doesn't exist in EW) but put her down as it was time too. I see no contradiction. Clearly you do and as such not much else to discuss.

[fulminating]

The game has spent a decade going on about louisoix and his indolence speech, committing genocide because you can't be bothered thinking up an alternative solution isn't really something that meshes well with the groundwork.

[PEANUT]

How has Thancreds street days affected him in EW? Not at all. They are all the "world saviours".

What goals do they have? Saving the world? Maybe visiting the first?

Bruh, because the world is LITERALLY about to be destroyed, their focus is CRISES CRISES CRISES! That's the whole point of EW in the Final Days....

[Kozh]

Well because I have actually seen what was said hence being able to recall. On the other hand I have not seen sources posted. Just people's opinions. Contrary to what you may think I dont spend all day on here.

Considering you were very much involved in several lore threads, either here or lore forum, I call bs that you haven't seen any evidence posted.

Most likely, you don't see that evidence as evidence because it's against your argument.


"the characters understood and accepted Venat and her reasoning (nuance that many here claim doesn't exist in EW) but put her down as it was time too."

Except that they don't intend to do put her down. We fight her because she's issuing a test. Also, the scion accepting her is not even a nuance as they're not that bothered against her action.

If you want to debate, at least watch the cutscene first. Don't expect people to do your homework.

[Eorzean_username]

While also dealing with a guy who lost himself to depression and alcoholism over the inability to save his loved ones, showing a mirror of Thancred's own issues and how badly he could turn out if he keeps going down his path. But "looking for rocks" is easier, I guess.

???

You just reinforced the point behind that discussion.

First, it's a weak parallel, at best. The real tension had been Thancred manically trying to inflict his own desperate, wishful hopes onto another thinking, feeling person who just "looked right" — not what might hypothetically become of Thancred himself because of his depression over failing Minfilia 1.0 ~20 years earlier.

In fact, Thancred had already become a profligate, aimless, depressed alcoholic following the incident in 1562 6AE — so if anything, he was basically just pompously-lecturing someone who was struggling with issues that Thancred had already overcome and moved on from.

His big "dialogue climax" in that scene is to once again reinforce that he "refuses to let [Minfilia's] legacy die" — which, depending on how you interpret his body-language, is either the opposite of letting go, or indicates that he's already made his decision (without requiring outside intervention)... ie, that he's not receiving some kind of "wake up call" from the sad dude at the graveyard, he's just lecturing the guy.

If Magnus had adopted some Drahn child, and was obsessively trying to make that child dress and behave like Magnus's own dead son, and got called-out for it by Thancred, then we'd have a much more interesting scene going on.

———————————

Second, rather than Thancred himself being confronted or conflicted with, Thancred was granted Main Character Privilege to step outside the "stage" and look down upon — yet another — engineered placeholder NPC, who was swapped into existence for the sole purpose of taking abuse or confrontation, or have problems, that main characters are not allowed to be subjected to.

ie: We couldn't have someone directly lecture Thancred about where he might "end up" (despite that kind of concern being irrelevant to the story by that point anyway, since Thancred had already "gotten better" off-screen during the 3 years before we arrived in Norvrandt), or get into an argument with him about anything else, on-screen.

Instead, we could only create this disposable proxy-NPC and let Scion(s) lecture the proxy, expressing opinions in a safe way towards someone that's not important.

Sometimes, this may result in a Scion having a 5-second-long "quiet thinking" scene, before the camera pans up into the sky towards a random cloud — after which the Scion might dramatically overcome their self-doubts about something, through the power of admonishing other people.

———————————

So once again, a Scion was positioned as the savior voice of reason, lecturing someone else — who, the plot indicates, just needed a good pep talk these past X years of their personal suffering, flaws, prejudices, etc.

And what happened?

Well, we briefly enjoyed the satisfaction of watching the Scions's usual "let me fix you" attitude fall completely flat, when Magnus basically told Thancred to eff-off. I think that was a solid idea and a good writing decision.

...However, FFXIV could only hold its breath for so long.

And so, 1 hour later, our resident grief-stricken alcoholic spontaneously-combusted into a go-getter leader who's suddenly totally inspired by his wife's legacy, totally "over" his dead child, and now full of vim and vigor for TROLLEYS because we have, once again, shown up and solved everyone's flaws through the power of lecturing them and collecting+delivering a sparkling object.

[TheDecay]

Considering you were very much involved in several lore threads, either here or lore forum, I call bs that you haven't seen any evidence posted.

Most likely, you don't see that evidence as evidence because it's against your argument.


"the characters understood and accepted Venat and her reasoning (nuance that many here claim doesn't exist in EW) but put her down as it was time too."

Except that they don't intend to do put her down. We fight her because she's issuing a test. Also, the scion accepting her is not even a nuance as they're not that bothered against her action.

If you want to debate, at least watch the cutscene first. Don't expect people to do your homework.

They're the biggest bad-faith poster here unfortunately.

[TaleraRistain]

Financial success <> quality

Quality is incredibly subjective, though. For instance, something like the Call of Duty is not my cup of tea, but those sell millions of copies a year. The people buying those games find quality in them worth their money.

For a personal example, I am an old school Assassin's Creed fan. I love the stealth, the parkour, the conspiracy theories, the Modern Day, the history behind the history - all of that. I am not a fan of the new RPG Mythology trilogy. It's not my cup of tea and not what I came to love about the franchise. As much I found things to enjoy in Valhalla, before Mirage I was considering leaving the series. It just wasn't a quality I wanted to spend my money on any longer. But that trilogy has made Ubisoft a lot of money. I may not personally like it, but they're doing something right in finding something that others want to spend their money on.

I do think feedback is important. I think that's how we got Mirage. There are a lot of developers who cite feedback from the old school fan subset of playerbase so something about what we're saying is getting through. So I like to see when people give feedback here. But while some here do make very good points and have specific suggestions, there's often a lot of just calling things bad without explaining why they are bad and how to improve them. And very often not a lot of telling the developers what they are doing *right*.

I completely get that viewpoint. I've left MMOs because there wasn't a lot in the right column. I think some here on the forums who never have anything in the right column may need to cut the cord and stop giving money to something they don't find quality in. It's a hard pill to swallow, but sometimes we need to realize we're not the target audience anymore and it may be time to focus on things that we do find that personal quality in.

[AwesomeJr44]

Quality is incredibly subjective, though.

I think the phrase you're looking for is 'personal enjoyment'. Quality is not subjective. Personal enjoyment of something is. Whether you like or dislike something has no impact on its quality as a product. It's very possible to like something of a low quality, and dislike something of a high quality. Usually I don't care much for pointing out semantics, but I think it's important here for clarification's sake.

[TaleraRistain]

I think the phrase you're looking for is 'personal enjoyment'. Quality is not subjective. Personal enjoyment of something is. Whether you like or dislike something has no impact on its quality as a product. It's very possible to like something of a low quality, and dislike something of a high quality. Usually I don't care much for pointing out semantics, but I think it's important here for clarification's sake.

Quality is subjective. Why do you think you can have critics that have completely different opinions on the same art, book, game, movie, etc? Quality is subjective because the measurements of quality are not universally the same.

The only place where quality is something that can be objective is where something will physically not work or break down without a certain standard. And even then there can be differing limitations because something like a building can persist against things like weather but not as good as another building built to different specifications.

[AwesomeJr44]

Why do you think you can have critics that have completely different opinions on the same art, book, game, movie, etc?

Quality is a descriptor of the product itself. If a group of critics have wildly different opinions on a product, that is evidence of a difference between the critics' personal tastes, not anything tied to the product itself. Now, there are cases where low quality in the product creates that difference in opinion (between people who care and people who don't), but the quality is still objective in those cases too.