What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[MikkoAkure]

I'm not sure why you're downplaying the deaths present in FFXII or even bringing it up in the first place since the post you first responded to had me commenting specifically on FFXIV's lack of stakes and a need for a healthy balance. FFXIV is an MMO and not a one and done story like FFXII so there's a greater need to keep things fresh. As it stands, having a stale and immortal cast who walk away from the second coming of the apocalypse bragging about not having any scars to show for it does very little to interest me.

On the contrary I think a stable cast is more important to continue the storyline and carry things over between expansions. I don't think main cast attrition between parts of a long-form story will work well to keep people engaged with what's happening and that's part of where I think FFXI's story has weaknesses.

I do think that it would be nicer if the cast had more diverse opinions and personalities, but killing them off just to introduce new cast feels like an option of last resort and will only make players resent the new characters.

From what little can be gleaned from information we have on Dawntrail, it seems there may be a schism among the Scions coming up anyway.

EDIT: As for FFXII, which characters are you referring to as 'fake out deaths' exactly?.

Fran and Balthier send the rest of the cast off while explosions are happening all around them as the Bahamut crashes but their "sacrifice" is undone right after when the Strahl is stolen back by them a year later and they show up in the sequel with no explanation with how they survived. Y'shtola at least gets healed or wooshed back into existence on screen.

Rasler dies after a minute of screentime in the intro movie. Reks is a sacrificial pawn for the tutorial prologue and we find out later in the game that he doesn't even die on-screen and wastes away while convalescing from his stab wound sometime in between the prologue and the actual start of the game.

After the first 10 minutes, and through the rest of the game for the next 40-60 hours including the end, the only character deaths of "protagonists" come from Vossler, who betrays the group just before he dies, and Reddas, who was an ex-Archadian judge who was looking to die. Neither are major characters. They are temporary guest party members on the same level as Haurchefant. If you are not a main party character, you are not a main character. If you're not important enough to show up on the box or on the poster, you are not a main character. Holding onto them to do side quests that have nothing to do with him doesn't suddenly make either one a main character. Larsa shows up on a poster but I think it would still be much too generous to call him a "main character". Penelo doesn't really deserve to be there, but she at least has the decency to stick around the whole time.

[Vyrerus]

FFXI's story weakness

Honestly, FFXI did storylines in different parts of the world and adventuring as the through line very well. It is a new storyline in each place, and your adventurer is crucial to it. It makes complete sense that we don't have characters carry over always, and meet entirely fresh faces when we travel to places we've never been before.

If anything, FFXI's story's weakness is that it's using FFXI logic for quest/mission progression, so what you're doing to progress isn't always 100% in line with what characters said or what the storyline battles pertain to. Back in the days where the grind was long and the story was short, the difficulty of the battlefields themselves and the rewards from them were way more of a player concern than the plot of the story. It could take months back in the day to get a competent group together, just to beat Snoll or Airship 6-4 fights or 8-3 Pots, and those are all from just one storyline. This form of progression meant you had to write that shit down or revisit the bards and goblin footprints to get a refresher if you cared about what was going on.

Now that it can be done back to back by yourself with Trusts, you'll find that the stories really are entirely cohesive. Still separate, of course, but all quite solid if a bit tropey. The actual, actual weaknesses being limitations of the 2002 engine. So no voice acting. Lots of reading. Translation choices not always reflecting the prior scene's context. Game day waits instead of JP midnight waits tripping up the pacing to appease convenience for the player.