Shifting and Concerning Moods Regarding the Writing

[Renalt]

You should play Pathologic. No this isn't a joke at your expense. The gameplay isn't the best but I think it was a design choice. It's the story/writing is where it makes it stand out from others.

[CidHeiral]

The thread has a lot of replies because people are discussing the topic back and forth. If you browse through those replies you'll find a variety of opinions on either side, including comments that disagree with the OP with hundreds of updoots.

Are opinions mixed on the post-Endwalker story? Absolutely, I have my own gripes with it as well. But it's not 1.2k posts of people hating on the story as Aveyond disingenuously implies.

Not to mention I doubt there is much overlap with the negative opinions there and Aveyond's colorful takes on women, hamburgers, ponytails, etc.

[Absimiliard]

The power of friendship has been a thing in Final Fantasy for a very very very long time.

More of them lack this quality than have it. FFXIV is by no means the only FF willing to invoke this trope, but it is by and far the one to lean into it the most heavily. FFXIV is legit approaching Fairy Tail levels of power of friendship abuse at this point. I for one find almost any use of the trope grating, but there's an amount of it I can tolerate if it makes sense within the context of the story. FFXIV has long since left behind any semblance of logic or reason with most of its applications of the power of friendship, and it does in some instances appear to be quite self-aware regarding this fact.

For clarification: Having a party (and even having synergistic skills that are more powerful than those one might execute alone) is not representative of the power of friendship. The power of friendship is gaining a tangible power-up or access to new abilities out of nowhere simply because of "muh frandz." This is not to be confused with having one's friends or allies utilize skills or abilities intended to transfer some or all of their power to a different recipient, although the use of such things can become examples of the power of friendship if they are taken to silly extremes or used too liberally.

[Alec97]

I love the part in the story where you time-travel back to Elpis for Venat to state you must return to your current timeline unless something terrible happens. When we know from Graha on the first, nothing happens, but you etch yourself onto the new timeline.

I love the moral implications of her forcing us through a time portal so she can lie to the most advanced civilisation ever to exist to watch them sacrifice themselves for each other and die in vain while preaching about how they have never experienced hardship and suffering.

I love the fact that by the player character agreeing to go back, we have condemned the world to multiple calamities which caused genocides along with the mutilation and bastardisation of an entire race of people, effectively devolving them and subjecting not only themselves but their children to the horrors of war while denying them an actual death and afterlife as their souls are constantly recycled in the form of pusdo death while making 3 of the survives watch until they go insane.

I love the fact the writers had dug such a deep hole the only way for them to get you out was to make you the ultimate villain of the story and responsible for almost every tragedy. Also, Venat's ultimate form is represented as the light bringer, aka Lucifer, and we were meant to feel bad for her. It didn't help when Shadowbringers was almost quoting you Paradise Lost word for word.

It also proves Emit in Shadowbrinfers is 100% correct when he doesn't consider anyone a natural person. Fixing the system, and allowing people to return to the planet properly instead of becoming a battery for venat might be the best option. Heck, we killed Zodiarc, so shouldn't the planets be collapsing together in one colossal calamity, or is that just inconvenient to the story?

The writing has jumped off a cliff, and the morality of the writers is repugnant. To put it in, the final act of a ten-year story is awful, and people need to stop defending them. The Void arc story is ten times worse. and not only have they just killed the gods of the setting, but they butchered the void as well. Square needs to learn that the ancient past shouldn't be shown and that people love it because it is steeped in mystery and open to interpretation and imagination.

We don't need to see or talk to the gods or ancients. We need to be inspired by them. It's Mythology Writing 101. It's final fantasy, and instead of a fantasy game with exciting races, cultures, gods and threats, I feel like I'm reading an atheist wet dream where almost anything divine or infernal in the game is put to the sword- Heck, the game is almost sci Fi instead of fantasy at this point as they have futuristic technology widely available which beats current day technology.

We're is my fantasy in my final fantasy because, at this point, we've ridden the Great Space Coaster to the edge of the universe and killed the ultimate being. Now, we must worry about the lizard's next expansion and falling off a boat while enjoying the narrative with over-developed characters that can solve any issue by waiting for a patch.

Final Fantasy Endwalker summed up in one Comedy sketch.
https://youtu.be/jZtae5SHLzE?si=Bh7l_VsT4O3GAPlR

[Zaniel]

I liked Zero when she appeared but they nuked her character in 6.5 and she's now just another random person.

I am a super fan of FF14's writing and I think 99.99% of the complaints about EW (or even earlier) are stupid but even I'm not a big fan of post 6.0. Everything has been massively rushed (plus god-mode Y'shtola is wearing out her welcome as a character, I used to like her). Is FF14's writing in critical collapse? No, but I think they are quite a bit too keen to fresh-slate the game lore coming off the back of the original main plot line.

That said I hate myself and feel filthy for posting in an Aveyond thread.

[Genbe197]

Zero was okay, but to make all the gods basically humans from before was a bit of a let down. Like they GUTTED the magic of a magic world.

[Lunaxia]

I'll start off with the obvious.

Really, really well said, in every respect, and I've little else to say apart from you're far from alone in a lot of your feelings. Similarly a SMN main here who was appalled not only by what the devs did to the job but how they went about it, but for the sake of my sanity I had to stop discussing it before I heard one more person who has barely touched the job since XIV's inception crow about how it's inarguably better because the glowy buttons and shiny avatars make them feel cool now. It's a true testament to the current trend of society's preoccupation with flashy aesthetics over actual substance or function, and FFXIV is jumping on the bandwagon on all accounts. God forbid SCH, WAR or BLM get such treatment, though as you say despite my resentment I wouldn't wish such a slap in the face on anyone.

And it's a double whammy, because if the gameplay was simplistic but the story/ content was at least somewhat decent, or vice versa, there'd be something left for the game to offer, but the gradual decline has seeped into everything, and at a time when we could use these escapes now more than ever (see: the news for the past three years.) It's a really unfortunate situation.

[Zaniel]

Zero was okay, but to make all the gods basically humans from before was a bit of a let down. Like they GUTTED the magic of a magic world.

I don't see this as a problem, like literally EVERY divine being since ARR has been a primal/aether+belief empowered entity, I mean using people as primal cores started with Ysayle in HW, in the FF14 universe there are actually no such thing as gods.

[Alec97]

I don't see this as a problem, like literally EVERY divine being since ARR has been a primal/aether+belief empowered entity, I mean using people as primal cores started with Ysayle in HW, in the FF14 universe there is actually no such thing as gods.

Yeah except the ancients who could create anything and are an allegory for the heavenly host, along with the primals who can do the same thing as well.

The gods in FF14 are akin to pagan gods and representations of pagan gods in literature. I dont know where you get the idea that there is no such thing as a god in the setting as it's simply not true. What you have done is say that God is made and influenced by aether and thought. Therefore, they couldn't be a god is a really weird line of logic as you as a person are, made of the materials of the world and are inherently influenced by those around you, you act differently and beleive different things based on others so why wouldn't a pagan God? Is there no such thing as a person now?

These gods are not godheads they are individual beings that are manifestations of functions of the world/universe. That's a god. Zeus constantly changes his mind and is influenced by man is he suddenly not a god, or is a god only a being similar to that of the father where He births the universe where He sees, knows and is all things?

The gods in FF14 and other works are more than just summons they are the embodiment of universal and eternal ideals that existed long before man and were enacted by them. They will still exist even if we stop believing in them and our interpretation of these fundamental rules or truths will evolve with us, does that mean the Gods have changed or has our understanding of them changed?

[Yencat]

I don't see this as a problem, like literally EVERY divine being since ARR has been a primal/aether+belief empowered entity, I mean using people as primal cores started with Ysayle in HW, in the FF14 universe there are actually no such thing as gods.

I sort of agree with Genbe on that part actually, though it's not a "problem" that's new to this expansion but already started in Shadowbringers and it kind of sucks the magic out of the setting.

The "Precursors" or "Elder race" trope isn't unique to this game but this is exactly why I don't really enjoy it in most media, almost every creature we encounter you're never going to wonder how or why that came to be because it's pretty much always going to be "the Ancients made it". And in the most boring, office-y, filing designs and needing permits sort of way as well. Usually the saving grace is leaving them and their motives somewhat mysterious but we don't have that anymore either because now we've met several of them and even went to hang out with some of them in the past.

The Gods? Ancients. Sin Eaters and Voidsent? Not intentionally created by them, but still Ancients-by-proxy.

Alien entities are a few things off the top of my head they didn't have a hand in so hopefully now that they, for better or worse, seem intent on wrapping up the Ancients chapter maybe we can get back to something largely unknown and malevolent like the High Seraph.