The end of ARR will forever be the high-water mark for FFXIV, to me

[Bonoki]

I do think the state of being on the run was a great idea for ARR to set up a new expansion. It's a shame we have come so far that something like that would no longer be possible to do a second time for another expansion. The WoL has grown so much that it really wouldn't make sense anymore for government policies to hinder us.

This right here. They even managed to almost turn sharlayan into a stereotypical anime highschool at some points. If realm reborn was remade by these same writers the story in ul'dah would most likely have cutscenes of us shopping for jewelry and carpets and some Aladdin tropes and the like.

The animation team is just really proud of the levels of animation they can include nowadays. Which can only really be expressed through the slice of life kind of moments. That's why we suddenly have so many meal scenes. Also, it's one of the few things that has left at being able to show the characters bonding outside of saving the world to make them still feel a sense of normalcy.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I also wouldn't mind seeing more of some of the old City-State leaders again. Watching through some folks playing through segments of FFXIV for the first time, I think I'm always surprised how Pipin Lolopin (Raubaun's adoptive son, who helped rescue you from Ul'dah) didn't really amount to much. I'd still love to see him get some screen time, personally.

Pipin Tarupin succeeded Raubahn as the new Flame General in 4.1, and shows up whenever Ul'dah needs a military representative, notably joining the Ilsabard Contingent in Endwalker, where he fights alongside Lyse in the Tower of Babil. He doesn't get a lot of screen time because the main plot moved away from Eorzea and he has responsibilities there.

[Solakor]

The animation team is just really proud of the levels of animation they can include nowadays. Which can only really be expressed through the slice of life kind of moments. That's why we suddenly have so many meal scenes. Also, it's one of the few things that has left at being able to show the characters bonding outside of saving the world to make them still feel a sense of normalcy.

Creating a good story is hard. Creating a flashy scene and pulling tropes out of anime is not that hard. Even ff16 was more flash than substance after the first 10 hours. It's kinda funny the game advertises itself being a story MMO but did the cardinal sin of not fleshing out a well defined ending that makes sense with the material before. And even better, at the behest of the director himself. Juggling 2 triple A games was clearly a good idea and the damage control has been pretty hilarious with yoship blaming the community and the fanbois saying theres nothing wrong with EW.
I recently watched a josh strife hayes and nerdslayer vids about the mmo rift and how the company behind it got way too ambitious trying to juggle 3 projects at once and ultimately everything fell flat. Rift could have been an amazing game if given care enough. We are not at that point yet but its just a thought.
14 needs to refocus in what made it good and not half ass things. Gameplay first with story that makes sense. MMO content with other ppl and some evolution of systems

[Mithron]

Yes, ARR ending was the best and the game has never topped it since. HW is my favorite, but that's also because the end of ARR set it up perfectly.

You know, on a small tangent... People talk about characters needing to die because we haven't had any real losses in quite some time, but that's odd to me. Why does a character need to die specifically? There are other consequences of loss that can often times be far more impactful, such as when Raubahn lost an arm. He didn't die, but the impact of the story at the end of ARR changed him as a character.

Constantly adding new characters and old characters never dying means that the world isn't threatening enough to be interesting and the characters aren't doing enough interesting things that would warrant them dying. Raubahn losing an arm is great and all, but that was only great because it also happened at the same time as the Sultana's "death." If Raubahn simply lost an arm without Sultana being truly threatened (which means death), it wouldn't (and ultimately didn't) matter at all which makes it fall flat hard.

[DPZ2]

Rift could have been an amazing game if given care enough. We are not at that point yet but its just a thought.

Rift had a gimmick, one that started to fall flat for me about 2 years into the game. It was overshadowed by the release of competing MMORPGs, including World of Warcraft expansions.

It was never a main game for me, rather, it was one to kick back and play between leveling alts in Cataclysm or Mists of Panderia.

I was never a big fan of Trion Worlds games. The company (under their Glyph name) later came out with Archeage and Atlas Reactor.

If you're interested, you can always try it out. It appears to be free to play at this point, although the better Souls you can incorporate in-game are going to cost you.

[Gemina]

ARR Ilberd remains one of my favorite villains in the game, and I felt it would have been a superb decision if he went into the shadows for all of HW only to resurface in Stormblood as the main antagonist as he had such strong ties to Ala Mhigo and massive motivations to a part of that conflict. I guess they decided to go with Zenos instead.

Ah well, C'est la vie.

[TaleraRistain]

There's just nothing quite like experiencing that level of *shock*, of "holy crap, there's no way this is ACTUALLY happening right now?!?", it was just something that I've never experience in any other MMO.

I thought this at the Quintus scene in Endwalker. I loved the end of ARR and having to flee but as far as RPG tropes, that's a pretty common one. What Quintus did? Not something you often see.

[Naraka]

ARR was my favorite time with this game, nothing after ever reached it again

[Bonoki]

Creating a good story is hard. Creating a flashy scene and pulling tropes out of anime is not that hard. Even ff16 was more flash than substance after the first 10 hours. It's kinda funny the game advertises itself being a story MMO but did the cardinal sin of not fleshing out a well defined ending that makes sense with the material before. And even better, at the behest of the director himself. Juggling 2 triple A games was clearly a good idea and the damage control has been pretty hilarious with yoship blaming the community and the fanbois saying theres nothing wrong with EW.
I recently watched a josh strife hayes and nerdslayer vids about the mmo rift and how the company behind it got way too ambitious trying to juggle 3 projects at once and ultimately everything fell flat. Rift could have been an amazing game if given care enough. We are not at that point yet but its just a thought.
14 needs to refocus in what made it good and not half ass things. Gameplay first with story that makes sense. MMO content with other ppl and some evolution of systems

I think it's more that the story the devs want to tell and the story the players want to experience are two different things. But the devs also have the "The players will like whatever we throw at them anyway" going for them. Like reading some of their answers from interviews about why the Garlean expansion was cut, that Endwalker was going to be 7.0, their reasons for why we're going to be a normie adventurer again for the rest of the game's lifespan, and other stuff. All of it indicates that the devs were bored with their own story and wanted it to be over. They no longer liked what they were doing. Even admitted that the Ascians and Zodiark had no goal or objective until Shadowbringers when they first decided to start wrapping things up. That Zenos existed to replace the Ascains as the big bad. But then they realized how long it'd take to wrap things up cohesively and decided to rush it because they wanted to tell their brand-new stuff with the Void and Dawntrail. The problem with the story right now isn't even the story, it's the fact that the devs no longer want to make grand compelling arcs. They want us to be in self-contained stories and to sightsee as much of the world as there's left to see before Yoshi-P retires. Not only has the community gotten more casual but even the story wants to be a more casual slice of life environment. The story isn't about saving the world anymore, it's about having fun with your friends. The other scions. We will still have some save-the-world moments here and there like the recent Zeromus, but that's more collateral damage to the Ascians as it's still closely related to their past actions.

[Solakor]

I think it's more that the story the devs want to tell and the story the players want to experience are two different things. But the devs also have the "The players will like whatever we throw at them anyway" going for them. Like reading some of their answers from interviews about why the Garlean expansion was cut, that Endwalker was going to be 7.0, their reasons for why we're going to be a normie adventurer again for the rest of the game's lifespan, and other stuff. All of it indicates that the devs were bored with their own story and wanted it to be over. They no longer liked what they were doing. Even admitted that the Ascians and Zodiark had no goal or objective until Shadowbringers when they first decided to start wrapping things up. That Zenos existed to replace the Ascains as the big bad. But then they realized how long it'd take to wrap things up cohesively and decided to rush it because they wanted to tell their brand-new stuff with the Void and Dawntrail. The problem with the story right now isn't even the story, it's the fact that the devs no longer want to make grand compelling arcs. They want us to be in self-contained stories and to sightsee as much of the world as there's left to see before Yoshi-P retires. Not only has the community gotten more casual but even the story wants to be a more casual slice of life environment. The story isn't about saving the world anymore, it's about having fun with your friends. The other scions. We will still have some save-the-world moments here and there like the recent Zeromus, but that's more collateral damage to the Ascians as it's still closely related to their past actions.

I find it extremely weird that they suddenly just want to erase everything and seem very incompetent writers compared to before. Like axing an expansion because they can't think of a story that fits into 2 expacs? And then coming out with this void arc to just fill the 6.1-5 time with something? Also what about the content and issues with EW in general? I mean something happened from before. Where did the passion go to tell a good story and ending to a 10 year old saga? Did they change so many devs and are they incapable of writing anything good now? I'm just not buying it. DT will definately be a defining expac as to what they want from the game (other than money).