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

[VictorSpoils]

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.

And nothing like that has happened in a long time either, case in point.

[ReynTime]

The comment about the current writing being too "feel good anime" sums up the state of the MSQ perfectly...

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.

Self contained stories can both be more than just slice of life feel good slops and have high stakes. It gets done in game and movie media all the time.

[PactCommander]

ARR imo was okay-ish for me. I must admit that a lot of times back then as a sprout I was so overwhelmed by everything the game has to offer that I didn’t pay full attention to what was happening story-wise. It got better towards the end and this one event which I would like to regard as a very unexpected twist in the story of ARR had me 100% on edge. Also I never will forget this feeling of loneliness and defeat when me and 2 of my scion companions stumbled into Ishgard.
But HW and also ShB will always, ALWAYS have a very special place in my heart. I just loved the slight medieval setting. Both expansions had put me on such an emotional rollercoaster and especially HW made me cry for real more than once o.o Lately only XC3 was able to do that to me.

Stormblood was nice but I felt there were parts of the story where the writing could’ve been better. And with EW… I remember being excited about it but in the end I was mildly disappointed. So I won’t get my hopes too high for DT. The whole notion of suddenly being the casually traveling adventurer with his merry band of friends when the whole time we have been the worlds’ only bulwark between annihilation and survival strikes me as “odd”.
I don’t always need to be on high alert story-wise but this seems to be too harsh of a story turn. But that’s only my opinion.

I do understand that a writer of a story has the liberty to tell the story as they want. But on the other hand the writer shouldn’t be too disappointed if not everyone will be fangirling and fanboying about it in the end.
Also I have the slight feeling that the devs/writers/whoever kind of had the story roughly outlined in the back of their heads till the end of the whole Ascian cycle. And now that this story part is completely told they kind of lack the idea of how to continue.

I do agree here with Bonoki that the story of EW felt “rushed”. Reminds me of Xenosaga which was planned as a 6-part-series originally. Then after releasing part I and II they ran out of money and time and squeezed the story content of the remaining 4 parts into the last part III. The whole story was rather philosophical from the beginning and heavily used biblical imagery and used elements of the works of Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche. That alone was hard to understand at times, but squeezing so much story in the last remaining part… yea, after finishing EW I felt similarly confused like after beating Xenosaga III, lol.

[Absurdity]

Stormblood was nice but I felt there were parts of the story where the writing could’ve been better.

Stormblood imo suffered from the choice of having it play out on two entirely different continents, too much jumping around to really flesh either of them out.
It's also one of the many reasons why Endwalker fell completely flat for me. They tried to cram two expansions (plus patch content) into a single base expansion and it had so much jumping between different locales that I didn't particularly care about any of them.

[MoofiaBossVal]

I quite liked the tone of early FFXIV (up through Stormblood), particularly ARR. It felt grounded. You're a protagonist but not an almighty superhero. The Scions can't waltz anywhere and do anything they please, instead they have to get along with the program and do favors for Ishgard too. There are benevolent sovereigns like Nanamo but they are not almighty and can only do so much. Merlwyb has to do uncomfortable things to keep her people afloat. There is no good solution to refugees; Domans can be squeezed in because they offer intel, but most people are unsympathetic to the Ala Mhigans due to bad blood and they don't have anything to offer so they get turned away. The world felt big and dangerous. That feel starts going away in the expansions once all of the internal problems within the countries and limited resources are handwaved away, so the WoL and Scions start accomplishing everything without problems. I also preferred when FFXIV was about different nations in conflict with each other, be it fighting different beast races or fighting Garlean legions or fighting a dragon brood, etc, rather than fighting depressed lunatics and their minions.

Stormblood imo suffered from the choice of having it play out on two entirely different continents, too much jumping around to really flesh either of them out.
It's also one of the many reasons why Endwalker fell completely flat for me. They tried to cram two expansions (plus patch content) into a single base expansion and it had so much jumping between different locales that I didn't particularly care about any of them.

I didn't have a problem with Stormblood having two continents. While I would have liked to have gotten more Gyr Abania and Othard zones, it wouldn't have been good to follow up a Gyr Abania expansion about liberating an outer province from Garlemald with another expansion about liberating an outer province from Garlemald. Four years and two expansions about the same story. Consolidation was required, though if Square did what GW2 did and added new zones in every patch, then we could have had Othard zones added in every Stormblood patch and thus we could have gotten more zones (6 Gyr Abania zones at launch and then 5 or 6 more Othard zones in patches) in the same time span of one expansion in 2 years, that way both regions would have been more fleshed out.

[DPZ2]

rather than fighting depressed lunatics and their minions.

Ilberd wasn't depressed. Psychotic, perhaps.

Such villains seem to show up at least once every expansion.

< yeah, I deliberately ignored the rest of the post ... >

[Terin]

I quite liked the tone of early FFXIV (up through Stormblood), particularly ARR. It felt grounded. You're a protagonist but not an almighty superhero. The Scions can't waltz anywhere and do anything they please, instead they have to get along with the program and do favors for Ishgard too. There are benevolent sovereigns like Nanamo but they are not almighty and can only do so much. Merlwyb has to do uncomfortable things to keep her people afloat. There is no good solution to refugees; Domans can be squeezed in because they offer intel, but most people are unsympathetic to the Ala Mhigans due to bad blood and they don't have anything to offer so they get turned away. The world felt big and dangerous. That feel starts going away in the expansions once all of the internal problems within the countries and limited resources are handwaved away, so the WoL and Scions start accomplishing everything without problems. I also preferred when FFXIV was about different nations in conflict with each other, be it fighting different beast races or fighting Garlean legions or fighting a dragon brood, etc, rather than fighting depressed lunatics and their minions.





I didn't have a problem with Stormblood having two continents. While I would have liked to have gotten more Gyr Abania and Othard zones, it wouldn't have been good to follow up a Gyr Abania expansion about liberating an outer province from Garlemald with another expansion about liberating an outer province from Garlemald. Four years and two expansions about the same story. Consolidation was required, though if Square did what GW2 did and added new zones in every patch, then we could have had Othard zones added in every Stormblood patch and thus we could have gotten more zones (6 Gyr Abania zones at launch and then 5 or 6 more Othard zones in patches) in the same time span of one expansion in 2 years, that way both regions would have been more fleshed out.

I think that's really well summarized. It sounds counterintuitive, but there's something much more "epic" about nations having believable, grounded conflicts with each other, moreso than "the literal fate of the planet and all life as we know it hangs in the balance".

At the very least, it *does* feel like they're leaning that direction a little bit more. At least, lowering the stakes and having us travel someplace we aren't renowned saviors of the universe. Hopefully they'll introduce a little more grounded conflict. Like "here's a character that's a warmonger, but has a lot of resources, and is inflicting real, lasting pain on the characters you know and love". Heck, even allowing the Monetarists in Ul'dah to make some headway again, or maybe a particularly merciless gang of pirates returning from some far-flung voyage and thrusting Limsa Lominsa into chaos.

[Tahli]

Housing portrait honoring Wilred, when?

[Brynne]

I suppose I'm in the minority here on these forums, because I found the ending of ARR too stressful to be enjoyable and have enjoyed the game far more since then. I love that characters have gotten more sides to them besides just plain serious, and more silly moments in Shadowbringers and Endwalker in particular. I'm also really looking forward to Dawntrail as a vacation and fresh adventure, both. This game, it feels, has been designed specifically to my taste. It can still make me cry and take my breath away, but I know in the end everything will be okay. I cherish it so much for that.

[GrizzlyTank]

One of the issues with the story at the moment. Pretty much all the major political beats have been resolved leaving little to no room for worthwhile drama and intrigue.

There is also the issue of hesitancy to kill off characters when it's appropriate. Yeah killing of willy-nilly is terrible writing but had either

the Sultana or Thancred died at certain notable plot points in ARR and SB

then it would have fine since their story had largely done their purpose.

Meanwhile

Varis's death was literally a left-field death knell for the drama between Erozea and Garlemald effectievly gutting an entire expansion worth of plot in favor of one later sidelined character.