Standing There Syndrome

[Coratanni]

I still remember my first steps in FF14 years ago together with my wife. We take the fight back to the Garleans, and finally end up in the praetorium... to be met with Nero's 3 minute monologue "when I was little, Cid stole my cookie, wah wah" and Gaius' 4 minute monologue "me am the bestestest of the world".
At one point we looked at each other and asked "why are we even listening to this drivel, why don't we just kick this fool's butt?"
And that's the point. Nobody in their right mind would listen to the bad guy going on and on and on and on... - they would just attack. Remember Guardians of the Galaxy 1? Nebula starting trash talking her sister, only to get shot down by Drax "noboy talks to my friends like that". This is the sort of dialog FF14 needs desperately, no more villains holding endless monologues everybody just quietly listens to.

And there are countless examples of this bad anime trope throughout the MSQ. Ilberd, anyone? We find out he's about to summon a primal, so we go there, kick his sorry behind, and it's over - we could just put his head on a pike atop his very own Ala Mighan dungheap, and call it a day. But no, WoL goes into 10 minute standby, while Ilberd does the exact thing we came to stop. Oh my.

Personally I just accepted this sort of nonsense constantly happening to me. But man did it rub me the wrong way when they finished off Gulool Ja Ja while EVERYBODY was just watching. He desperately tried to fend of his son's magical infused attack for 20+ seconds, and NOBODY came to the rescue - all the saviors of the star just standing there, gaping mouth, drooling from the chin.
I liked the character of Gulool Ja Ja a lot, and seeing him getting killed this super cheap way really p*ssed me off. They did the old lizard wrong, and I'm not going to forget this.

It's never been shown to be in our nature, to attack someone else first. We've also let people talk, in the hopes that there might be some diplomacy had. Sure it usually fails, but we're not Zenos blood crazy.

[Cenobia]

It's never been shown to be in our nature, to attack someone else first. We've also let people talk, in the hopes that there might be some diplomacy had. Sure it usually fails, but we're not Zenos blood crazy.

There is a large difference between not immediately launching into an attack and stopping someone who is very obviously trying to do something that you're supposed to stop. Your WoL might be a mouthbreather, but I'd like to think mine isn't, and as such those cutscenes are just absurd. It also doesn't excuse Alisaie often also just standing there.

Someone give that girl a gun already, we'd have been spared so much idiocy.

[MsQi]

It's never been shown to be in our nature, to attack someone else first. We've also let people talk, in the hopes that there might be some diplomacy had. Sure it usually fails, but we're not Zenos blood crazy.

That should be a choice. We are not playing a premade charter. We are not Cloud, or Squall or Lightning. We should have some say in how our characters react. I think the biggest problem with the new MSQ is the same it's always been: The story assumes we like these people. Half the time I saw Zenos I wanted to shoot him in the face, but when he wanted the final showdown I wanted to just walk away and leave him crying. Every dialogs choice is pointless, most don't even have a witty retort. So much "Sorry, no you can't do that", or "that's probably not a good idea right now"

[Coratanni]

That should be a choice. We are not playing a premade charter. We are not Cloud, or Squall or Lightning. We should have some say in how our characters react. I think the biggest problem with the new MSQ is the same it's always been: The story assumes we like these people. Half the time I saw Zenos I wanted to shoot him in the face, but when he wanted the final showdown I wanted to just walk away and leave him crying.

We've never truly had much choice though when it comes to our characters. In any Final Fantasy game. FFXIV gives you an illusion of choice of dialogue sometimes. You can choose which alliance to side with during a competition at the end of Heavensward iirc, but that's about it. Our character is still a sundered reincarnation of Azem, and Azem is a certain way, just as we, and Ardbert were. It's just built into our character whether you or others like it or not.

Where I have a problem, is when the writers clearly don't understand Azem's character, and the Warrior of Light's past actions, and turns them into something they've never been through a base game and 4 previous expansions.

[MsQi]

We've never truly had much choice though when it comes to our characters. In any Final Fantasy game. FFXIV gives you an illusion of choice of dialogue sometimes. You can choose which alliance to side with during a competition at the end of Heavensward iirc, but that's about it. Our character is still a sundered reincarnation of Azem, and Azem is a certain way, just as we, and Ardbert were. It's just built into our character whether you or others like it or not.

Exactly what is wrong with this game. We don't know anything about Azem. They intentionally avoid telling us specifics. An intelligent design would allow us to decide some key things about them.

[Carin-Eri]

Exactly what is wrong with this game. We don't know anything about Azem. They intentionally avoid telling us specifics. An intelligent design would allow us to decide some key things about them.

I disagree and prefer some elements of Azem to be left to our own imagination.

Personally, I don't want to learn too much about Azem. This is, to me, a little like the Borg of Star Trek - their origin/early history has not, to date, been revealed. Various episodes dropped hints and referenced elements of their history to some degree but they never dived into it too deeply. And that's a good thing - the mystery around them kept them interesting and lets viewers create their own ideas around how they came to be what they became.

[Alice_Rivers]

Personally, I don't want to learn too much about Azem. This is, to me, a little like the Borg of Star Trek - their origin/early history has not, to date, been revealed. Various episodes dropped hints and referenced elements of their history to some degree but they never dived into it too deeply. And that's a good thing - the mystery around them kept them interesting and lets viewers create their own ideas around how they came to be what they became.

I doubt much more than we've seen is actually written about either. For me the best part of any mystery is the exploration of it and ultimate demystifying, that doesn't have to be fast but I find a mystery unexplored to be disappointing. The question is where do we go from there? It could be space, it could be any amount of land in the former Garlean empire, we've seen the remnants of the capital but so much of the former imperial holdings is unknown to us. Or more of Tural, I can't imagine what we've seen of it is even the majority of the continent(s), most likely though I expect they'll hit the biggest mystery we have left: The Reflections.