I'm Frustrated with FFXIV's New Direction

[Supersnow845]

While I haven't even touched on Dawntrail yet because I want to clean up all other sidequests first, I always feel a twitch in my brain when I hear people utter this line...

What Roots?

Hydaelyn put you together by coalesce enough souls in the Aetherial sea in order to further this end goal of creating her child, the Warrior of Light.
You never were, just a mere adventurer. As far as you know, you awoke last Thursday on a caravan heading to a city state. You are, the chosen one and your mother is Hydaelyn.
This is something people never seem to get with XIV's story. Even Lahabrea points this out to you in the ARR Ultima cutscene.

Otherwise where are your parents?
Why are they never acknowledged at all?
Is the Wol an orphan like traditional FF3? Acute Memoryloss like FF1?
No. You are a child of the mother crystal. The Warrior of Light. Not some mere adventurer.

XIV's story was always bad with small glimmers of greatness.
From what I've heard regarding the end of Dawntrail, I'm not the least bit interested in an interdimensional shard-hopping civilization with computers.
I just want the 1.0/ARR/FFXI clothing style back where it felt like there was a consistent style rather than... all over the place.

This completely ignores the lore of legacy WOL’s and the dubious canonicity of the fact that it’s possible that all players “experienced” legacy and were sent forward by louisoux even if only legacy players “remember” it

The backstory is up to the player but haedalyn had nothing to do with it. Hell the starshower legacy players saw has nothing to do with haedalyn anyway, it’s a natural phenomenon. The only “predetermined” aspect of your player is the fact that you are a shard of azem but that’s how the aetherial sea works

[Lollerblades]

Also on the other hand in “Dawntrail” we’re going to Tural, which is this land which we’ve never been before. It is a completely new area, so we want to showcase new cultures, new races, new peoples

I must have missed that part, because the ones I did see were just recoloured variations of what we already had

[BabyYoda]

I always read those examples and I am growing really tired of them.
What’s with all the blind defending of every little thing the devs do? It’s ok to criticize things.

Those are not the same.
Estinien, Thancred, the Exarch they all did that stuff AFTER the fight.
Zenos did his thing BEFORE the fight.
Wuk Lamat crashed INTO THE DUTY!

Her only purpose was to talk to Sphene and that could have been after the fight.

At the topic:
I agree with OP.
I am still bummed that my WoL was almost erased from existence in DT.
Yoshida is lying with the tale that we are still the hero.
Wuk Lamats axe blocks our view in a cutscene and she stands in the middle.
You could put that picture in the definition of MC and it would fit.

I just want my f*** character to matter in the story like in the rising event or arcadion.
That’s why I play a video game, otherwise I would watch a damn movie.

I am getting more and more desillusioned and tired by those interviews.
It’s like Yoshida is speedrunning how to lose all the goodwill of the playerbase and from what I saw on other sides many people are equally annoyed at this point.

I still trust them to change course in 7.3 but till then… it will be a long and hard road.


If they where in every minute of the expansion and sidelined every other character they would also be hated.
Maybe not as much because they have an actual personality but still.
Emet kinda lives from the fact that people wanted to know more about him and that we only got little candy expositions from him throughout Shb.

That will not change the fact that wuk is boring character with no development at all.

[Voidmage]

While I haven't even touched on Dawntrail yet because I want to clean up all other sidequests first, I always feel a twitch in my brain when I hear people utter this line...

What Roots?

Hydaelyn put you together by coalesce enough souls in the Aetherial sea in order to further this end goal of creating her child, the Warrior of Light.
You never were, just a mere adventurer. As far as you know, you awoke last Thursday on a caravan heading to a city state. You are, the chosen one and your mother is Hydaelyn.
This is something people never seem to get with XIV's story. Even Lahabrea points this out to you in the ARR Ultima cutscene.

Otherwise where are your parents?
Why are they never acknowledged at all?
Is the Wol an orphan like traditional FF3? Acute Memoryloss like FF1?
No. You are a child of the mother crystal. The Warrior of Light. Not some mere adventurer.

XIV's story was always bad with small glimmers of greatness.
From what I've heard regarding the end of Dawntrail, I'm not the least bit interested in an interdimensional shard-hopping civilization with computers.
I just want the 1.0/ARR/FFXI clothing style back where it felt like there was a consistent style rather than... all over the place.

Hydaelyn did NOT put our soul together.
An ancients soul (what the WoL is) can‘t be broken down by the aetherial sea.
The WoL is a reborn Azem.
Heidi had no agency on that.

The WoL was a fledgling adventurer before ARR (if you didn‘t play 1.0) but they have a backstory namely what you make of it yourself.
In the very first cutscene you even give your reason as to WHY you want to become an adventurer.
The WoL is the player insert with a certain amount of autonomy in their worldview.
Sure you can roleplay as a aether robot of Heidi but the whole story says the opposite.
They are just a normal person that was lucky to have the echo and overcomes the odds to grow stronger.
Just a reborn soul like countless others who just happened to have been a special person in another life.

Lahabrea calls us that because we have her blessing of light.
It is a jab at our status as her warrior of light and that we stand against him nothing more.

I am sorry to say this and I usually are not so aggressive to others here but… did you even read the story til now?
The whole of Shb and EW was about wo we are and were in the past.
Heydalaeyn did NOT create the WoL.

That will not change the fact that wuk is boring character with no development at all.

Never said otherwise.

[PercibelTheren]

I don't really care if Wuk Lamat or anyone else dealt the final blow or something like that. It doesn't change the fact we spent about 10 minutes weakening it, or alternatively holding it off.

Was anyone upset that Estinien got the final blow on Nidhogg in The Aery? I wasn't - that was exactly what I wanted to happen. I didn't need anymore accolades at that point. Estinien had worked his whole life for that moment.

With Niddhogg and Estinien, it didn't feel unearned to me. With Wuk Lamat and Sphene, the dynamic felt very "awkward girl convinced popular girl, who doesn't even know who she is, is her best friend." There was no connection between them. Lamat only thought there was one.

[Havenchild]

I don't think it's so important that we saved the world. I know multiple people on this forum (myself included) wanted a return to being just another adventurer having adventures but I really don't feel like DT delivered that.

I think a lot of people here don't mind not being the centre of the story as long as our existence is relevant and we have some agency but in DT we're a bystander until some combat thing happens and even then we get a roleplay solo duty where we're literally a bystander. I think people are justified in feeling somewhat put out, perhaps even offended, by DT's MSQ. For me, the patches have a LOT of work to do to salvage what has already happened, I'm glad you're happy with it, I'm happy for everyone who liked what we got even if I don't exactly understand how or why and I'd be disappointed if that really is your last post but that's your decision.

Based of the complaint's on this forum, I will definitely disagree. Majority on the forums voicing discontent do NOT NOW want to be a side character.

This is a stark difference from the post patch endwalker forums where people were then claiming they didn't want to be the focus and wanted to take a back seat for DT (after saving the world etc). SE gave them just that and boom now the forums want the complete opposite.

[Supersnow845]

Based of the complaint's on this forum, I will definitely disagree. Majority on the forums voicing discontent do NOT NOW want to be a side character.

This is a stark difference from the post patch endwalker forums where people were then claiming they didn't want to be the focus and wanted to take a back seat for DT (after saving the world etc). SE gave them just that and boom now the forums want the complete opposite.

Because the story didn’t accomodate what the players were actually asking for in either situation rather than the players being flip flopppy.

The entire 6.1 marketing was about “getting back to the basics” which alot of people agreed with. Half a patch later we are in a story about the void wanting to destroy the source. So the back to the basics people aren’t happy because we are in world destroying territory again but the “WOL should be the entire central focus of the story” people weren’t happy because that position was given to zero

Then DT functionally did the same thing. The conflict scaled from “adventurer at heart wants to find the city of gold” to “the city of gold is a physical manifestation of a society that can’t accept lost and is determined to sustain their system even if it means destroying other worlds” in a single expansion but again the WOL wasn’t the focus of the story despite actually doing all the important leg work. Wuk lamat was. We weren’t even playing an actual “important side character” with useful information for the main character, we played the glorified braindead hired muscle. Same as in 6.x all the important development the scions facilitated in zero was done via y’shtola, we did nothing

So in both cases both parties; the “I’m fine with them as a side character” and “no my WOL is centre of my story” have both been let down in both instances because square won’t commit to either camp so they piss everyone off because we get the worst of both sides

[Router]

I must have missed that part, because the ones I did see were just recoloured variations of what we already had

Come to Tural! We have:
1. Gobl- I mean Moblins
2. Mamool Ja who attended English class
3. Children
4. FFXI Trolls
5. Vanu Vanu 2
6. Female Hrothgar??

[Voidmage]

Based of the complaint's on this forum, I will definitely disagree. Majority on the forums voicing discontent do NOT NOW want to be a side character.

This is a stark difference from the post patch endwalker forums where people were then claiming they didn't want to be the focus and wanted to take a back seat for DT (after saving the world etc). SE gave them just that and boom now the forums want the complete opposite.

No, people were saying they want to go back to the adventuring roots. That they want the scales of their character to be toned down.
Not being a world saving hero because that makes stakes for the WoL difficult.
They wanted some kind of vacation with lower stakes or adventuring in the old school way.

Not being the main character was not the topic in the EW postpatch discussions.

There is a difference between going back to simple adventuring aka ARR and being the tree in a stage play.

[Havenchild]

Because the story didn’t accomodate what the players were actually asking for in either situation rather than the players being flip flopppy.

So in both cases both parties; the “I’m fine with them as a side character” and “no my WOL is centre of my story” have both been let down.

My point is, it doesn't actually matter how the story works it. There are members of this forum that want the story and everything and everyone else to revolve around their character. There is no way to reconcile this for the people that did NOT want that.

Also again we must be reading different forums. This is coming from the place that dragged SB MSQ (pre patch) and Lyse as a character for 7 YEARS as "garbage pacing and terrible story/character" and now suddenly because DT has alot of the same successes and fails, it's avidly defending both as "well written", "earned", "great".

The forums are flip floppy indeed.