[Potential Spoilers] Thank you SE writing team!

[Lycieus]

As sad as the 2.55 storyline is, I just wanted to take the opportunity to extend my thanks to the story planners and writers at SE.

Without sacrifice, there is no suspense in a story. I hope the team will continue to take risks with the story, they make the difference between something forgettable and something truly epic.

[Altijacek]

I think, that despite how varied Final Fantasy is, the story is ALWAYS a key element. Sure there are games with better stories like Xenogears or Metal Gear but FF stories are always in a place to themselves, a genre to itself. A culmination of all sorts of fantasy, from ancient, to medieval, to Star Wars style. This has been true since day one. And ever since then, they've been crafting convoluted but always fun stories unique to FF. I can only hope we see this here, and the ending of ARR shows that SE STILL has balls, and is willing to carry the final fantasy tradition. Just because the game is an MMO doesn't mean it can't have an amazing storyline.

[Shougun]

Excited to see how the story goes, I've liked the story thus far (specially at least for an MMORPG) but I'm glad the story is becoming less Warrior of Light god mode, "everything must have a Disney ending". Not to say it was all cheese mode and rainbows, there were no doubt dark points through 2.0's release story (or side quests), but it was hardly transient (-imo-). When it came to the feeling that something was of pressing matter it was just more of a passing shadow. Post 2.0 story has felt a bit more like that excited yet looming feeling of a boss in Hidetaka Soul's or Shadow of Colossus "hmm... good luck to myself". Hope Migardsormr doesn't do a 180 in the Heavensward plot (English side at least) and suck up to us right away - he obviously was OP enough just to be like "That blessing - its not yours anymore, kthx".

Related to story, they have a bit and I would like to see more/be not afraid to adjust areas to match story (there are some gameplay issues to be careful of course, but imo tangible change feels awesome).

Voice team has improved significantly since release, just felt like I should post that somewhere - I've definitely let every character talk rather than read ahead and skip. @Altijacek: Mmm, Xenogears. Lets see SE bring that story into an MMO. :P

Edit: Sorry, Spoilers (if you haven't watched the recent trailer/main story quest)

Aside: So.. with Raubahn's arm cut off will he get a metal arm, big sword, and become our Dark Knight trainer (Guts)...?

[Wizarus]

They've retconned the WoL's power level, without changing the real problem. I've yet to see any character development from the WoL since the very beginning of the story, where we state why we are headed to X with the friendly merchant. Even if our choices leads to the same outcome, the choice has to still be there.

I'm reminded of the Merovingians's speech from The Matrix. We are here because we were sent here, we were told to come here and we obeyed. And from my perspective, my WoL just headnods at everything, and goes to do what is asked of him because...I dont know. If Minfilia asked my WoL to jump off the Big Bridge in Coethas Central Highlands to get her a gil that she dropped, I really couldn't tell you if he would or not.

And while the WoL is the main offender, problem certainly doesn't stop there. Apart from Cid and Alphinaud, there has been barely, if any, character development from the main characters. Side character yes, but main? Nope. Most of them aren't even Penelo level from FF12, and she was slammed for having no purpose outside of being Vann's girlfriend.

The story as a whole isn't bad, but many main characters need some work unfortunately.