Spoiler-ful advice to SE's Writing Team for Future Content.

[Fatestorm]

Stop killing off your entire cast of characters.

You are allowed to have a large cast of characters. There is no limit.

You are allowed to make the stakes high without killing your characters.

This is a video game, not a comic book.

That is all.

[HaelseMikiro]

I think the death toll of named characters for 4 years (earth time) of constant war with primals, garleans and dragons is actually at a reasonable level.
Moenbryda was a very short lived plot device used to give us an Ascian killing tool, show us that even Urianger can get embarrassed, and then do a lame asspull with "oh look, she left us a second crystal without saying anything, let's kill another Ascian".
Haurchefant went from minor side character to Best Bro Forever. As sad as his death was, it allowed for a tremendous amount of character growth in numerous others, and we may see those effects grow even greater in the future.
Ysayle had a splendid redemption arc spanning half the expansion, sad to see her go but I really can't imagine what else they could have done with her character by leaving her alive. Join the Scions? Start an orphanage for heretics? It's technically still a bad thing for Hydaelen every time she transforms.
Hydrus was a pure villain and his death would have been on our hands eventually anyways. Maybe we could sympathize with him for being the only humane Garlean officer ever, but his motives were (without question) to screw us over in the long run.
That last guy to recently die ..... I never saw a corpse, and this is SE we're talking about. Anything's possible.

[Naunet]

I think the death toll of named characters for 4 years (earth time) of constant war with primals, garleans and dragons is actually at a reasonable level.

It would be nice if they didn't kill off all of their actually interesting characters, leaving us with only the bland ones...

SE also has a bad habit of engaging in the act of "only give X character lots of development right before you kill them".

I don't like that the main emotional currency video game writers lean on involves killing off characters. Whenever I start to care about a character in a game, especially this one, I have to curb my investment because they're probably going to die.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This so much! It's cheap. And then of course SE actually fails to follow through on the ONE death that would have had legitimate build up and emotional impact (Sultana) because they... what, got scared? But I guess it's easy for them to create female characters to kill off whenever they please to fuel cheap emotional ends.

...if you guys think this game is bad for killing people, I could scarcely see you guys even survive reading Game of Thrones, much less watch it.

Killing a character should be something given serious thought. It should never be used simply to up emotional stakes. I despise Song of Ice & Fire/Game of Thrones because it uses that play far too much (among other reasons). Good writing does not have to depend on character death to stoke the flames of reader/viewer emotion. Instead, character death should be a carefully considered tool given proper respect and delivered with precision. When your readers spend more time guessing "Who is going to die next?" instead of getting invested in the story, then you have made a huge mistake.

[LineageRazor]

Killing a character should be something given serious thought. It should never be used simply to up emotional stakes. I despise Song of Ice & Fire/Game of Thrones because it uses that play far too much (among other reasons). Good writing does not have to depend on character death to stoke the flames of reader/viewer emotion. Instead, character death should be a carefully considered tool given proper respect and delivered with precision. When your readers spend more time guessing "Who is going to die next?" instead of getting invested in the story, then you have made a huge mistake.

I wouldn't say that Game of Thrones is "careless," exactly. It simply tends to deconstruct a lot of the tropes that we've gotten far too used to in fiction. The fact that a person is an important character, or has built up a lot of potential, is not enough to save them when an enemy has them dead-to-rights. Nor is a character entitled to a blaze of glory - many of them die senseless and ignoble deaths. We've gotten far too reliant on narrow escapes and last-minute rescues, and the fact that these things rarely happen when they "should" is one of the reasons folks get so surprised when they read the series. The death toll in Game of Thrones is interesting not because it is high, but in that so many of those deaths are completely unpredictable from the standpoint of a modern reader of fiction.

Does this game need to go a similar path in order to be narratively sound? No. However, the Final Fantasy fanbase has matured to the point where we really shouldn't be seeing things like a character sacrificing themselves with a bomb (FFIV's Cid) only to miraculously survive. Don't play games with our hearts!

[Airget]

Ya if anything I think the only trope I'd like them to refrain from using is introducing a fairly new character and quickly killing them off. it's fine if they take part in the overall plot like 1 and 2 spoilers but with Moenbryda, her "plot device" was a bit lame, to introduce her just for her to die.

[MisterLucie]

Or at the very least when they do "kill" a character and make a huge, emotional moment out of it... don't just cheapen it and miraculously bring them right back.

"oh jk she was sleepin lolz"

[Berethos]

Or at the very least when they do "kill" a character and make a huge, emotional moment out of it... don't just cheapen it and miraculously bring them right back.

"oh jk she was sleepin lolz"

Yeah - I get that they were going for in that story arc, that the Monetarists are much more in control than people thought, and it serves as a kind of break down moment for Raubahn as he goes from hell-bent on revenge to giving in for her sake...which will give the upcoming events involving him in Stormblood more dramatic weight (moments like after Baelsar's Wall and his look of resigned determination)...

But I don't think they sold what they were going for particularly well - instead of being all about this political intrigue and the fall and rise of the Bull of Ala Mhigo it comes across as a cheap "gotcha" at our expense.

[Berethos]

Stop killing off your entire cast of characters.

You are allowed to have a large cast of characters. There is no limit.

You are allowed to make the stakes high without killing your characters.

That's generally what they've been doing - killing off characters is a surprisingly uncommon event.

In fact, one of the criticisms of the 3.0 story, according to some anyway, is that they didn't kill off enough characters (especially after making it seem like we were going to lose some far earlier than any that we actually have).

I mean, I'd get the complaint if we kept having to learn a bunch of new faces every few story beats, but much of the cast is still around and we've even added to the ranks.

[Chiramu]

If they were killing off characters then the sultana would've died. I think that was my greatest HW disappointment, wish they didn't write that out .

Was surprised for a Lalafell to pass on in the story however, but it was necessary for Lyse to become stronger for SB.

[Shougun]

While I like the Sultana I was actually getting psyched for her to die.. I was like OMG YES THE CHAOS.. Ul'dah in flames! A new marketboard aetheryte! THIS IS GOING TO BE GR--- wait.. what!? Pfft. "yay my queen lived.. woopie.." lol

I thought Ul'dah was going to have a really center plot.. I hope they don't always move to a new area and a new area and a new area - never to revist the momentum of older areas (I understand focus moving forward, just don't forget about the old stuff either ).

Also I don't like people living too long, so I'm cool with all the death - to me it's important that you don't always know the death is coming though, makes it have a greater impact when it's actually a shock and not "lol, token chocobo".

They should definitely be concerned with expectation though, so I'm not suggesting every expansion be utter darkness.. and that's all we know from here till the end, but please don't "stop killing characters".