Stuffed Fridge

[Alleo]

I partly agree with the OP. I am normally quite fine if people get taken out of the story through injuries instead of just outright killing them. The sadness is still there, the character not available for a time and depending on the situation the character itself or others around them can grow. But Ysthola (and in that way Thancred too) just got hurt way too often. And seemingly nothing much changed for her at all.

She is directly struck down by Zenos who normally one hit kills people with his swords. Yet she suffered no consequences for this action. Then we have her eyes that seemingly kill her slowly because she is using aether to see (and this patch shows that she sees totally fine too) but as long as plot does not demand for it to be important its also of no consequence and depending on how they want to go with her we might even find a solution to her problem.

Thancred got taken out twice now too but at least he has suffered from the first one quite a lot. Not being able to use magic or teleport truly hinders him and makes him weaker. The situation with Minfilia and probably his loss of magic also changed his character a bit. Ysthola has none of that imo. Yes she is snarky like Matoya, especially in this patch but imo that is not something that creates a good well written character. At the same time she has so much knowledge, then the power to take down enemies like Magnai, no restriction that truly hinders her right now so seemingly she just might be too powerful for the plot and thus gets taken out a lot. But if such a character only exist for plot points and maybe even a bit it of fanservice then I do wonder why she should stay in the game at all. So SE either kill her off or just finally give her a role in this game and create a deeper character for her that develops through the game. Much more interesting characters got killed for less.

[Bright-Flower]

I partly agree with the OP. I am normally quite fine if people get taken out of the story through injuries instead of just outright killing them. The sadness is still there, the character not available for a time and depending on the situation the character itself or others around them can grow. But Ysthola (and in that way Thancred too) just got hurt way too often. And seemingly nothing much changed for her at all.

She is directly struck down by Zenos who normally one hit kills people with his swords. Yet she suffered no consequences for this action. Then we have her eyes that seemingly kill her slowly because she is using aether to see (and this patch shows that she sees totally fine too) but as long as plot does not demand for it to be important its also of no consequence and depending on how they want to go with her we might even find a solution to her problem.

Thancred got taken out twice now too but at least he has suffered from the first one quite a lot. Not being able to use magic or teleport truly hinders him and makes him weaker. The situation with Minfilia and probably his loss of magic also changed his character a bit. Ysthola has none of that imo. Yes she is snarky like Matoya, especially in this patch but imo that is not something that creates a good well written character. At the same time she has so much knowledge, then the power to take down enemies like Magnai, no restriction that truly hinders her right now so seemingly she just might be too powerful for the plot and thus gets taken out a lot. But if such a character only exist for plot points and maybe even a bit it of fanservice then I do wonder why she should stay in the game at all. So SE either kill her off or just finally give her a role in this game and create a deeper character for her that develops through the game. Much more interesting characters got killed for less.

Nothing has come of the eyes yet I'll admit, though it could in the future.

As for Zenos, she's hardly the only one. The WOL lost to Zenos twice and suffered no consequences for it. Even giving away the fact that we came to Doma had no negative consequences. Grynwaht attacking us in the Steppe only helped us to pull the Xaela tribes together to use against them. I guess Wilfred died but even the resistance overall didn't suffer any meaningful setbacks. Lip service was paid to the 'devesting defeat' at the Reach but the Resistance was still able to hold it with only one named character gone, and Y'shtola was at least out of commission longer than the WOL was. Zenos' tendency to get bored and walk away kind of kills consequences when he's involved a lot of the time.

[Alleo]

Nothing has come of the eyes yet I'll admit, though it could in the future.

As for Zenos, she's hardly the only one. The WOL lost to Zenos twice and suffered no consequences for it. Even giving away the fact that we came to Doma had no negative consequences. Grynwaht attacking us in the Steppe only helped us to pull the Xaela tribes together to use against them. I guess Wilfred died but even the resistance overall didn't suffer any meaningful setbacks. Lip service was paid to the 'devesting defeat' at the Reach but the Resistance was still able to hold it with only one named character gone, and Y'shtola was at least out of commission longer than the WOL was. Zenos' tendency to get bored and walk away kind of kills consequences when he's involved a lot of the time.

Yes and it will probably be a plot in the future, my problem is that it should be of consequence even now. The only one that truly suffers from that spell she used is Thancred. As the instance showed she can see perfectly fine too. At least let her view be much more restricted or anything like that. Because the loss of her life somewhere in the future is honestly not that much of a punishment if everything else stays the same.

The WoL got hit by Zenos but we were not bleeding from the attack and depending on how he hit us it might have not been much because he might have still wanted us as potential rivals. Ysthola was point black hit by a hard sword strike where he even used both hands to deliver it and we even see her bleeding out of the mouth. Yet somehow she did not bleed to death until we got there and has no lasting effect too. (As far as we know)

[Bright-Flower]

Yes and it will probably be a plot in the future, my problem is that it should be of consequence even now. The only one that truly suffers from that spell she used is Thancred. As the instance showed she can see perfectly fine too. At least let her view be much more restricted or anything like that. Because the loss of her life somewhere in the future is honestly not that much of a punishment if everything else stays the same.

The WoL got hit by Zenos but we were not bleeding from the attack and depending on how he hit us it might have not been much because he might have still wanted us as potential rivals. Ysthola was point black hit by a hard sword strike where he even used both hands to deliver it and we even see her bleeding out of the mouth. Yet somehow she did not bleed to death until we got there and has no lasting effect too. (As far as we know)

She was wounded enough to be put out of commission and was out of it longer than we were and she was immediately tended to by Krile. I don't have a problem with her just being injured to put her on a bus there instead of dying or something. Zenos is powerful but it's not like being hit by his sword is an instant 100% death.

As for the spell, there were only two people involved. Thancred suffered immediately repurcussions and y'shtola will likely suffer then down the road. I'm not really bothered by her blindness being something they're keeping on the back burner before using it catches up to her. It's something that will harm her eventually but not neccisarily right away.

[Alleo]

She was wounded enough to be put out of commission and was out of it longer than we were and she was immediately tended to by Krile. I don't have a problem with her just being injured to put her on a bus there instead of dying or something. Zenos is powerful but it's not like being hit by his sword is an instant 100% death.

As for the spell, there were only two people involved. Thancred suffered immediately repurcussions and y'shtola will likely suffer then down the road. I'm not really bothered by her blindness being something they're keeping on the back burner before using it catches up to her. It's something that will harm her eventually but not neccisarily right away.

Thankfully they did let her stay in bed for a longer time otherwise that would have been even worse. Its just a bit annoying to see the plot armor that much with certain people while others die easily. Meffrid at the same time also just got hit with a sword but instantly died. Every Garlean soldier that Zenos hit with his sword died from that one hit (and that with heavy armor on). Ysthola gets a direct hit, where he even uses strenght to break through her shield, thus he should have quite the power behind that slash. If this was any other NPC they would be death. If this was a 18+ game they would have probably be cut open. It was a hit strong enough to break her barrier. She also was not wearing any strong armor. For me its just too obvious that she somehow survives it because of her being part of other games and the post/fan girl of the game.

Also with the spell: Yes only two were involved and one suffered great throwbacks from which he suffers from the start while she can still see quite fine and maybe somewhere in the future this might hurt her. Would have been nice to have her not be able to do her job that good anymore. Maybe just have her be able to see in black and white or only distorted. Or maybe she can only use the aether for a certain amount of time per day thus have her in situations where she is limited to fight. Just something that makes it feel like something has happened to her at all.

And on top of that instead of building her character to more than just snarky, they have taken her out again.