Is the game becoming too metaphysical for its own good?

[Kallera]

The crossovers bleeding into the setting,
Characters shedding names and personalities (yda and lyse, and now y’shtola and matoya),
Whole zones from ffxii and now nier being shoehorned in,
The disjointed nature of the trailer,
The empire being an extension of the Ascians,
And even us in our newfound employment,

I wish I can say for certain that I am looking forward to this expansion, I haven’t wanted to be the “Warrior of Light” for some time, but i’m not sure If I am. If anything, the disjointedness makes me fear the answers we will be getting regarding the shards, the empire and as such I wonder whether I should just “youtube it” and save myself the trouble instead of buying it. We are not getting “new characters” so much as slathering personalities on old bodies, like a bad rendition of the “saberface”.

It has a lot of questions I want answered, but I just don’t believe in the devs like I used to. I’m afraid of what will be left when this is over.

[Enla]

Honestly the writing has always been questionable to me. We just now have two expansions, soon to be three, worth of added bullshit to contend with so it's becoming a little harder to bear as time goes on. My only hope going into this expansion is that since this Minfillia seems like a child we'll have the opportunity for an entirely new character who just so happens to be Minfillia's reincarnation. Nurture versus nature and all that jazz, but it would feel a little more organic if they give her a new personality that way instead of what happened with Lyse.

As for the cross-overs, I don't really mind them but I can't say I'm surprised they're becoming more and more prominent. FFXIV is SE's most reliable cash cow, it sadly makes sense for them to insert cross-over content to drum up interest either in other properties or to get people who might like said other properties to try FFXIV. Could it be handled better? Most definitely. The Yo-Kai Watch event in particular is a prime example of how a cross-over can often be too out there for most of the player base, while I have yet to see anyone actually complain about the Garo Event beyond it being tied to PVP.

As for the rest of your concerns, I can't really rightfully address them. Save to say that if it gets to the point your frustrations reach their peak, a break from the game might be in order. Or to wait and see with the expansion and see if it's heading back on a track you'd be willing to support once out.

[xbahax92]

You are playing a MMO where the director and producer visions it as a theme park.
This isnt an ordinary fantasy MMORPG, more like a mix of everything. And especially with a lot of nostalgia for older/other games.
Aslong they make it right and tie it properly into the main story, I wont mind. But if they decide to just crash a meteor out of nowhere and tell me Jenova is gonna destroy eorzea, then I would assume they are getting slowly out of ideas.

[Kazrah]

The crossovers bleeding into the setting,
Characters shedding names and personalities (yda and lyse, and now y’shtola and matoya),
Whole zones from ffxii and now nier being shoehorned in,
The disjointed nature of the trailer,
The empire being an extension of the Ascians,
And even us in our newfound employment,

Crossovers boost sales for both parties involved (and FFXV will be nowhere near as bad of a crossover as Yo-Kai Watch being in the game),
Lyse more or less had a decent enough excuse to return to her true identity (and we don't know enough about y'shtola and matoya to make any judgment calls),
Rabanastre in XIV likely wouldn't be an exact equal to XII and still has yet to be adequately fleshed out,
We don't really have enough information between the Ascians and Garlemald,
And we won't exactly know how we make the jump until part 2 of the 4.5 main story comes out in 4.56.

In short, just wait. Everything will make more sense once we get to that new content.

[Kallera]

Crossovers boost sales for both parties involved (and FFXV will be nowhere near as bad of a crossover as Yo-Kai Watch being in the game),
Lyse more or less had a decent enough excuse to return to her true identity (and we don't know enough about y'shtola and matoya to make any judgment calls),
Rabanastre in XIV likely wouldn't be an exact equal to XII and still has yet to be adequately fleshed out,
We don't really have enough information between the Ascians and Garlemald,
And we won't exactly know how we make the jump until part 2 of the 4.5 main story comes out in 4.56.

In short, just wait. Everything will make more sense once we get to that new content.

That’s the thing, though, will things make sense or will I get an explanation, there’s a difference.

[linay]

That’s the thing, though, will things make sense or will I get an explanation, there’s a difference.

Hopefully it will make sense because it can be explained.

[briarth0rn]

I'm not sure why everyone points to the Ivalice-based areas as feeling out of place in this game- I don't think Rabanastre and Dalmasca existing in Hydaelyn is any stranger than having Doma or Costa Del Sol. These places are all well integrated into the setting, and I trust any new places they add- even wherever we're going in the Nier Automata raids- to be written in just as well.

I'm a bit anxious myself since, at this point in time before the expansion, I think they've been a lot more cryptic and I'm not as certain about what Shadowbringers will bring story-wise as I was about Heavensward or Stormblood before those came out. But aside from sometimes being too short, I've yet to be disappointed by the MSQ in any patch that I can remember, and for now I have faith that ShB will have a campaign just as enjoyable as the last two.

[Theodric]

My only real concern at this point is that quite a few interesting characters have been killed off for good and then never mentioned again after a certain point yet the story bends over backwards to keep the likes of Minfilia around even though they received very mixed reactions. It really sucks when a character is written out of the plot or killed off only to be brought back through contrived means - because intentionally or otherwise it's a kick in the teeth for those of us who know that our favourite characters are not going to receive the same treatment. A bit more consistency and commitment would be appreciated in that regard.

[AnimaAnimus]

My only real concern at this point is that quite a few interesting characters have been killed off for good and then never mentioned again after a certain point yet the story bends over backwards to keep the likes of Minfilia around even though they received very mixed reactions. It really sucks when a character is written out of the plot or killed off only to be brought back through contrived means - because intentionally or otherwise it's a kick in the teeth for those of us who know that our favourite characters are not going to receive the same treatment. A bit more consistency and commitment would be appreciated in that regard.

I think the problem with Min is that unless you played v1 you don't care about her or know that much about her, she is just some random npc that gets kidnapped a lot. They went much deeper with her in v1 and I think they forget ppl who didn't play that version don't really get why the character is important, esp to the other scions.

[Kallera]

I'm not sure why everyone points to the Ivalice-based areas as feeling out of place in this game- I don't think Rabanastre and Dalmasca existing in Hydaelyn is any stranger than having Doma or Costa Del Sol. These places are all well integrated into the setting, and I trust any new places they add- even wherever we're going in the Nier Automata raids- to be written in just as well.

I'm a bit anxious myself since, at this point in time before the expansion, I think they've been a lot more cryptic and I'm not as certain about what Shadowbringers will bring story-wise as I was about Heavensward or Stormblood before those came out. But aside from sometimes being too short, I've yet to be disappointed by the MSQ in any patch that I can remember, and for now I have faith that ShB will have a campaign just as enjoyable as the last two.

I tend to enjoy the campaign at the outset, but then certain parts of it age very badly when I keep thinking about them. Ivalice as a region, to me, feels like it isn't inspired so much as lifting whole parts of the game and putting it in ffxiv. I might not like eorzea very much, but at least it was a unique setting. The only thing original about Noah van Gabranth is his middle name.