Can we get choices that really matter and have a effect?

[DPZ2]

That being said, I would be all for more dialogue options in general or, at the very least, for all of them to actually have an effect on the response you get.

You aren't paying as much attention to the dialogues then. If you go back to a cut-scene with dialogue and select option (a), then replay it and select option (b) you will, in almost all cases, see different replies. Eventually, the dialogue plays out the same way, but the immediate responses may differ.

[KaitoAsaha]

In the perfect world, where their team was properly staffed with enough members, I would love for this to be a thing. You know that New Game+ feature? I'm glad it's there for people that will use it, but for me I have absolutely no reason to touch it. But if we're given branching paths, where our decisions lock us out of another route, and can only be explored in New Game+ then count me in.

[DPZ2]

Not saying anything major like good/evil choices but sometimes through the story I personally would have made a choice to Join with zenos or help Emat

Choices have consequences.

In the case of one of your favorites, Emet, you don't learn enough about what you appear to consider The Truth until it is too late. Your choices at that point are

(a) die in an explosion of light that triggers the next calamity or (b) fight and defeat Emet.

Option (a) is End of Story. You aren't invited to the after-party. You can now unsub as you've won(?) the game.

Option (b) plays out as it does in game.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Choices have consequences.

In the case of one of your favorites, Emet, you don't learn enough about what you appear to consider The Truth until it is too late. Your choices at that point are (a) die in an explosion of light that triggers the next calamity or (b) fight and defeat Emet.

Option (a) is End of Story. You aren't invited to the after-party. You can now unsub as you've won(?) the game.

Option (b) plays out as it does in game.

Thats my very point given the choie would lead to both side consequence it doesn't have to flat out end just because you choice to be a spy for ascians until the story reachs the end of the story which would have 2 options

Option 1: you aid the rejoining and story ends with you as the new leader of the ascions
option 2: you wipe out the threat completely blah blah save meaningless lifes basic booring goody toe shoes ending.

Even though I don't like microsoft one example of the flow-chart time line that could work fine is Fable you can literaly just create a story and before you enter it grant two options option 1. basic(good) option 2: bad maybe like helping a guy steal a item or betray and give information to the good choices enemys or help a primal be summoned.

[DPZ2]

Option 1: you aid the rejoining and story ends with you as the new leader of the ascions

Didn't you pay attention to the end of the story line?

Emet considers you flawed and broken, a suitable tool to bring about a Calamity, but no more.

You are not one of the candidates for Ascian of the Month.

My advice -- write fan fiction using the story line you just described and post it. You can totally control that story and the rest of us can continue to play the game.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Didn't you pay attention to the end of the story line?

Emet considers you flawed and broken, a suitable tool to bring about a Calamity, but no more.

You are not one of the candidates for Ascian of the Month.

My advice -- write fan fiction using the story line you just described and post it. You can totally control that story and the rest of us can continue to play the game.

did you? at the ending he values your worth on the final scene and ask you to not forget them at the very ending of him he no values you completely after the battle.

[DPZ2]

did you? at the ending he values your worth on the final scene and ask you to not forget them at the very ending of him he no values you completely after the battle.

What I saw in that last scene was the final stage of grief: acceptance.

No value judgement necessary.

[Saix027]

I only wish they woudl stop with this, by now, running gag, "That was a good joke Warrior of Light/Darkness, now go ahead and be our errand boy/girl as usual."
If we not have a real impact then stop with this gag aswell please, optional dialog is nice but not if it turns into a joke by now that our choices not matter.
You know what is also a choice? Quitting the game and unsubbing SE! Some friends sadly did such because of exactly such reasons, fun moments in a serious story can work but not like this.

[Bright-Flower]

I love meaningful choices in single player games.

In an MMO like this though I think it's better to have one consistent story, rather than having branching paths.

Killing the three grand company leaders I'll use as an example. If you have one story path where they live and another where you kill them, that complicates story telling going forward. They basically then can't write those characters into the msq anymore because the msq has to account for them being both alive and dead. The longer the story goes, the more difficult this becomes to both make the choices meaningful and not homogenize the results. I think choices like these are better not only for single player games, but isolated single player games. Mass Effect 3 for example struggled with making the choices of prior games meaningful in many areas. Imagine those kinds of complications but across 4 or 5 expansions or however much longer FFXIV goes.

I'm all for these kinds of choices in one off single player games. But in a long term ongoing story like this, it would just create problems.

Also it would muddy things for RP. Does your character exist in a world where the GC leaders were assassinated or not? In a world where the WOL went rogue and joined with Zenos or not? In an MMORPG I feel it's better to have a consistent main story so that everyone is on the same page, and save branching narratives and weighty choices for single player games.

Some franchises can mtigate this by having new games take place in different places to minimize the impact of the choices from prior games, and provide new ones in a new place, but that also minimizes the effects of the choices you made in the prior game in the grand scheme of things.

While some games pull off branching narratives well my favorite medium for it is actually tabletop games where the DM has full freedom to explore your choices and create consequences for them without having account for developers coding different branches and trying to make a game that can account for all these different choices without development time ballooning.

Alternate endings can be a good thing too, and then a sequel can just pick one of those endings or leave it vague if the consequences aren't extremely different. (Or in the case of ME Andromeda, find a clever way to shift the setting to escape the wide reaching scope of the prior ending. About the only compliment I'll give Andromeda was the cleverness of its premise to continue the ME setting without continuing the old plot.)

But alternate endings are very different from mid story consequences, and FFXIV can't have 'alternate endings' because it's a singular ongoing story. HW was not ARR 2, it was just continuing along the same game. Same with SB and SHB. You can't really have alternate endings at the end of a X.0 patch when you're continuing the msq in a few months with X.1 etc. Or the same with X.55 int Y.0.

It would also be a jarring shift for people that like the current story, to make such a change one soft reboot and three or four expansions in. It's a bit late to say 'okay now are linear story driven MMO is going to become open and choice driven with wildly different story paths.'

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

What I find Jarring Flower is the story seems forced against characters that we all can agree on are correct and have every right to take the action they choice.. even when Emat set asked the twins what would they do they flat out admit they would have done the same as him.

Just like Niddhogg was correct ishgard desevered to burn his revenge was justice ... yet unphased because thats what pathic heros do go against such actions and change nothing just open more doors the same thing over over again