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

[Packetdancer]

To add to this (thank you, forum post 3000 character length limit):

I think in fact that Heavensward and Shadowbringers are each a contrast between a failure and a success in similar positions. (Again, probably why they're somewhat stronger narratives than Stormblood.)

In Heavensward, you have several people who've lost loved ones to this conflict. Nidhogg and Hraesvalgr lost their sister, Aymeric has lost men and women he's trained and lived with—people who are more his family than his father, in truth. Nidhogg lives in that pain, dwelling on it, like picking at the scab on a wound. He's unable or unwilling to move past it. Aymeric, however, is willing and able to put aside that loss and try to reach for a new day. To reach for a future where people don't have to keep dying, on either side. One where dragon and mankind can live... if not in cooperation, at least in coexistence.

In Shadowbringers, you have two people—Emet-Selch and Thancred—who have each lost someone very dear to them. Each of them keeps company during the Shadowbringers arc with someone who isn't that person, but is all that's left of them. In Emet-Selch's case it's the Warrior of Light/Darkness, in Thancred's, it's Ryne. And in the end, Thancred is able to move on. He's able to make his peace with Minfilia's loss, and accept that while Ryne isn't Minfilia she has as much—if not more—right to live as Minfilia does. Emet-Selch is not able to do the same thing. You could argue that he tries, in his broken way; he 'tests' the Warrior of Light to see if you're 'as good as' the Amaurotian loved one he lost. But unlike Thancred, he proves unable to move on from the pain of the past, whether because of his Tempering by Zodiark or whether just because it's not in him to do.

That makes them interesting villains, and more compelling than many you find in video games because their motives are tragically understandable, even if we vehemently disagree with how they act on them. I don't think many people will debate that.

And while it might be interesting to see the story where it all goes wrong—where the world burns, and everyone dies, or the hero falls—it is not practical from a technological standpoint to tell two wildly and fundamentally divergent stories at the same time in an MMO. (Speaking here as a former game developer for a moment, back before the crunch time mentality burned me out.) So there's only space for one story... and the story that SquareEnix demonstrably wants to tell is about what happens when you can move past your pain and loss. The strength you can find when you accept them, and make them part of you rather than letting them control you. (See also: the entire DRK job quest storyline.)

It's a narrative element they've hit repeatedly across multiple expansions, and it's one I expect they'll keep hitting.

And if that's not to your taste, perhaps the game isn't the right one for you.