Generally, do you like the lore/story so far?

[Hycinthus]

Just speaking generally, do you guys like the story so far? What do you like the least about the story or lore, honestly?

For me, call me simple or spoiled with Western RPG, but I’m feeling more and more alienated with the story. Don’t get me wrong, up to 5.3 I still truly enjoyed it and was still engaged, however, there are more and more glimpses of the story that is verging towards “Kingdom Hearts-ish convoluted” style, it’s hard to explain but I think you know what I mean.

I don’t really enjoy lores about realm of mixed souls, mixed identities, memories, Ryne Minfilia reincarnation, corporeal spirit, etc etc , and recently these lores are getting stronger and more elaborate and more complex.

I’d rather they focus with the war, liberation, storyline without going into the realm of “intangibles”.

I know FF are always a combination of both, but just want to hear what you think so far.

[Brightamethyst]

While I might normally agree, I'm okay with, and actually really like the complicated soul/spirit/Echo/Ascian/whatever stuff here. For all the crazy revelations we've gotten in ShB none of it felt out of place to me. Everything we've learned has felt like an expansion or explanation of existing lore, rather than something the writers pulled out of their asses at the last second (aka, most of Kingdom Hearts.)

[Alenore]

It's probably the opposite for me.
The whole soul / reflections / Ancient things is probably what I like the most. The whole powerpoint thingy about soul, aetherial sea etc we had in 2.x was totally my kind of thing, just like Urianger explainign the Umbral/Astral - Light/Darkness concept.

But then I spend half of my free time worlbuilding a D&D setting, so if I didn't like that...

[Alleo]

Story is a hit or miss for me depending on the expansion. Stormblood for example was less appealing to me than Heavensward or Shadowbringer. This often comes down to the characters. I just dont like Lyse so having her as one of the main characters for the expansion was a downer to me. I am also not a fan of Yotsuyu and her little amnesia arc and Zenos should have stayed death. In general I get the feeling that female enemies get way more a pass than the males.

I am also not that much a fan of 4th wall breakings and puns in the MSQ so I hope that most of it stays out of there..

They also like to hype up the story quite a bit and be like "you will never guess who the trial will be" but in the end of it most of us think way too much about the story and the real deal is then quite predictable. (Which is not always a bad thing) They do like to play the emotional cards with sacrifices and deaths and at the same time they do love their fake deaths which are horrible. Either dont kill them or do but dont put them in situations where they should have 100% died but somehow did not..

Not quite the standard for normal story focused game but good enough for an MMO.

[Yuella]

I like JRPG stories that are grounded like nations vs nations, men vs men so I actually like Stormblood a lot. I know FF games generally start with men vs men only to end up with men vs gods.

[Vyrerus]

You say you're spoiled by Western RPGs, but Western RPGs often do similar things. For instance, Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind has you play the reincarnation of the Nerevar. Diablo 3... /vomits a little... reveals that you're actually super ancient souls of descendants of the, "Nephilim." and that's why you can kill both angels and demons with relative ease. Baldur's Gate II has you be the mortal progeny of a God of Murder. I don't think plotlines like that are any less wishy-washy or convoluted than a JRPG plot or FFXIV's.

As far as what I think... well I don't think it's perfect. I think the corporeal souls thing was more or less a bridge too far that was only incorporated to put the Scions on The First. Now that it's rectified I don't see it happening again. I also think we're in for a bit more grounded expansion with 6.0. I could be wrong, obviously, but they like to keep FFXIV somewhat formulaic. ARR was somewhat grounded, all things considered, but Heavensward really started to up the stakes. Then we got grounded again while simultaneously increasing the stakes in Stormblood, but there was a sort of whiplash, because they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Then Shadowbringers raised the stakes even higher, involved time travel, ancient civilization, souls etc. We're going to go back to the liberation front, probably, as I don't see them being able to 100% finish up all the ramifications that come with knocking over the largest empire on the planet with just 5.4 and 5.5. But maybe that's mainly just Bozja? Anywho, next expansion will be a grounded trough, intended to setup FFXIV-2 Eclectic Boogaloo 1.0 - The Quest for More Money.

The story they've built up to now isn't going anywhere for a while. Our past self/soul and all that will be called into play until it comes time to truly cast off the shackles of the past. I think Fandango is gonna be the plot device for that. We'll see. I'm so invested in the game I don't think I could honestly say I don't like the story as a whole or the direction it's taken. I am eating this shit up, hook, line, and sinker!

[Cilia]

Broadly speaking I have enjoyed the lore so far. The world itself is an interesting place... certain storylines less so.

Without getting into specifics, A Realm Reborn was a nice introduction to the world, Heavensward was a pretty trite "cycle of revenge" story, Stormblood had serious pacing problems that made the Ala Mhigan "half" feel like an afterthought, and Shadowbringers was all-around excellent.

The writing has been consistently good enough to hold my attention though.

[JeanneOrnitier]

ABsolutely, yes. Shadowbringers is one of the best stories in a game I have ever played, it has everything I enjoy in a JRPG in one place. My favorite game series of all time is Kingdom Hearts and Shadowbringers is evocative of it in many ways.

The only time I didn't enjoy the MSQ was Stormblood, which was a slog from launch to the last patch. It had serious pacing issues, they tried too hard to make Yotsuyu sympathetic when she was too cruel to deserve any sympathy, and Zenos was a horrid, flat character of a villain. I enjoyed its side stories like the raids and trial series though.

[Hycinthus]

While I might normally agree, I'm okay with, and actually really like the complicated soul/spirit/Echo/Ascian/whatever stuff here. For all the crazy revelations we've gotten in ShB none of it felt out of place to me. Everything we've learned has felt like an expansion or explanation of existing lore, rather than something the writers pulled out of their asses at the last second (aka, most of Kingdom Hearts.)

Great input all around guys and nice to see different perspective.

Yes, I don’t disagree with you, so far it’s still okay, and hope it remains that way and not dragged too far into the than what we have so far. I just had a feeling that it may, and if it does, hope it doesn’t go into KH style. Maybe I’m biased with Square Enix, recently they put similar weirdness in the FF7R, and it’s really just my preference, I just don’t really tune in when they play around these themes.

I guess the other poster is correct, seems like the set up for 6.0 is returning to more grounded theme and topic.

[Cilia]

ABsolutely, yes. Shadowbringers is one of the best stories in a game I have ever played, it has everything I enjoy in a JRPG in one place. My favorite game series of all time is Kingdom Hearts and Shadowbringers is evocative of it in many ways.

The only time I didn't enjoy the MSQ was Stormblood, which was a slog from launch to the last patch. It had serious pacing issues, they tried too hard to make Yotsuyu sympathetic when she was too cruel to deserve any sympathy, and Zenos was a horrid, flat character of a villain. I enjoyed its side stories like the raids and trial series though.

The problem with Yotsuyu was that 4.0 didn't make any attempt to garner sympathy for her, so 4.2 / 4.3 had to shoulder that entire burden... and 2 patch stories aren't going to do that well. It worked for me, but that's because I understand the cultural context; being from a Japan-inspired nation, Yotsuyu's story is a scathing critique of the prevailing collectivist mindset in the East (whereby individual needs and desires are put on the backburner in favor of the collective good). Yotsuyu's abusive life was ignored by the Domans in order to collectively save face, so her wrath is understandable... even if her actions are still unpardonable.

Zenos was a pretty typical shonen rival for the PC. Nothing special, though his character did have some interesting things to say about Varis and Garlean culture.

I didn't particularly care for the Return to Ivalice series (I've ceased making an effort to hide my dislike of Ivalice and this game's heavy reliance on references to it; cutting and pasting locales from that world into here along with adaptations of its characters just took it to another level) and of the Four Lords trials only Suzaku was particularly interesting story-wise. Despite going even further than references to past titles Omega was halfway interesting, though the "killer robot learns what it means to have a soul" bit was rather predictable. (Aside from the bait and switch with 2P, my main complaint against YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse is that it appears to be going the same route Omega did just last expansion... and NieR: Automata also explored it in great detail.)

Great input all around guys and nice to see different perspective.

Yes, I don’t disagree with you, so far it’s still okay, and hope it remains that way and not dragged too far into the than what we have so far. I just had a feeling that it may, and if it does, hope it doesn’t go into KH style. Maybe I’m biased with Square Enix, recently they put similar weirdness in the FF7R, and it’s really just my preference, I just don’t really tune in when they play around these themes.

I guess the other poster is correct, seems like the set up for 6.0 is returning to more grounded theme and topic.

If you're bringing up Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy VII Remake, I'd wager your complaint is less against SE as a whole and more against Tetsuya Nomura's "throw stuff in out of left field for surprises" MO. I happen to agree with this complaint, but Nomura isn't involved with this game beyond contributing some designs for the Eden raids so I'm not terribly concerned with that.

I could go on for hours about that kind of stuff but I ceased being interested in lengthy diatribes years ago, so only at personal request.