Ivalice may not continue

[KizuyaKatogami]

This entire thing just felt so sad but also extremely frustrated me. The Ivalice story series was probably the most invested story i’ve been in for this mmo. Yes, even more than the msq. I’ve been looking forward since SB to get to have a 1 on 1 with Gabranth and either get to talk with him or at least have a trial with him. Instead, we get absolutely nothing in that regard, the bozja story is rushed and 90% of the actual plot line is thrown away off screen. It’s just extremely extremely lazy to me. Maybe if we didn’t have the horrible nier story and epilogue taking away resources we could’ve at least gotten an ending scene. This honestly doesn’t give me much hope for 6.0. The fact that they had to rush so much to try and fit everything in for this storyline and still weren’t able to fit 90% of it in is scary, considering we’re kind of dealing with the same stuff in 6.0 It was supposed to extend to 7.0 but they now made it 6.0 with no post patches to tie up the story. They’re just shoving it into 6.0 and that’s it. At this point if i see the same thing happen in 6.0 to the msq i’m done with this game.

[ReynTime]

I really enjoyed it so I think it's kind of a bummer that it won't continue. Anyone else feel they really waste interesting garlean characters?

It always felt to me the vast majority of Garlemald is treated with certain disdain. As if it's a "necessary plot device" they borrowed from the 1.X lore they hate so much. Which is why we're not even getting a proper wrap-up by actually going there to finish what we started. Instead they just have it implode off-screen...

[Lauront]

Base 5.0, some of 5.3 and the Ivalice content have been the highlights so far of the game's story telling, so it is most unfortunate that it won't be continuing.

[KizuyaKatogami]

It always felt to me the vast majority of Garlemald is treated with certain disdain. As if it's a "necessary plot device" they borrowed from the 1.X lore they hate so much. Which is why we're not even getting a proper wrap-up by actually going there to finish what we started. Instead they just have it implode off-screen...

I suspect a part of the playerbase plays a role in this tbh. There were hints to it in SB when Ramza had mentioned how not all of Garlemald was bad, or rotten. A good amount of the playerbase absolutely lost their shit over that and was questioning SE lmao. People can’t stand Garlemald and just see it as such an evil thing so anything that even hints that there’s some good in it, they hate. I’ve given my thoughts in other threads but i don’t think Garlemald was ever meant to be destroyed or at least not this early. Since the arc was supposed to extend to 7.0, who knows how different the story would’ve been. Destroying Garlemald just seems like their lazy way to ease writing and tie up plot threads without putting actual work into it because who even knows. I feel for Matsuno because you can tell he isn’t happy about the news and it makes me wonder if they put insane limitations on him in Bozja since he tends to like darker stories and sacrifice. Two things SE doesn’t really like when it comes to the protagonist side of things.

[Jandor]

It's a little ironic considering you are playing FF "14". A game series that has always been about constant themes. Crystals, Summons, moogles, chocobos, Cid, airships, warrior of light.

A game series that has also told a new story with each main game.

You haven't needed to know what happened in any previous main FF games to follow the plot of a new one, that should still be the case in XIV too.


edit:

Also, what a dark timeline to live in where Matsuno moves on from XIV without any fanfare and farewell, while Yoko Taro who gave us some of the worst writing in XIV in years is invited on for the next Live Letter.

Despite my previous comments I do broadly agree with this.

As I said, I think Bozja was pretty decent, and while I wasn't personally a fan of the Ivalice raids I still wouldn't go so far as to say they were terrible or anything, at least the fans of XII and its spin-offs seem to really like the XIV stuff so it has that going for it.

The writing for the Nier raid was disappointing though, and I really like Automata. Even fans further down the rabbit-hole of the whole Nier series didn't really seem that enamored with the raids beyond enjoying getting the references.

[KuroMaboroshi]

Sure, Matsuno's contributions were exposition-heavy, but they added so much to the worldbuilding of XIV in fleshing out the IVth Legion and basically the entirety of southeastern Ilsabard and western Orthard. The non-lore story and character writing was nothing spectacular, but competent enough to be on par with the writing of other side quest and not stand out negatively. And concepts like the Field Notes I would absolutely love for the developers to also carry over to other content. While it is just an exposition dump, it is a great way to supplement information that's usually reserved for the Encyclopedias into the actual game.
Overall, I think his contribution has been a net positive for the game and as I was very much looking forward to the Dalmascan liberation they hinted at at the end of Bozja as involving the Warrior of Light. I will miss Matsuno's work for XIV.

Also, what a dark timeline to live in where Matsuno moves on from XIV without any fanfare and farewell, while Yoko Taro who gave us some of the worst writing in XIV in years is invited on for the next Live Letter.

[Theodric]

It always felt to me the vast majority of Garlemald is treated with certain disdain. As if it's a "necessary plot device" they borrowed from the 1.X lore they hate so much. Which is why we're not even getting a proper wrap-up by actually going there to finish what we started. Instead they just have it implode off-screen...

I get the same impression to an extent, though I do not think it is intentional so much as a grim realisation from the development team that no matter what they do with Garlemald there's a sizeable portion of unhinged FFXIV players who spend a significant amount of time and energy attacking anyone who likes Garlemald on Twitter, Reddit and this site's very own lore forum.

More than once I've seen a simple compliment of Varis, Gaius or Regula turn into accusations of supporting 'fascism', 'genocide' and 'murder'. I've even had death threats sent my way over it from time to time.

It isn't so much the case that Garlemald is unpopular, though. It has a lot of fans - though many of them are less vocal due to the above reasoning. When I role-played on Balmung, I encountered roughly a hundred different Garlean characters in either direct contact or passing.

To a similar degree, you see the same questionable attacks aimed at players who voice a fondness for the Ascians, especially Emet-Selch.

Ultimately, Yoshi-P claims to be a huge fan of the Ivalice games. Though I'd be lying if I said I was disappointed that the fondness apparently didn't extent to the point of making FFXIV's Empire go in a similar direction to FFXII's Empire. I always thought that game handled the 'Empire' trope exceptionally well, since it didn't destroy it - it reformed it.

I'm willing to wait and see what FFXIV does when it has a completely clean slate to work with, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't already eyeing some of the upcoming MMO's as potential options to hop over to if they're good. Pretty much everything I liked about the game's lore is due to wrap up with 6.0 and the push to have every in-game nation and race conform to the same set of ideals makes for a rather dull and predictable low stakes story in my opinion.

For example, I really want to explore more of Hingashi but I don't want to see the Hingans lectured for daring to keep 'Ijin' at bay. So far, pretty much every nation we have visited has effectively been defanged and any grit eroded away almost completely.

Ishgard and Ala Mhigo included.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Sure, Matsuno's contributions were exposition-heavy, but they added so much to the worldbuilding of XIV in fleshing out the IVth Legion and basically the entirety of southeastern Ilsabard and western Orthard. The non-lore story and character writing was nothing spectacular, but competent enough to be on par with the writing of other side quest and not stand out negatively. And concepts like the Field Notes I would absolutely love for the developers to also carry over to other content. While it is just an exposition dump, it is a great way to supplement information that's usually reserved for the Encyclopedias into the actual game.
Overall, I think his contribution has been a net positive for the game and as I was very much looking forward to the Dalmascan liberation they hinted at at the end of Bozja as involving the Warrior of Light. I will miss Matsuno's work for XIV.

Also, what a dark timeline to live in where Matsuno moves on from XIV without any fanfare and farewell, while Yoko Taro who gave us some of the worst writing in XIV in years is invited on for the next Live Letter.

I agree 100% with this post. With the latter, i didn’t even know he was invited...this is a dark timeline indeed. People can bash bozja all they want for incorporating 12 and tactics story into it and being exposition heavy, but at least it made sense and you were given the story in this game. That can’t be said for the Nier series, which is literal 100% fanservice. That raid series was honestly just a constant disappointment between the glams, the bosses, the storyline. The fact they’re having Yoko Taro of all people on there instead of one of their long time writers is tragic.

[RyuDragnier]

I'm going to use this to make another of my unpopular opinions. I wish FFXIV would stop dragging things in from other FF games. It makes me, and I assume at least some others who this as the only FF game they have played feel a little "left out". Even if content is good, you still get that feeling because "oh this is a reference to FF ## and means blah blah blah". Well I could never get into old FF games and didn't play FF ##.

It's also annoying when you hear someone spout some lore point and ask where that's from and you get "oh it was that way in FF YY". Take Male Viera as an example, so many people spouting all this lore about them "oh it was this way in [whatever previous game they were in], so it's going to be that way in FFXIV"

It really does start pissing me off to hear that about half the content it seems like.

Make more original stuff, and less transplanted stuff so we all experience together without the people who have played every FF since the beginning of time knowing half the story.

I mean, SE has at least some awareness of it when they actually made a big deal about the new raids being FFXIV original. I mean think about that, they had to make an issue of that, in every other MMO that would be a given.

And this as an issue is going to grow as more non long time FF players are coming to the game.

Now I'm not against easter eggs and the like, but this has gone WAY beyond that.

Unfortunately (for you), dragging in stuff from other FF games is what helped save FFXIV (1.x had none of those), and helped lead to the game being as big as it is today. Ivalice helped me drag in several of my friends who love FFT, Eden dragged in a friend who loves FF8, the Weapons helped convince a few friends who love FF7. Those references you hate so much help get people interested into this game, so there's no way in hell they'll ever stop.

[ReynTime]

I get the same impression to an extent, though I do not think it is intentional so much as a grim realisation from the development team that no matter what they do with Garlemald there's a sizeable portion of unhinged FFXIV players who spend a significant amount of time and energy attacking anyone who likes Garlemald on Twitter, Reddit and this site's very own lore forum.

More than once I've seen a simple compliment of Varis, Gaius or Regula turn into accusations of supporting 'fascism', 'genocide' and 'murder'. I've even had death threats sent my way over it from time to time.

It isn't so much the case that Garlemald is unpopular, though. It has a lot of fans - though many of them are less vocal due to the above reasoning. When I role-played on Balmung, I encountered roughly a hundred different Garlean characters in either direct contact or passing.

To a similar degree, you see the same questionable attacks aimed at players who voice a fondness for the Ascians, especially Emet-Selch.

Ultimately, Yoshi-P claims to be a huge fan of the Ivalice games. Though I'd be lying if I said I was disappointed that the fondness apparently didn't extent to the point of making FFXIV's Empire go in a similar direction to FFXII's Empire. I always thought that game handled the 'Empire' trope exceptionally well, since it didn't destroy it - it reformed it.

I'm willing to wait and see what FFXIV does when it has a completely clean slate to work with, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't already eyeing some of the upcoming MMO's as potential options to hop over to if they're good. Pretty much everything I liked about the game's lore is due to wrap up with 6.0 and the push to have every in-game nation and race conform to the same set of ideals makes for a rather dull and predictable low stakes story in my opinion.

For example, I really want to explore more of Hingashi but I don't want to see the Hingans lectured for daring to keep 'Ijin' at bay. So far, pretty much every nation we have visited has effectively been defanged and any grit eroded away almost completely.

Ishgard and Ala Mhigo included.

That's part of why I plan to leave after I finish 6.0.
Aside from gameplay changes that have not sat well with me, the points I care about in the main story are either getting wrapped up or never being revisited or expanded upon again (including a lot of stuff teased in 1.X and 2.X).

I criticised Matsuno's way of dumping exposition but I'm not trying to discredit the stories he makes themselves. I just don't like the means he does it sometimes.