NPC recognition in Endwalker

[Cleretic]

I suspect all Job story NPCs will return in the Job role quest for Endwalker.

I have heard this theory, but I think that gets to be a bit of a struggle because you have to grapple with the logistics of writing something that's in-keeping for every single job NPC you pick, no matter where the player is in their story. Because frankly, the big draw of this one would be the acknowledgement of how you know all these people.

Like, let's just take tanks as an example (because low-key I think they have the biggest problems):

Paladin: Jenlyns goes from outright loathing the notion of being helped to readily acknowledging that the WoL is their superior, and the Sultansworn itself from being in ill-repute, to being noted as a total sham, to rebuilding its legitimacy. Solkzagyl from a disgraced thief, to dead, to... not dead but weirdly manipulative and of questionable morals. Constaint wasn't even around for ARR. You could drag in the Gladiators' Guild for them, but then Mylla goes from a woman of shaky convictions, positional legitimacy and emotional standing to a strong leader but ultimately lesser warrior, while Aldis goes from disgraced, to put to death, to a wanderer, to a masked anonymous agent, to a Samurai.

Warrior: So, there's no question you're going with Curious Gorge for the representative here. But in ARR he's a generally serious man struggling with the burden of the Inner Beast and occasionally giving in to it; in Heavensward he's basically tried to swear off Warrior-ing entirely, and in SB and ShB he takes a complete tonal swerve as the entire story becomes a rom-com. This one might be the hardest, because his entire direction shifts in a way you can't just conditionalize, and presenting one while the player is in the other will feel wrong.

Gunbreaker: Actually pretty much fine, because you're gonna be putting forward Radovan, and his character remains largely the same. You might want to also factor in Bozja progress with him, though, for some two-dimensional conditionalized dialog.

Dark Knight: Well... to summarize, OH NO! We're basically forced to use Sidurgu, because Fray has existence problems, so already we're going with the less popular character. But Sidurgu's not in 30-50 DRK and so is a complete whiff there, and goes through some crucially important character development that would basically influence all of his dialogue over the course of HW and to a lesser extent SB. And then we have to factor in Rielle; reasonably speaking Sidurgu's not gonna leave her behind, even though he really should, and how much she respects him changes immensely over the course of the storyline.

[Iscah]

I have heard this theory, but I think that gets to be a bit of a struggle because you have to grapple with the logistics of writing something that's in-keeping for every single job NPC you pick, no matter where the player is in their story. Because frankly, the big draw of this one would be the acknowledgement of how you know all these people.

Agreed on this. It seems impossible to write a story featuring all the job quest people within the game's approach to optional storylines. (That is, if you haven't personally done it then – with some rare and early exceptions – it hasn't happened at all yet.)

If the job quest characters get a victory lap then I would expect something on par with the Heroes' Gauntlet where the role quest characters fight alongside us. They have variable dialogue depending on your progress with each quest line individually, but there's no need for them to relate to each other or drive any kind of plot.

[EdwinLi]

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The development team has cover this issue before with certain side stories (though hard to remember which one due to how many there are now) that have effect on the story or side story in some way due to being set before that specific point in the story. It was mostly they let the event play out the same but with the exception that WoL was not involved in that side story.

[Cleretic]

The development team has cover this issue before with certain side stories (though hard to remember which one due to how many there are now) that have effect on the story or side story in some way due to being set before that specific point in the story. It was mostly they let the event play out the same but with the exception that WoL was not involved in that side story.

Yes, absolutely, the technology exists and has for a very long time. (Incidentally, some examples I can immediately think of are meeting Tiamat after doing Coils, doing Eden after doing the all-roles capstone quest, and doing Eden, weirdly, after doing Scholar). It is not a question of 'is it technically possible'.

The problem is logistics. Again, with Tank alone you've now been forced to include at least four NPCs, each that have to have conditional dialog based on how much of their respective questline you've done, which in some cases would lead to a drastic change in all of their dialog (if not even further), and in some cases would require different outfits or the presence of entirely different NPCs based on when in that questline the player is at.

And there are a lot of different permutations. The tank storyline has to be written for 'have done every single job quest', 'have only done Dark Knight', 'have completed Gunbreaker, am partway through SB Warrior, abandoned Paladin in HW, and still haven't found Dark Knight', and basically every single other permutation. Hell, they probably need to write a version of the quest that assumes no tank storyline has been done, both to make sure that someone who hasn't done a single job quest and someone in the future with a hypothetical fifth tank released later are both still able to do the story.

Basically, it's really complicated!

[Iscah]

The development team has cover this issue before with certain side stories (though hard to remember which one due to how many there are now) that have effect on the story or side story in some way due to being set before that specific point in the story. It was mostly they let the event play out the same but with the exception that WoL was not involved in that side story.

This isn't what they do.

If the character is much the same at the start and end of the earlier story, and current events don't rely on it happening, then they can participate in later stories and they'll just gloss over it and not talk about whether it happened or not. Occasionally it will be highlighted as not happening, like Alisaie at level 60 will specifically say that your business at the Binding Coil was left half-finished even though the entirety of Coil happens at level 50 if you've done it.

If you didn't do it yourself, anything that changes as the consequence of a side story hasn't happened yet.

[EdwinLi]

This isn't what they do.

If the character is much the same at the start and end of the earlier story, and current events don't rely on it happening, then they can participate in later stories and they'll just gloss over it and not talk about whether it happened or not. Occasionally it will be highlighted as not happening, like Alisaie at level 60 will specifically say that your business at the Binding Coil was left half-finished even though the entirety of Coil happens at level 50 if you've done it.

If you didn't do it yourself, anything that changes as the consequence of a side story hasn't happened yet.

I said certain ones, not all of them. Most of them are like this but I remember a small amount still played out without the WoL but they skip details about what happened but I don't remember which one since there are so many side stories now.

Yes, absolutely, the technology exists and has for a very long time. (Incidentally, some examples I can immediately think of are meeting Tiamat after doing Coils, doing Eden after doing the all-roles capstone quest, and doing Eden, weirdly, after doing Scholar). It is not a question of 'is it technically possible'.

The problem is logistics. Again, with Tank alone you've now been forced to include at least four NPCs, each that have to have conditional dialog based on how much of their respective questline you've done, which in some cases would lead to a drastic change in all of their dialog (if not even further), and in some cases would require different outfits or the presence of entirely different NPCs based on when in that questline the player is at.

And there are a lot of different permutations. The tank storyline has to be written for 'have done every single job quest', 'have only done Dark Knight', 'have completed Gunbreaker, am partway through SB Warrior, abandoned Paladin in HW, and still haven't found Dark Knight', and basically every single other permutation. Hell, they probably need to write a version of the quest that assumes no tank storyline has been done, both to make sure that someone who hasn't done a single job quest and someone in the future with a hypothetical fifth tank released later are both still able to do the story.

Basically, it's really complicated!

Either way we will soon see how the Job role storyline is handled next week. We know certain Job NPCs may appear either way since we seen them in the trailer.

There is also the possibility SE may have the Job role quest option effect on the Job Role quest where at a certain point players are given dialogue option that determine which Job quest characters appear based on which Job quest they finished similar to what they did during that one moment in Shadowbringer MSQ that is determined by how many Job role quest they completed. Of course that may mean that have a special Everyone appears option if players complete all their Job role quest related to that Job role Quest.

[Iscah]

I said certain ones, not all of them. Most of them are like this but I remember a small amount still played out without the WoL but they skip details about what happened but I don't remember which one since there are so many side stories now.

The only one I can think of is the 30-50 DRG storyline, and even then only because it's said or implied that Nidhogg possessed Estinien once before fully taking over at the end of Heavensward.

As a rule, it isn't how they've handled optional storylines in years and I can't see them selectively starting it now.

[EdwinLi]

The only one I can think of is the 30-50 DRG storyline, and even then only because it's said or implied that Nidhogg possessed Estinien once before fully taking over at the end of Heavensward.

As a rule, it isn't how they've handled optional storylines in years and I can't see them selectively starting it now.

Either way we will find out soon. With Endwalker being the finale of Season 1, Yoshi-p and the development team may put a lot of effort into the Job Role Quests as well.

Season 2 may continue the Job Role quest trend but we can't be certain how they handle things during this grand finale to Season 1 so everything are just guesses.