What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[CrownySuccubus]

How did constantly pushing Sylvanas at every turn in World of Warcraft work out for Blizzard?

The same as pushing anything: "Just fine, until it didn't."

Yeah, there'll probably come a time when G'raha-shilling will backfire in the court of majority player opinion. And then you'll be able to say you were right. It's definitely not at that point yet, though, judging by the majority of reactions.

I don't think there's a reliable way to say whether a character is truly 'popular' or not. Most people don't engage with polls by virtue of never receiving one in the first place.

Then this conversation has no point, because by that metric, there's no way of determining if said character is UN-popular outside of widespread opinion, either.

Furthermore, a lot of people in this thread are on record asking for more variety in terms of the character dynamics that exist within the circle of contacts our character regularly interacts with. Especially since a lot of players have very different personalities, beliefs and opinions. By doubling down on making every character think and believe the exact same things, all the development team are really accomplishing is courting a very 'samey' fanbase.

The thing is, I don't even disagree on principle. But, there's also no real way around it, either. Even if we went with, say, the Skyrim or Dragon Age method of player choice and NPC agency, the story will eventually come down to two factions: Those who side with the main character, and the Dead. (Or exiled.) Let's say for the sake or argument, that there was a story in which the WOL decides to help some new Garlemald stand-ins instead of fighting against them. That's pretty much EXACTLY what the Lv 60-70 Samurai questline was. It came down to the same exact binary: either you side with the main character, or you die.

Though if nothing else, if the supposed 'majority' can't understand why it's a bad thing for genocide to be pushed on an entire species because they didn't react to tragedy the way some deluded individual wanted them to...then does that not reveal that the opinions of the majority are flawed?

Sure. But the minority is as well.

Either this is an "all opinions are valid" situation or it's a "my opinion is the objectively correct one" situation.

"Circlejerk" 99% of the time is used with a negative connotation (hence me using it sarcastically), and the clarion call of people who insert themselves into a previously pleasant convo in the most aggressive and patronizing way possible

No offense to anyone, but it's not difficult to have a pleasant conversation when everyone agrees with you.

[Xirean]

All this talk about G'raha and I'm just sitting over here wondering why Thancred is still here. I've had a problem with him since meeting him in Uldah and the game later on called him one of "my closest friends" in a dream sequence. I've got no issue with people disliking a character. It would be nice if the game had more ability to let people express how they feel about events or individuals. I realize that is difficult given the game's structure, but I honestly don't care. If someone presents a stupid plan I'd like the chance to at least call the plan stupid before we HAVE to do it.

Either this is an "all opinions are valid" situation or it's a "my opinion is the objectively correct one" situation.

That really depends on what the opinion is. Genocide is wrong and if someone thinks it's right, they are wrong and their opinion is wrong.

[Ayuhra]

I think the story is suffering a bit in the hands of Natsuko Ishikawa. She seems to like to bring us to emotional lows with ultimately happy endings and our close friends (Scions) never seem to be in real danger in her hands. Now I am not saying she is a bad writer. She made me care about the people in the world of FFXIV a lot and that's huge. Caring about the people makes me care about the story.

But it's time to let some Banri Oda influence seep back in. He had great world building and wasn't afraid to kill characters. A balance between them would be ideal. Oda to threaten the characters and build out the world, Ishikawa to make me care by writing said characters and establishing their motives. Maybe with more Oda the Final Days would have felt more apocalyptic.

I think there was some knee jerk reaction against killing characters after Heavensward and that was fair at the time, honestly. If we'd kept killing off NPCs like that we would be in the opposite situation, where we don't dare care about anyone and deaths have lost any emotional impact.

As for G'raha I like him a lot. He's not my favorite character but he's fun. Some of the issue with him is his energetic enthusiasm can make it hard to remember he's hundreds of years old and ran a society.

[Lauront]

This whole "we are the silent majority, while they are the vocal minority" is ridiculous and not backed by facts at all.

I may not like G'raha the way this game wants me to like him, but to say he is not a fan favorite is pretty, what twitch culture would label as, copium.

Ofcourse no character is meant to be universally loved, and if you hate him all power to you, and if you like him all power to you. But again, that character was ranked high in many polls, among them is the famitsu magazine popularity poll which he came 2nd, who is also extremely popular among the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean audience, that even the Chinese audience gave him a nick name of "little red cat", not to mention the English audience, and not to mention all the thousands of fanarts each with thousands of likes and such. Sorry to shatter expectations, but he is extremely popular, even among big streamers on twitch.

But if you want to believe that he is hated by every soul in the game but the people are scared to voice their dislike cause they think his fans are assassins who want to take them out if they uttered a word against him, you are allowed to think that too. But we can also be honest with ourselves, the character has his moments where you know he is good, and if he only had those moments, no one would've felt offended by him.

Reads as rather exaggerated to make a point to me, and rather full of sweeping proclamations, if I am honest. Especially that last point. It's simple: the fact that he's liked by a fairly large segment of the playerbase does not mean it's a majority. And that's all there is to it.

[Theodric]

All this talk about G'raha and I'm just sitting over here wondering why Thancred is still here. I've had a problem with him since meeting him in Uldah and the game later on called him one of "my closest friends" in a dream sequence. I've got no issue with people disliking a character. It would be nice if the game had more ability to let people express how they feel about events or individuals. I realize that is difficult given the game's structure, but I honestly don't care. If someone presents a stupid plan I'd like the chance to at least call the plan stupid before we HAVE to do it.

See, I like Thancred but I'd be fine with everyone having the option to tell him to back off or whatever if they don't like him. It wouldn't be hard. It doesn't even need to change anything.

It's just...if the game can spend a small fortune animating an optional scene with Estinien's foot stepping onto a balcony that the majority of players will never see then there's no reason why some of the lengthy dialogue can't be trimmed down and worked into slightly different player reactions to certain characters. What's to stop the player saying that they don't want to bring Thancred or G'raha along for the ride only for a different character to step in and point out that they're needed for a particular mission? It wouldn't rob players of agency to the same degree as it does to insist that we have to love and like everybody that we travel with.

Furthermore, Emet-Selch is the most popular character to date when it comes to recent popularity polls. That didn't spare him from being written out of the story altogether, though. At least for the time being, at any rate.

[aveyond-dreams]

But we can also be honest with ourselves, the character has his moments where you know he is good, and if he only had those moments, no one would've felt offended by him.

This is the point - G'raha Tia did indeed have a good character arc to him and I generally liked/respected him as the Crystal Exarch. Then they proceeded to turn him into a joke I could no longer take seriously.

Character is good and well written -> Character arc finishes -> Character becomes annoying fanservice -> Character becomes insufferable -> I start skipping cutscenes.

In any case those of us who were drawn to the game in its era of deeper storytelling and more complex gameplay have a high risk of being pushed out by the twitter fanclub crowd that is largely content with the game being reduced to visual novel status. We don't want to cede this game completely over to them. We want our mainline Final Fantasy game back to the way it should be.

That means:
Strong cast of visually and personality-wise diverse characters
Decent gameplay
Believable Plot
Meaningful and consistent character progression and development - if someone is "done" get them off the screen and let another character do some growing.
No forever characters like Sylvanas, Y'shtola, or G'raha Tia.

The twitter crowd will absolutely latch on to the next pretty boy or poster girl they make next. All they have to do is make one.

[CrownySuccubus]

'Fan favourite' characters are often promoted by a fandom supressing other characters that have their own share of fans, though. How many more people would speak up in favour of liking the likes of Varis, Nabriales or Gaius if they weren't immediately accused of supporting 'fascism', 'bigotry' or 'genocide' the moment they did so pretty much anywhere that the game is discussed?

But, by definition, supporting the Garleans is literally supporting bigotry and genocide (fascism has a lot of different definitions, so it's somewhat debatable), at least within the fictional setting of The Source. Most Garleans were bigoted and genocidal, whether or not they had "sympathetic reasons" for doing it. Most Garleans looked down on every other race (the tolerant ones, like Gabranth and Garus are considered rare exceptions) and they definitely wanted to commit at least cultural genocide (they wanted to impose Garlean rule, atheism, and military doctrine on every single race) and Varis outright states he wants to cause a Rejoining to eliminate the diverse races into one superior race.

Supporting the Garleans doesn't necessarily make you a fascist-supporter IRL, but that is definitely what your character would be in-game.

[Xirean]

But, by definition, supporting the Garleans is literally supporting bigotry and genocide (fascism has a lot of different definitions, so it's somewhat debatable), at least within the fictional setting of The Source. Most Garleans were bigoted and genocidal, whether or not they had "sympathetic reasons" for doing it. Most Garleans looked down on every other race (the tolerant ones, like Gabranth and Garus are considered rare exceptions) and they definitely wanted to commit at least cultural genocide (they wanted to impose Garlean rule, atheism, and military doctrine on every single race) and Varis outright states he wants to cause a Rejoining to eliminate the diverse races into one superior race.

Supporting the Garleans doesn't necessarily make you a fascist-supporter IRL, but that is definitely what your character would be in-game.

I think you're comparing Garleans as a whole to the Garlean military that we have fought against. We can't judge an entire group of people by the few generals that we punched in the face. I'm sure a good number of those citizens would also have liked to punch them in the face.

[Theodric]

But, by definition, supporting the Garleans is literally supporting bigotry and genocide (fascism has a lot of different definitions, so it's somewhat debatable), at least within the fictional setting of The Source. Most Garleans were bigoted and genocidal, whether or not they had "sympathetic reasons" for doing it. Most Garleans looked down on every other race (the tolerant ones, like Gabranth and Garus are considered rare exceptions) and they definitely wanted to commit at least cultural genocide (they wanted to impose Garlean rule, atheism, and military doctrine on every single race) and Varis outright states he wants to cause a Rejoining to eliminate the diverse races into one superior race.

Supporting the Garleans doesn't necessarily make you a fascist-supporter IRL, but that is definitely what your character would be in-game.

It's not, though. Someone isn't supporting murder by joining the Dark Brotherhood in an Elder Scrolls game. They're not supporting incest by rooting for Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. Fiction is fiction. Something people immerse themselves in temporarily and I daresay the fondly looked upon 'majority' of people don't overanalyse such scenarios to the same degree as those who declare everything to be an 'issue'.

It just sucks out a lot of the fun out of fictional settings as far as I'm concerned. Much like it did when people who played World of Warcraft attacked people for liking the 'wrong' playable races or faction.

[KizuyaKatogami]

But, by definition, supporting the Garleans is literally supporting bigotry and genocide (fascism has a lot of different definitions, so it's somewhat debatable), at least within the fictional setting of The Source. Most Garleans were bigoted and genocidal, whether or not they had "sympathetic reasons" for doing it. Most Garleans looked down on every other race (the tolerant ones, like Gabranth and Garus are considered rare exceptions) and they definitely wanted to commit at least cultural genocide (they wanted to impose Garlean rule, atheism, and military doctrine on every single race) and Varis outright states he wants to cause a Rejoining to eliminate the diverse races into one superior race.

Supporting the Garleans doesn't necessarily make you a fascist-supporter IRL, but that is definitely what your character would be in-game.

I guess anyone who supports gridania them supports racists, anyone who supports limsa supports piracy and murder, anyone who supports uldah promotes slavery and racism etc etc. Everyone in 14 sucks. We know this.