Where do you hope the story goes next? (SO MANY SPOILERS, AVERT THINE EYES CHILD!!!)

[ErryK]

we're about to learn about the twelve with the 24man raid so that would cover that i assume. personally i would like to just see the uncharted areas of etheirys explored (new world + meracydia) and then the other shards and returning the 13th shard back into stability.

[Listrella]

we're about to learn about the twelve with the 24man raid so that would cover that i assume. personally i would like to just see the uncharted areas of etheirys explored (new world + meracydia) and then the other shards and returning the 13th shard back into stability.

pretty sure the 24 man raid will be largely seperate from the main story, they normally are, sure the crystal tower raid ended up linking into the main story but not until years later.

[Sauteed]

I'm so glad if zodiark and Hydie never get brought up again in game. They have cured the primal issue that was a legit world element that could really make somebody worry.. like I just want to move past this stuff. I never liked Emet or Elidibus either, but something Emmie brought up about the Twelve and also visiting the different t countries in the world would be cool.

Go back and add some residential stuff to certain areas.. like Damian has said let's get involved with Garlemald in some way. Possibly give us factions the players can choose between to add another layer to pvp. Something a bit deeper than log in, grind tomes and toss "lore" bits around. Would love if a legitimate new starting city could be added that doesn't have to get along with the Eorzea alliance at all. Primarily tho, just glad to get past all the reincarnation, time travel, primal this and that , scions and frens story we have seen. I dont hate people that like it, just was the least thing I enjoyed about xiv personally. (I have bought multiple skips in the past as well)

What I do like and always have liked is exploring. They spend a lot of time making interesting zones, beautiful scene fitting music, enjoyable side content.. they have been willing to try new things even in the latest expansion with the npc tag alongs ( I enjoyed these but hate the follow npc and remain hidden ones). I dig Eureka stuff, wish we would get a new one. I hated Bozja, never got far in it either.. less focus on fate grinds, more focus on exploration or rewarding "mob grinding" stuff. Wish they would expand on the personal apartment conveniences, like if we cant get bigger personal space, let us have a few slots to share that apt like people share houses, these kinds of things are what I would like to see.

[Elysidelphi]

I would love, love, LOVE if the story did the following in the months and years and decade to come:

1. Zenos comes back or the WoL must save him for some reason and then Zenos receives a full, in-depth redemption or rehabilitation arc, done well, well-earned, where he actually evolves as a character and is given depth. Then Zenos proceeds to acompany the WoL throughout their journeys, learning to find joy and fulfillment in other things as well, besides just fighting. We also learn a lot more about Zenos, we get echo in his memories as a child and we finally see that side-story of Zenos in the actual game, we learn why he was dreaming of the Final Days since he was a child, why he was experimented on and what those experiments were, we learn why he is so similar to Venat, we learn whether he's an Ancient/shard of an Ancient and who that Ancient is, we also see memories of Zenos and Emet-Selch together talking at some point and see how they used to interact, we learn what really happened to Zenos's mother, we learn more about Zenos's powers and abilities with his Resonant and how he ended up mastering it so fast and so well, we might even learn to use our own echo better from him/with his guidance, we have all the mysteries/questions about Zenos finally answered properly.

2. We explore the Void/the 13th Shard and we learn a lot more about Voidsent, about the WoLs that existed on the 13th Shard. Maybe we even fix the 13th like we fixed the 1st, thus helping Unukalhai and Cylva and we also learn a lot more about them and bond with them.
We also learn a lot more about Reapers and their avatars and their pacts. We also learn about Zenos's own avatar and the details of their pact, the identity of his avatar, etc.
We explore the identities and lives of some of the Voidsent, who they used to be before turning into Voidsent, etc.

3. We learn a lot about The Twelve, not just in the new alliance raids, but even after. We also learn why there's 12 of them and not 14.
In the same vein, we learn who they are, where they came from, who created them and we learn a lot more about the Whorl and whether there is a Void that is actually the main primordial Void which existed long before the creation of the 13th shard.

4. There is a time skip of some sort, and we get Alphinaud and Alisaie as young adults or older adults even, and Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, Hermes, Elidibus and Lahabrea get reborn and we get to meet them again as adults, and maybe they even join the WoL in their travelling adventures.

5. We meet the remaining sundered Ascians and we learn a lot about them, their personalities, maybe some of them might even become our friends and allies.

6. We explore in-depth how the deaths of Hydaelyn and Zodiark affect the star, how the unsundered souls that returned to the Underworld affect our current timeline.

7. We learn a lot more about the Allagans in the present timeline.

8. We travel back in time (similar to Wings of the Goddess in FF11) and we explore more of the World Unsundered, we actually get to explore Amaurot at its peak, we see Elpis again but also many other new places. I would ADORE to see, explore and live for a while in the World Unsundered, preferably as a main expansion so we can get a lot of new places to explore. In the same vein, we also learn what was before the time of the Ancients, how they achieved immortality, how they evolved to be the almost perfect world we see around us, we get to see if everybody all over the star wears robes and masks like the Ancients or not and if not, then we get to explore other similar or even very different cultures. We find out why and how the Convocation of 14 was created
and whether it really does have power over the whole star and how and why other countries/continents agreed to it or maybe they secretly resent it, etc; politics set in this time in which communication and debate are so encouraged over fighting would be really interesting and could make for fascinating dialogue between characters.
We also learn a lot more about the members of the Convocation of 14, not just their titles, but also their true names, we get to talk to them, even bond with some of them, we get to see them interact with each other, we see them with and without masks, we see the kinds of relationships they have amongst themselves and with others outside the Convocation itself.
For example, I am really curious about Elidibus and how someone as young as he got chosen for the Convocation (is there an age requirement to join? if yes, what is it?), how and why, and what about his family, etc.

9. We get a second chance to save the Ancients and create an alternative timeline/another universe in which they do get to be saved.

10. We travel back in time to Mhach, Amdapor, Nym and we get to explore these areas in-depth.

11. We travel back in time to the Allagan Empire and get to explore it in all its glory. We meet Xande the emperor and learn more about him, before and after he died, we learn how death affected him so much that even being brought back to life and given immortality was no longer enough for him.
We also learn even more about Amon, particularly how he succeeded in bringing back Xande and giving him immortality, given that necromancy/bringing the dead back to life is a very dark/taboo thing in FFXIV so far. I'd be interested in finding out how Xande was brought back to life and more or less given his old soul back? Since he seemed to act like his old self, so maybe Amon found a way to bring Xande's soul back into his body; we are told that Xande was not Amon's puppet, so Xande still had free will and independent thought even after being brought back to life, which is quite striking to me; he also appears to have retained his intelligence and skills as a leader and emperor, so he's nothing like the undead creatures we know from the overall game, he just stands out so much. So I'd love to see how Amon did all of this and how it affected Xande, and everything related to it.

12. We travel to Meracydia and realise it's very related to the Void/the 13th

13. We travel to an entirely new place, be it the New World, or another continent (other than Meracydia) or even another shard or even another star/planet, basically a completely new place and in this new place we find a world similar to the world in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/Silmarillion, with a huge emphasis on a race similar to Tolkien's elves (they wouldn't necessarily have to be elves, but it would be great if they were similar to elves in terms of immortality, ties to nature and animals, being the living memory of the world, being both happy and melancholic, etc.).
I know the FFXIV devs have been inspired by Game of Thrones in the past and I think there may be little nods to Tolkien as well, but I would love it if we were to see something much bigger, much more in your face that is inspired by Tolkien's Legendarium.

14. We vist other stars/planets and meet other races and whole new worlds, maybe we even help save one or two of them from some sort of threat. This could also have deep philosophical implications as maybe that star/planet would have already achieved perfection and we find a way, together with the people of that star, to actually be happy/find fulfillment even once they've achieved perfection.
I'd even love to travel back in the past on another star/planet just to meet that one race of people that appears in the dungeon The Dead Ends, the one with the final boss of that dungeon.

15. We face a star-wide threat, as a race of people from another star invades our planet or even wants to reclaim it saying it was theirs a very long time ago. This threat is much more serious than the Final Days and it has consequences all over our star, not just in 2 places like it happened in Endwalker.

16. We finally find out how and why Emet-Selch, Elidibus and Lahabrea remained Unsundered.

17. We finally meet Azem/our old self either in a memory or echo or even when we travel in the past and we learn more about Azem, we learn why they refused to join either side (Zodiark vs. Hydaelyn), we learn what they were doing before and during the Final Days, we learn Azem's true name as well, we learn about Azem's friendships/relationships before and after joining the Convocation, how Azem met/was chosen by Venat, how Azem met and befriended both Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus, what other friends Azem had, etc.

18. We get deeper into the cosmology/spirituality of the universe and we learn if there are any actual gods/creatures that created us/species in general and we learn why they created us, maybe not just out of kindness/love, but maybe also out of boredom, as an experiment, or outright malice.

19. We travel to all the other shards and we get to meet our remaining reflections, and some of them may be like Ardbert, some may be extremely different from him.

20. We unsunder the world in the current timeline, reach perfection or close to it and learn how to find happiness/fulfillment even while "perfect".

[ApolloGenX]

I hope Emet is reborn and we can rejoin him and be best friends forever. The End.

[Garnix]

What I expect long-term: the "Azem rejoining" arc.
Travel to other shards, rejoin with Azem's shards over there like we did with Ardbert. End the whole XIV story with us going back through time and become Azem.

Endwalker left many things open and dropped so many names to lead us to think about places we will probably go to at some point, but that doesn't say much about the threats we will be facing in the near future.
The Twelve will be tackled in the 24man.
Corvos is probably going to be our exploration zone (Bozja/Eureka-like).
I hope Pandaemonium will explain how Emet and Lahabrea survived.
I think Meracydia, and meeting with Azdaja is probably on top of my list. Especially considering the way they are brought up.

But there are other things of course, which I can see being tackled in the 6.X patch cycle:
- Garlemald's future (similar to how we had the politic arc in Eulmore in 5.1),
- Y'Shtola working on a way to travel to other shards (she said it to Runar, and mentioned it again in 6.0. She will definitely do it.)
- Kairos is still around and will be -or will be used by- the next villain
- Gosetsu surprisingly did not make a come back in the 6.0 cutscenes, I can see him joining us in the near future, maybe as a trust NPC, with one of the next new jobs.

[Fawkes]

it's not going to be in a new area, zones are not introduced in patch content, we might get new NPCs though.

Well, they also haven't ended the main story arc and started a new one before.

They have added things in patches like Foundation and the Doman Enclave and Diadem/Eureka/Bozja. It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that they could add a new zone.

[Raim]

6.1: Exploring islands and revitalizing trade around Thavnair. Ties into Island Sanctuary and the elephant beast tribe.
6.2: Rebuilding Garlemald society, maybe something akin to Doman Restoration
6.3: Helping rabbits learn about human society so they can make the moon a resort/tourist destination for them, and prepare the ship for future travels. Rabbit beast tribe.
6.4: Trouble brewing in Meracydia. Warring lesser factions and the remaining dragons wanting to inhabit there. Meet with delegates of little tribes and the dragons.
6.5: Many dragons decide to just leave the planet and want to rebuild Dragonstar not only to give the humanoids more room on Meracydia, but also because you can now help with your spaceship and having dealt with the robots.
7.0: Three zones in Meracydia, three on Dragonstar. Tension between dragons, and the newly corrected robots who now want to help them rebuild.

[RitsukoSonoda]

What if they make Hildibrand the next MSQ arc then require players to go back and do the side quests if they haven't yet? Since he got left out during Shadowbringers... >.>

[aveyond-dreams]

I'm not interested in stories on the level of gods or cosmic-scale catastrophes for a good while, I think for 7.0 the best thing they could do is start off season 2 with a Heavensward-scale expansion involving a local conflict, something specific to a kingdom (no more republics for goodness sake) or empire in the New World or Meracydia.

Start off strong with high fantasy elements to keep people hooked, a lot of people admit that one of the main reasons that this game doesn't click with them at first is because the starter experience in ARR doesn't have any impressive fantasy locales like Ishgard until several hours if not days in depending on the speed they play at. (And it doesn't help that almost every NPC in ARR looks ridiculous in those 10 year old armor sets.)

As for the cast, it's pretty clear what people are gravitating too. "Cool" characters like Estinien are a must have, if he exits the story and isn't there for 7.0 I don't think it'll go down well with people. A significant amount of people want to see Aymeric make a comeback, if not him then someone similar to him with that sort of pretty "princely" look. It's also time for a new poster girl, Y'shtola needs to take a break until she learns how to world hop back to the first and preferably stay there.