Endwalker vs shadowbringers story, which did you enjoy more and why? (spoilers)

[Hyperia]

The only way a major Scion is going to leave the game is after we throw them a retirement party and watch them walk off into retirement with what they wanted.

[Rulakir]

There was one member of the Fellowship of the Ring who died, despite the fact that it was a lengthy trilogy. Tolkien didn't think it necessary to kill off anyone else in that party.

It's not necessary. However, there were still impactful deaths like Theoden. The end of humanity felt like a very real possibility. The heroes suffered, particularly the hobbits. The closest we've gotten to that was when the WoL was light corrupted and there was no journey to it because it was all too brief. Alisaie wasn't given an opportunity to become the Sam to our Frodo, for example.

The only Scions to know suffering and despair beyond the norm are Estinien and G'raha, both of whom went through it before joining us. The Scions themselves are an incredibly privileged, homogeneous bunch who've arguably had to deal with less hardships than the average person (in game or real life) despite being involved in multiple wars and a world ending threat, incidentally almost an extinction level event for the Ancients that wasn't even as bad as a Calamity for us.

It's fine if FFXIV wants to be Disney-esque, but they need to quit doing storylines that require high stakes if they're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for it to be compelling. I'm far more attached to the Ancients and their tale as a result. EW made me realize how little I care about most of the Scions and how bored I am of them. The only parts of EW where I was upset directly involved the Ancients to the extent that, to me, EW didn't have a happy ending. Everything working out for the protagonists was predictable, expected, and dull.

[PawPaw]

WoW has had some impacrful character deaths and i believe Cataclysm even altered the world?

I was expecting something like this to happen to Eorzea, frankly. the trailer made it seem as though endless terror would be raining down on everything we'd known and I hoped the landscape would change at least a bit to reflect that. For all that WoW has done wrong in recent years, I still remember logging on and seeing the world after the Cataclysm and being absolutely in awe at the changes that had been wrought to the cities and the landscape. You really felt that something catastrophic had happened there and that you'd be forever reminded...and a little bit sad that you'd never see the world the way it had been before ever again.

[Rulakir]

The Cataclysm revamp was controversial. Personally, I wasn't a fan of it. They wrecked a lot of my favorites zones and not for the better as some were substantially worse to quest through, like Darkshore.

Despite my criticisms of FFXIV, WoW is certainly not the game I want them to emulate when it comes to writing. We're refugees for a reason. :P WoW is the example of what not to do when it comes to killing off characters just for the sake of it. It's not even for shock value anymore. There's even a tweet by the narrative lead of WoW saying he thought the GoT finale was "brilliant".

Something like LotR is fine, but they're not doing LotR. FFXIV applied to LotR would mean that Gollum never turned on Frodo, that Frodo carrying the ring wasn't that much of a burden, that Sam was just there for light hearted moments and friendly competition, and at the end on Mt. Doom there would've been some speech given whereby everyone agrees to toss the ring and then they all return home no worse for wear. Gollum also would've likely ended up being restored to Smeagol somehow too. The hobbits would've remained trauma free, eager and ready for the next adventure.

[Theodric]

Personally I'd like FFXIV to emulate WoW's early style of writing, back when the game treated its various playable races as distinct and as having their own agendas and problems to address. Both games are suffering from similar issues in the end - it's just a matter of WoW going too far in one direction and FFXIV in another. I firmly believe that a healthy balance can be struck.

FFXIV in particular is becoming notorious for pandering to voices on social media. I think the game suffers as a consequence of that. Anything remotely 'gritty' seems to be slowly fading away in favour of something closer to a low stakes story with the bulk of characters fawning over the player character. Even looking at the single player Final Fantasy games, the dynamics between the various characters are a lot more engaging. Not every character even likes each other for some or even all of the duration of a particular game. Which makes for some interesting tension in itself.

A fair few of the characters I like in FFXIV have either been killed off or quietly shuffled into side content. The former are all antagonists, the latter...are the likes of Hien and Magnai who show up every now and then but not nearly as often as the Scions who in turn are forced down our throats at every possible opportunity. Even the 6.1 teaser site betrays that despite the hint of a break from them for a while we're going right back to dealing with them once again. So in other words, this 'new story' seems set to leave very little room for new faces.

[Skyborne]

I check back on this thread and I'm now confusing it with another thread with the same issue...

A fair few of the characters I like in FFXIV have either been killed off or quietly shuffled into side content. The former are all antagonists, the latter...are the likes of Hien and Magnai who show up every now and then but not nearly as often as the Scions who in turn are forced down our throats at every possible opportunity. Even the 6.1 teaser site betrays that despite the hint of a break from them for a while we're going right back to dealing with them once again. So in other words, this 'new story' seems set to leave very little room for new faces.

No, sweaty, you will enjoy your wholesome 4k HD texture muffin and donut parties with the Scions forever and ever and ever! The next main villain will have minecraft textures.

[kpxmanifesto]

Despite my criticisms of FFXIV, WoW is certainly not the game I want them to emulate when it comes to writing. We're refugees for a reason. :P WoW is the example of what not to do when it comes to killing off characters just for the sake of it. It's not even for shock value anymore. There's even a tweet by the narrative lead of WoW saying he thought the GoT finale was "brilliant".

I'd argue that some of the major character deaths were written well: Varian Wrynn and Ysera in Legion, and Arthas in Wotlk. Wow had its ups and downs and then crashed really hard at the end.

[TaleraRistain]

I think thats probably one thing that irked a lot. The fact the final days sky only appeared in Thavnir and Garlemald. Imagine if on the lvl 88 quest line, it spread to the stormblood areas, then 89 the arr and hw areas and on ultima thule it reaches Sharlayan. That probably would of convened a sense of dread at the least. Imagine if you did those battles with final days sky with the blasphemies indeed of whatever clear day or sky it was during the gameplay.

My thoughts on that are related to what they said about how the Ancients identified the Final Days areas. IIRC, the Watcher said the aether went stagnant in those areas. But we've seen from the Studium quests that all isn't well with the Lifestream right now even after the Final Days are averted. It's possible that spread to the extent of encompassing the world could have consequences that would either have to forever change those zones resulting in permanent phasing and its own technical issues or a suspension of disbelief when players returned to those zones for other reasons. Since it only happened in a couple of zones, it's more believable narratively that we headed off those lasting consequences.

Final fantasy 7 ends with humanity becoming extinct. FF13-2 ends with the world being destroyed and the main protagonist dying and the villain winning despite the heroes’ attempts to avert it.

VII's ending was deliberately left ambiguous and there's Advent Children, the direct movie sequel to factor in.

XIII-2 had a "to be continued" ending. If they hadn't done LR, then they probably would have reversed everything with a Paradox Ending in DLC. The structure of those would have easily allowed for it and myself and a lot of people who played it at launch thought it would end up going that way. But the rumors about XIII-3 started almost as soon as XIII-2 launched. XIII-2 is a very bad example because it was obvious on launch that the original ending was just a point in the story and not where it was going to have its final end. We knew with absolute certainty there was more, just not what form that it would take.

I'm surprised you didn't use VI. Kefka caused magic to be removed. He won in the end because the world was irrevocably changed from his actions.

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

It’s not really ambiguous when the devs themselves confirmed it lmao.

At the very end of FFVII, we see the epilogue to the whole story that takes place 500 years later, so really, you still have another 497 years' worth of games and movies to fill in....
YK: Ha, maybe I'll try to do that. In a way, I consider that epilogue to be the true happy ending of FFVII. Well, it's a happy ending even though all the human beings are destroyed. [Laughs]

As for 13-2, It’s not really a bad example. The world still ends, millions of souls are still lost, and the villain does get what he wants. Just because some of this is fixed in the next game doesn’t change anything. It’s still it’s own game. That’s what this debate was about. The game ended with the heroes losing, the villain winning, and the world being effectively destroyed. 6 is a fairly good example though yes, and if people want to try and say (ugh those games were 20 years ago,) Well then we can look at 12 as well, where due to Venat’s actions, magic slowly began to be removed from the world.

[Iscah]

Was 13-3 already planned when 13-2 was planned? If so then "the villain wins in a cliffhanger in part 2 of 3" is not exactly the same as them winning at the end of the story. (I haven't played any of 13.