A Non-FFXIV Spoiler Discussion about NiER raids

[BaroLlyonesse]

I just had a friend finish the storyline including the six extra weeks, and she had some questions about the ending. I explained as best I could about what I thought happened, and predictably she answered 'But is that what happened?' I explained what a lot of people think it implied, and the same question. So I became very long-winded about Yoko Taro and how he acts.

I came out to the forums, and I see a lot of hate for the ending, and the phrase that keeps showing up is that they are tired of hearing 'because Yoko Taro', like they're somehow not willing to explain or they're talking down. Honestly, people do that to a lot of things: 'You don't understand [X]? Then you don't really know do you?' and then they lift a wine glass and haughtily chuckle.

So I'm going to say 'because Yoko Taro' is a good answer, and an acceptable one, but for a different reason. It's his writing style to be ambiguous, nihilistic, and utter incapable of following the rules he laid out for you to understand. He will never explain himself fully, and you can't even tell if he's messing with you because he's wearing Majora's Moon on his head.

It's not snarky. Consider Stephen King, and that a lot of his stories have 'because Stephen King' answers to what happened. The Stand? The actual hand of God shows up at the end of his contagion book, and if you're not used to his writing, you're gonna throw the book out the window. The Langoliers? The crazy guy's abusive father was actually right, the meatballs are real, and no I won't tell you how he knew. Maximum Overdrive? Good luck explaining anything about how the living vehicles are capable of breaking the laws of physics; a vending machine doesn't have the ability to throw cans of soda hard enough to kill someone, for example. You just have to accept 'because Stephen King' and then enjoy the ride.

I think if you approach it like that, 'because Yoko Taro' makes more sense. He will be ambiguous. He will be depressing. He will not explain anything that could lead you to an actual ending that makes total sense. Heck, look at Ending E of Drakengard: it comes out of nowhere, makes zero real sense even if you accept that it's a setup for NiER being in the real world, and leaves the protagonist in an absolutely unwinnable situation. It's a Yoko Taro ending.

That's just how he is. 'because Yoko Taro' isn't arrogance or praising the auteur or anything, not in every case. Sometimes all you can do is shrug and say 'because Yoko Taro' and you can't argue or explain after that because... you can't. If it doesn't come straight from his mouth, you'll never be 100% you're right. He's treated like a fantastic writer that none of us understand and have no chance to, and on one level that's true, but honestly the best way to deal with his stories?

'Because Yoko Taro, and I'm here for the ride'.

[Iscah]

That's all well and good if you choose to play a game by Yoko Taro, but if anything it emphasises what a poor choice it is to drop him as a guest writer into another game with a different approach to narrative.

I'm not "here for the ride". I was forced onto it.

[Kranel_San]

Nier raid and questline should be a lesson to all MMOs in the industry, especially Japanese MMOs and games. Collaborations are good, BUT DO NOT OVER STEP IT!
I'd rather not see a main content being turned into a collaboration ground ever again.

[Ilisidi]

If I want to play a Yoko Taro game, I go a round in Drakengard not in Final Fantasy XIV. 'Because Yoko Taro' is as much a deterrent to some as it is a draw to others.

And it's a general thing with the collaborations. If they are for stuff you already love, your likely going to enjoy yourself and have some positive feelings for it. If you don't, they become a tedious annoyance and in the case of the Nier Collab, they become a tedious major repeated annoyance. They take three of our currently 25 alliance raids, which in itself is long and big content.
All other collabs are small, unobtrusive and usually time limited. The only other one that shows up in the roulettes is Monster Hunter. Otherwise, don't care about the boys on a road trip? Just don't do the Regalia event, or if you want the car, it's a one time and done thing.

And it's the same for the other collabs. I wonder whether they are really effective marketing tools. The players who enjoy the other IPs are going to play both games regardless, but are the players who have no previous connections to them or who don't like them too begin starting to go into them?

None of the collabs in the game ever made me check out the IP collabed with. I was either already into them and needed no further encouragement or didn't care about them to begin with.

If it had been a time limited event or a one of like Monster Hunt that gave you 2B glam, the whole thing would be a lot less divisive and fewer people would care about the Yoko Taro's story telling style.

[Cleretic]

The Nier raids are great, and the best part is if you don't like it, you don't have to. They're a crossover in the classical style; one that puts forward that the day these two recognizable groups of characters met wasn't necessarily an important day for either of them. As someone once put it when I described that, 'the Scooby-Doo principle'; the day Mystery Inc. met KISS was not exceptional in any way to either Mystery Inc. or KISS, and the same is true of the Nier raids. To 2B and 9S it was just quashing a weird machine threat; to the Warrior of Light, it was stopping some otherworldly monsters from terrorizing a village. Both completed their job, both moved on. And similarly, as fans of either,you can do the same; Nier fans and FFXIV fans both can put it aside and move on if they want to, because it doesn't actually matter to either game's greater story.

Personally, I'm just happy that the raids were good, and had broadly usable rewards. Music's great, and all the glams are top-tier and don't stick out enough to just read as 'Nier gear'. Provided I'm not playing Black Mage, I'd take any Nier raid over anything else in the alliance roulette.

But then, I might've been the core audience for the raid: I left FFXIV at 4.1 because of disliking turns in the MSQ, the Nier raids pulled me in for a second chance. I think it's important to remember that's more of the intention with crossovers than anything else; to get someone who might've been on the fence about something to try it. You're not gonna convince the people who were already die-hard for both, or the people who never wanted to touch one or the other; it's more of a hook for the middle ground.

[BaroLlyonesse]

I'm not "here for the ride". I was forced onto it.

The Nier raids are great, and the best part is if you don't like it, you don't have to.

This. Same thing as ever: You never had to do it. Don't say you were 'forced' to do anything other than MSQ in this game. You chose to do it.

When everyone (at Square) was praising and cheering that Yoko Taro was going to make the new raid, and they started listing off his achievements with other games, it would've taken all of two minutes to find article after article showing off how insane he could get with his storytelling and emotions. There was nothing at all concerning about the raids themselves; they were well thought out and the battles were frustrating but fresh, and rewards for the raids were quite well done, even if the Obsolete gear makes you look like you belong in FO4's Institute. I'm saying if you want an explanation of the story, you'll never get a consensus, 'because Yoko Taro'. It simply isn't that straight forward, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you didn't like the story as it were developing, you didn't need to do the weeklies to complete the story, either. Get your raid gear and run.

Given the hatred some people have for Hildibrand and their absolute fury at being 'forced' to do his storyline for what will most likely be the joke weapons at first, is the exact same thing. There are dozens of memes talking about skipping the cutscenes if you don't like the story. 'What is he doing in my serious FFXIV experience!? He's goofy and stupid and the story is dumb!' If you're in it for the rewards, don't bother with the story. If you're in it for the story, you need to know the author before you pass judgment.

Nier raid and questline should be a lesson to all MMOs in the industry, especially Japanese MMOs and games. Collaborations are good, BUT DO NOT OVER STEP IT!
I'd rather not see a main content being turned into a collaboration ground ever again.

You mean Ivalice?

And it's the same for the other collabs. I wonder whether they are really effective marketing tools. The players who enjoy the other IPs are going to play both games regardless, but are the players who have no previous connections to them or who don't like them too begin starting to go into them?

None of the collabs in the game ever made me check out the IP collabed with. I was either already into them and needed no further encouragement or didn't care about them to begin with..

I mean, they got me to order a pizza off GrubHub when I would've used DoorDash, order a case of Butterfingers I swiftly gave away at work for karma, and order SE games off Amazon...

[Kranel_San]

You mean Ivalice?

Ivalice is an exception. True it was a kind of collaboration, but it was integrated into the world and the story pretty well. Nier is the total opposite, a nonsense given form.
You can make an Ivalice-themed expansion and fans will like it without feeling it's out of place.

[SannaR]

I'm not sure if King is a good example as a lot of things that feel a whole lot of what the heck in his books that aren't set in his Dark Tower world are still tied to his Dark Tower series. As just like Voidsent find a way to slip onto the Source things from that relm tend to slip into regular Earth. That and depending on the time frame of when some books written those books were written by a drug addled mind. One of the frustrating things about the Nier collaboration is that fans of the series and fans of Yoko Taro kept on telling everyone to be patient. That there would be a pay out that would make more sense than what little sense the story and the post story quests gave. And when we all got to the end of it all there still was a lot of people going wait what? As even if you knew the references and understood things because you played all the games, listened to all the audio dramas and watched all of the stage plays it still left many in that camp scratching their heads. While either liking the fight and the rewards or having the mind set of well I'll do it for the upgrade items I guess.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I don't especially care about his writing style. It was just a lame ending.

[kaynide]

The Nier raids are great, and the best part is if you don't like it, you don't have to..

You don’t have to do it yet.

The same was true for other 18 man raids, but gradually each is being tied into other content. If I understood correctly, an upcoming thing (maybe Tataru?) is going to tie into the Mhachi raids, so I fully expect it to be tied in somewhere.

To be fair, 3.0 and 4.0 raids seem to be/are side content related and not required, they do gate major chunks of side content.