FFXIV - Buried Memory (Poster)

[XiRon]

You take a member of the Twelve as your guardian because it's considered a cultural thing to do so for travellers upon arriving in Eorzea, "when in Rome do as the Romans do" and all that, and especially so when joining up as an adventurer.

Chosen guardian no longer has any connection to gameplay anyway so if you dislike it that much just ignore it on the character sheet.

Thats stupid.
Nobody and up identifies under a new religious identity when they travel what?
Oh sure I'll just change my spirituality to fit in, its fun, its cool.
Its just more of the writers not adapting to new races. Your "hometown" as a hrothgar or viera or auri is whatever city you start in, despite being the singular member of your race in all of eorzea, unless you do the warrior, gnb, or white mage questlines.
I really think its more than time the writing of the game reflect the reality of the players and add in a/v/h lore into Eorzea instead of whatever expansion zone they smack them in.
Not of course that it matters, they already sent the bar for MotR into hell by not having Azemya have any miqote traits (unless you wanna be generous and say Byregot resembles a roe) so hooray...more Ascians who are just remodeled hyur and earless elezen, I hope the design team doesnt wear themselves out being creative.
(Also aint it cute that not a single ascian uses the Roe model despite roes having almost nothing separating them from hyurs? Show your bias more guys!)

[TheMightyMollusk]

Lotta mad there over something that has no affect on anything whatsoever, but you do you.

[Iscah]

Nobody and up identifies under a new religious identity when they travel what?
Oh sure I'll just change my spirituality to fit in, its fun, its cool.
Its just more of the writers not adapting to new races.

I don't think it's the "writers not adapting", it's the character template that seems very rigid.

As for "changing your spirituality to fit the location", I don't think that is the case. Rather, in a world where everyone seems to believe that multiple gods exist, and are often associated with a specific place, then it's more about paying tribute to the local god while you're visiting their territory. It's a totally different starting mindset to the idea of being loyal to a single god to ensure your place in the afterlife.

As for the Twelve, if they came into existence in the time before the modern races exist, then it's unlikely for them to resemble the modern races. Maybe they're ancients, maybe they're constructs of the ancients, but if they date from that time then it's not strange that they look that way. (Although Nald'thal is a complete oddity in this aspect, looking more like a living statue than a person.)

What little we've been told so far indicates that the "real" Twelve existed before the Eorzeans ever worshipped them, and the religions developed out of genuine sightings of those beings – so Azeyma has no reason to resemble the people who started to worship her after she already came into being. The Miqo'te may be primarily sun-worshippers who adopted Azeyma as patron because she is the local sun goddess.

[IkaraGreydancer]

I wish the writers would move onto something new instead of the latest, convoluted Ascian sob story. It's a dead horse that's been Sundered and beaten into the aether at this point.

Yeah, I'm not sure why the writers don't just leave a story thread they started and go on to something else. We don't even really know what going on in Pande yet so how can you call it a sob story? The Pande story is in fact new so I'm not sure what you're really asking for.

On the topic of the art itself it's quite interesting. Maybe Laha has some sort of Dr. Jeckll Mr. Hyde thing going on.

[Puksi]

Considering every Ascian story has went from generic Bob Evil (insert number here) to a retconned (and convoluted) sob story, call it a wild hunch. Kingdom Hearts called, they want their Organization XIII back.

Midas already did the Jekyll and Hyde cliche thanks to Bahamut, really. As for abandoning storylines, Bozja says hi.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Considering every Ascian story has went from generic Bob Evil (insert number here) to a retconned (and convoluted) sob story, call it a wild hunch. Kingdom Hearts called, they want their Organization XIII back.

Midas already did the Jekyll and Hyde cliche thanks to Bahamut, really. As for abandoning storylines, Bozja says hi.

The kH joke is overplayed dude. Find a better thing to parrot. What was even retconned about the Ascians exactly and how does it all just turn into a sob story? I understand some of you desperately want to turn everything you don't like into a version of KH by disregarding key details but come on...

And while we didn't get to finish it, we DID get a Bozja conclusion via notes. Sorry to say that'd not going to happen with Pande as it's a raid series. If you don't like it skip it.

[Puksi]

The KH joke is probably "overplayed" because it's accurate. In a Famitsu interview, Yoshida and Ishikawa freely admitted the team had zero idea what the Ascians were for except a shallow plot device, clear up to Shadowbringers--at which point apparently the idea became "plot twist: what if bad, but SAD".

Yoshida: “We don’t have detailed lore yet for what the Ascians’ goals are, so let’s just have them be doing bad stuff in the background.”

So, to clarify, the entire time clear through Stormblood, the only thing they knew was Ascians were Bob Evils in a bog-standard plot, wearing black hooded robes like the other convoluted Square property. For the first three expansions of this game, there were deeper villains in SatAM cartoons. Heart Of Sabik? Never heard of him. Ascian Prime? Rule of cool. All the Ascians of the cups and saucers and kitchen sinks and whatnot? Who knows? Not the writers!

Which is probably why Yoshida expressed surprise that anyone analyzes the "details" of the Ascians now, and the long-vaunted Zodiark was an underwhelming trial boss.

Beating the dead Sundered horse for fanservice works for some, obviously. I'd rather they get on with the brand new stuff they've been hyping up. I don't care what new reason Lahabrea has for doing what he did, just like the writers themselves didn't care when he actually did it.

[IkaraGreydancer]

The KH joke is probably "overplayed" because it's accurate. In a Famitsu interview, Yoshida and Ishikawa freely admitted the team had zero idea what the Ascians were for except a shallow plot device, clear up to Shadowbringers--at which point apparently the idea became "plot twist: what if bad, but SAD".

Yoshida: “We don’t have detailed lore yet for what the Ascians’ goals are, so let’s just have them be doing bad stuff in the background.”

So, to clarify, the entire time clear through Stormblood, the only thing they knew was Ascians were Bob Evils in a bog-standard plot, wearing black hooded robes like the other convoluted Square property. For the first three expansions of this game, there were deeper villains in SatAM cartoons. Heart Of Sabik? Never heard of him. Ascian Prime? Rule of cool. All the Ascians of the cups and saucers and kitchen sinks and whatnot? Who knows? Not the writers!

Which is probably why Yoshida expressed surprise that anyone analyzes the "details" of the Ascians now, and the long-vaunted Zodiark was an underwhelming trial boss.

Beating the dead Sundered horse for fanservice works for some, obviously. I'd rather they get on with the brand new stuff they've been hyping up. I don't care what new reason Lahabrea has for doing what he did, just like the writers themselves didn't care when he actually did it.

None of what you said translates to KH (sorry but black robes is quite a shallow reasoning). But all in all like I said, skip it if you don't like it.

[Puksi]

Thirteen bad Square randos popping here and there mysteriously to "do bad things" while clad in black hooded edgelord robes sure doesn't sound at all like the other thirteen bad Square randos popping here and there mysteriously to "do bad things" while clad in black hooded edgelord robes, lmao.

The only difference is the KH writers probably had more of an idea where they were going with it. But hey, at least you dropped the claim the Ascians weren't retconned to the moon and back since, you know, they were.

I'll criticize writing I find lacking AND play the game, thanks. Especially when story is supposed to be a major point of playing.

[TaleraRistain]

I think that's Athena in the doorway and I've thought since we found out about Erich that she's Igeyorhm.

And I was really hoping since it's called Pandaemonium that we'd see Mateus' Light Emperor/Dark Emperor aspect come into play. Mateus is my favorite villain next to Kefka.

I also saw someone on Twitter compare Mateus' symbol with the way everyone is presented on this and it matched pretty well.