The feeling of beeing Home ...

[Nanne]

I still feel like home and EW for me has been the best expansion so far. PvP got worse though

[Rulakir]

I agree that Arenvald shouldn't have been paralyzed. G'raha Tia should've died instead in 5.3 so he could take up the role of the party's second tank, and hopefully have some of that idealism of his dialed down by being humbled a bit over the course of the next expansion.

Paralyzing Arenvald hasn't served any purpose, so it was ultimately a pointless consequence. However, I don't want his optimism anywhere near the party. Estinien may say there's more than enough realists in the world, but we're certainly not surrounded by them. Consider that Estinien lost a lot of his bite after joining the Scions, you really think they'd write Arenvald to have his idealism reduced? Not likely.

The better option would be Fordola. Ultimately, she faces the same doom of losing her teeth like Estinien, but they'd have a long way to go for that as opposed to Arenvald who is already peak Scion material.

What about those of us who came to dislike them precisely because they're clad in such ridiculous levels of plot armour?

This. I didn't have any particularly negative feelings about the Scions until EW and since then I've become resentful of them, for lack of a better word. By virtue of attaching themselves to the WoL they are guaranteed near effortless wins without any losses or even setbacks. Meanwhile, other characters are brutalized to make up for the fact that the Scions are immortal (have to squeeze those tears from somewhere). Given the themes of EW, it was ridiculous to me I should view them as the poster children for overcoming suffering and despair compared to, frankly, just about anyone else and particularly the Ancients whose experiences still dwarf anything the sundered have been through by orders of magnitude. I'm extremely disappointed that the Final Days weren't as severe as they should have been outside of basically Thavnair.

[aveyond-dreams]

You cannot hope to keep my long term attention if the story you're going to tell me is devoid of meaningful character growth that is punctuated by events such as loss, change, or death. Now that the longstanding and relatively well-liked antagonist faction has been done away with, attention now turns to the scions that they've decided to keep around. These characters however have either regressed in terms of their growth or have fallen into cyclical loops where they go through the same plot points repeatedly just in different settings. It's gotten old. Please do better.

Allow me to highlight some of the more defining moments that party members have experienced throughout the Final Fantasy series and other games:

- Yuna breaking down in tears under the weight of the pressure placed on her shoulders, which in turn allowed for Tidus to comfort her and allowed for her to grow as a heroine by expressing the sort of emotional vulnerability that to date, only Ysayle has expressed in FFXIV. Y'shtola has never done this, nor do I think they would allow for her to do so.

- Vivi discovering that as a Black Mage, his lifespan would be limited due to the nature of his creation. After the events of the game, this character died but his "sons" lived on to carry on his legacy.

- The suicide attempt by Celes Chere in FFVI, when unlike the scions despair truly brought her to and past the brink. Her survival and receiving of a message of hope by way of Locke's bandanna to this day resonates more with the message of "forging ahead" than anything that happened in Endwalker.

- Noctis fulfilling his destiny by sacrificing himself to defeat Ardyn permanently, ending the Starscourge's grip on Eos and restoring the light to the world.

- Vanille confessing to Sazh that she is the cause of the suffering inflicted upon both him and his son due to her actions, offering her life in penance with her arms outstretched.

As a Final Fantasy game that now aspires to bill itself as being on par with other single player titles, I expect more to come from the main party than what we've seen done with the scions so far. "Heroines" like Y'shtola who show so little in terms of character progression or vulnerability under the guise of being a strong or independent character just isn't interesting. Celes Chere is a general for goodness sake, and she was able to show a wider range of emotions over the course of her story than Y'shtola.

FFXIV as a whole needs to be bolder with how far they're willing to go with the main party - and that doesn't mean adding more humor, slice of life scenes, or magical girl transformation sequences. What this story needs is for the party to have moments of greater substance. We had them in Heavensward. Please bring them back.

[Eldtagg]

snip

If I may add to this;

My problem with the MSQ have always been the WoL.

I strongly dislike the "chosen" one trait thrust upon any player-made character in RPG's, but especially in FFXIV I feel that the WoL is incredibly badly handled. It's lazy.

Sure, I am not saying that the Scion's doesn't have problems themselves with character growth, which you have mentioned, but having played through ARR - Endwalker during the years I've played FFXIV, I've really come to understand why it's better in MMORPG's like ESO where the game does not focus on your character when you interact with a NPC.

WoL inserting themselves into cutscenes is also the biggest issue I have with FFXIV; The WoL is personality-wise obviously nothing like how I "head roleplay" or otherwise see my character as.

My character or rather me myself as a person (my character's are usally self-inserts) is closer to Sazh personality-wise in Final Fantasy XIII. I am also a father and Sazh story hit way home when playing through the game. Only time I've had tears in a Final Fantasy games because as a father that love my son above everything in this world I can empathize with and understand the pain Sazh is feeling.

Instead I have to suffer through cutscenes where "MY" WoL is standing around, looking incredibly stupid, awkwardly smiling, talking while being quiet, having an incredibly jarring idle stance... it is easily the worst part of FFXIV for me, period.

If the WoL is supposed to be our characters why does SquareE FORCE traits upon my character where he reacts nothing like I expect him to? Why doesn't the WoL ever struggle against anything? Why doesn't the WoL grow or otherwise get more experienced with time?

Playing the WoL as it has been up to now is unfortunately what I would call akin to backseat gaming because it feels like if someone else is playing my character for me and choosing the reactions which is out of character for mine.

Going back to your point about growth etc. I know the community will hate me for this, but; the story (MSQ) is enjoyable but "for being as good as a single player story" it's nowhere deep enough, dark enough, written well enough to get me that invested in the characters (Scions) or the world as a whole.

This is basically the MSQ every expac; Problem arises - WoL arrives - Problem solved.

Does either the WoL, Scions, Faction leaders grow during these events? Not really, we do it all over again next expac!

There is certainly a lot of golden nuggets in FFXIV and playing through MSQ is an absolutely must for me because I do enjoy it. However I find the story itself often is a bit too... teenagish? (no offence) for me to get invested in it.

Endwalker's story and the characters that set things in motions felt more like how I saw the world some 20 years ago as a teenager, then I grew up and became and adult...

The characters that moves the pieces in Endwalker didn't grow up unfortunately and they are obviously all teenagers. What it all ultimately ends up in is a pretty cringe and childish story, with some golden nuggets, but overall it's a by-the-numbers powerfantasy that I could absolutely see me adore 20 years ago.

This is a usual issue with a lot of JRPG's; they are written for teenagers and basically noone over that age group.

Final Fantasy XIV for all its bells and whistle, never goes anyway beyond that point with it's story.

Imagine if I a character like Sazh existed in FFXIV. You know "A REAL" character that actually makes sense and is not a "one-note 17 year old anime protaganist that goes to high school and has a power inside that they do not understand".

Imagine...

Maybe I grew old and cynical..?

[TaleraRistain]

If the WoL is supposed to be our characters why does SquareE FORCE traits upon my character where he reacts nothing like I expect him to? Why doesn't the WoL ever struggle against anything? Why doesn't the WoL grow or otherwise get more experienced with time?

Because it's NOT entirely our character. The WoL is not a blank slate that we build from the ground up. The WoL is a pre-established character and personality where we customize the appearance and there's some wiggle room for that "head roleplay" but it's not boundless.

It's the difference between playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect where you can build that character to be exactly as you want and getting dialogue choices with a character like Gerolt in The Witcher or Eivor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. There are some people who wouldn't have their WoL be an adventurer at all, for instance. But it's important to the story that the WoL is an adventurer. There would be no story if that wasn't a trait.

[Eldtagg]

Because it's NOT entirely our character. The WoL is not a blank slate that we build from the ground up. The WoL is a pre-established character and personality where we customize the appearance and there's some wiggle room for that "head roleplay" but it's not boundless.

It's the difference between playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect where you can build that character to be exactly as you want and getting dialogue choices with a character like Gerolt in The Witcher or Eivor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. There are some people who wouldn't have their WoL be an adventurer at all, for instance. But it's important to the story that the WoL is an adventurer. There would be no story if that wasn't a trait.

Then it's time to age up the WoL. Teenage days are over for our WoL's after everything we have been through so far.

It's time that the WoL got something in their life that they love above everything else and they would fight tooth and nail for.

Family, a home, career.

Fighting constantly for your so called "Friends" (scions) ain't it chief.

That's a childs mind.

[hagare]

Then it's time to age up the WoL. Teenage days are over for our WoL's after everything we have been through so far.

It's time that the WoL got something in their life that they love above everything else and they would fight tooth and nail for.

Family, a home, career.

Fighting constantly for your so called "Friends" (scions) ain't it chief.

That's a childs mind.

you don't have friends do you xD

[TaleraRistain]

It's time that the WoL got something in their life that they love above everything else and they would fight tooth and nail for.

We have that. We put ourselves directly between the innocent and the bad things. We fight tooth and nail to keep everyone safe. If we hear about a threat, we go to confront it. That's what heroes do and this is a story about a hero.

[XiRon]

You cannot hope to keep my long term attention if the story you're going to tell me is devoid of meaningful character growth that is punctuated by events such as loss, change, or death. Now that the longstanding and relatively well-liked antagonist faction has been done away with, attention now turns to the scions that they've decided to keep around. These characters however have either regressed in terms of their growth or have fallen into cyclical loops where they go through the same plot points repeatedly just in different settings. It's gotten old. Please do better.





As a Final Fantasy game that now aspires to bill itself as being on par with other single player titles, I expect more to come from the main party than what we've seen done with the scions so far. "Heroines" like Y'shtola who show so little in terms of character progression or vulnerability under the guise of being a strong or independent character just isn't interesting. Celes Chere is a general for goodness sake, and she was able to show a wider range of emotions over the course of her story than Y'shtola.

FFXIV as a whole needs to be bolder with how far they're willing to go with the main party - and that doesn't mean adding more humor, slice of life scenes, or magical girl transformation sequences. What this story needs is for the party to have moments of greater substance. We had them in Heavensward. Please bring them back.

The trouble here is they can never do anything to the Scions.
Ever.
Each of them is hotglued to some kind of side content that is not at all mandatory (yet). Alisaie and Alphinaud in Bahamut, Yshtola in Alex, Urianger and Thancred in Eden, now Graha in Eorzeas 12. Were they to ever decide to nuke one of the chernobyl-disaster-proof Scions they would have to make either massive rewrites to increasingly old content or do something extremely lame and give wol some kind of harry potter time turner plot device to explain why a corpse is the lead of a sidequest.
The reverse is also true. Nobody should ever get attached to any potential NEW scions because they will either get Moenbryda'd immediately or else become equally as disaster proof as the scions already are.
Suffice to say, if you feel theres 0 tension or stakes in the story you may as well just skip everything besides side content. Swhat Im doing in 6.2.

[aveyond-dreams]

You can do the warring triad quests while you play shadowbringers despite Yshtola being in the first. It’s understood that content like that takes place within a given expansion’s time bubble. This cannot be used to justify any sort of immunity conferred onto the scions.

Something has to change here, especially if they want to go through with 10 more years of this game.