Live Letter Thoughts

[Kazhar]

...

All of your sources were immediatly after release, which is when Endwalker's reception was at its strongest. Recency biais is a well known phenomenon.
Just a few weeks ago, a poll on reddit with a few thousands of votes firmly put Endwalker below Shadowbringers as the subreddit's favorite expansion.

But in any case, data coming from a single source or a single point in time will always be shaky at best. If you go to discussion forums which aren't dedicated to FFXIV or any Square Enix properties, you'll find much more varied opinions.
Which is why polling experts exist at all, to filter all the biais and try to make the more accurate picture of what the playerbase think of the game.
At our level, it's impossible to know anything for certain besides anecdotal evidence.

[VelKallor]

None of what was posted above accounts for the fact that the fans of the Scions are in agreement with those of us who aren't

No. Not even close.

One reddit thread with a grand total of maybe 30 people does not a cohesive consensus make....especially in a playerbase of millions. IMO, it is utterly presumptuous to claim otherwise. We are, all of us, free to have our own opinions...but none of us, including me, speaks for anyone save ourselves.

Incidentally, the Omicrons are not, as you claim "comic relief", as has been evidenced above by direct quotations.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

So even though there is all these claims that People Dont like and want a break from the Scions, Im also hearing people like the Scions.
All Im getting out of this is the Hate Base isn't as strong as suggested. So the Scions are fine.

Look, as Ive said several times, FFXIV always introduces new characters, and like in all of storytelling, they are introduced when it is necessary. May not happen when YOU want it to happen, but as evidence throughout Post Arr, HW, SB, ShB, AND EW, new characters do come in, When necessary and relevant to the plot.
Let YoshiP and the Devs make their game, and then judge it when it happens. Stop preemptively passing judgement on something before it even happens and then look silly when you are wrong.

[Kazhar]

So even though there is all these claims that People Dont like and want a break from the Scions, Im also hearing people like the Scions.
All Im getting out of this is the Hate Base isn't as strong as suggested. So the Scions are fine.

Which begs another question. Should stories be written by market research? All this talk about pleasing a majority feels like there's a loss of creative integrity in the process. Shouldn't they aim to write the best story they can deliver instead of having the fanbase dictate whatever they want?
Whenever I read people say that they can't kill Scions because of the outrage over Papalymo's death, I feel uneasy about it. Is it all about money?

But then I'm talking about a game that's all about crowd pleasing nostalgia fanservice so maybe I was expecting something that was never there.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Which begs another question. Should stories be written by market research?

Speaking bluntly from a business perspective:

For a self contained one-off story? No. The story's concluded, you don't need to worry about long lasting consequences or impacts as far as character deaths/interactions go.

For an always expanding, online service? yes. Any consequences from a character death will become a permanent mark in all future content and part of the service, and at worst, will drive off any players that were a fan of said character from continuing. Especially when the payoff for such a death can just as easily miss the mark and not hit with the playerbase, resulting in the death effectively being in vain and shooting the writers in the foot for going -1 on established loved characters; it's a simple fool's gamble. This is especially egregious when you can tell a story with darker themes or higher stakes without ever killing any of the main cast, tons of novels and other video game stories accomplish this.

You only need to walk down the likes of FF14 twitter or FF14 tumblr to see a endless ocean of fanart & appreciation for the scions, showing just how wide a fanbase they have. The devs stand to gain almost nothing from killing off major characters at this point in the game's life, and trying to do so will likely lead to the dev team being in the spotlight in the next CEO meeting with a 'bruh, wtf you doing' moment. The worst that that will ever happen to the scions at this point is getting the Lyse treatment, where they will be put into positions that make it much harder for them to interact with the MSQ, but still easily accessible should the writers ever need to pluck them for a plotline.

Heck, even take Haurchefant, who was only an important side character; even nearly half a decade after the fact, there's still so many tributes, art, and appreciation for him. DSR got insane view spikes for FF14 on twitch because even the people not interested in watching other ultimates got extremely vested into the alternate timeline idea where he's saved.

Is it all about money?

Welcome to capitalism. Square Enix is a business. They will do whatever decision that they perceive will bring the most profitability, through the analyzation of petabytes, if not exabytes worth of statistics that will tell exactly what's correct and what's not in the current paradigm of the video game industry. Anyone claiming to be the majority, minority, etc is just being a fool, for only Square knows who is the majority. And taking a look at FF14's profits year over year and constantly rising active players expansion over expansion, their statistics are telling them -exactly- what they need to know.

[Graeham]

We are angry at the mistreatment of the lackluster story writers guild by the forum paladin and the twitter croud and the redditor army. It is the proven fact that Endwalker is the most controversial expac because the Madge King say so to us all the time. We have try very hard to make the course correction to fix the story into the dark fantasy like the Game of the Throne produced by the Matsuno which all the player have vote to see. We try to stopping the slice of the life anime and the humor and the unhealthy burger. But it is the lose fight.

We show the original German story where No Shadow God win but player post the Japanese quote and disagree. We rewrite story to fix the Garlemalding and create the end where the Loprit is eaten by the God Meteo but is laugh at as the bad take. We ask for diverse cast and the retired Sion with the muscle slider to be traditional strong hero like the Scottish Fordola, but they not give us the legendary Stranger Knight Jack chara. Famous paintman Vincent Van Kozh make the true manga of the Endwalker but it is parody by the redditor army and the Fourchanalt. All the hard work we do over many month is record in the forum tag at bottom. We persist despite repeat humiliation because we care more than any other player. It is because we care more than the other player that we should be listen over others or else the story would become like the Sylphi undead in the WoW. Game will fail some day in future without the bless of guild. You need us you will see.

It is sad. The story writer ignore all the suggestion that we make so we can not even try take credit for the hard work. And now the 6.2 patch come out and you enjoy it without the course correction?? We are very angry. It is the deepest wound of all. It is like all the thing we say repeating over 8 month is suddenly become the irrelevant by hype trailer with excite music and funny Manmanville and cute Loprit that we hate. I... I am having so many mix feeling now. But no I can not give in. We will not stop we will not surrender. For though you defeat us our principle is in violet. Indivisible.

[Nizzi]

Trashfire is not even close to an accurate descriptor of this thread, but;

My huge issues with job design aside;

From what we saw of the story, I think it looks good and I'm actually looking forward to it. While EW disappointed me, I do enjoy Estinien and Y'shtola a lot so I'm glad we're continuing with more of them, the new Reaper character looks like she'll be interesting.

Excited for the new dungeons, I read somewhere that Criterion Savage is meant to be done in full Savage BiS? Which is an interesting and bold choice if true, and one quite frankly I think I'll end up liking. They can't provide an Ultimate every patch so the game having something to do combat wise once you've cleared the tier and geared is a good one, especially since it wont require coordinating with 7 other people and instead just 3.

Holding my thoughts on Island Sanctuary until I actually get there and try it myself, but the rewards seem really cute so I'm sure I'll do it for those casually if I'm not a fan of how it works.

The new tier's gear looks cool, and I'm unsure if the particle effects are for normal mode or Savage, but if they're for doing Savage, I think that's another interesting choice and a good one. I know a lot of people have complained about Ultimate titles and weapons being the only "prestige" gear in the game, and while I don't think it's prestigious to do Savage at all, I don't have an issue with Savage gear having a bit more flair than just being a dyeable version of the normal mode.

I also haven't watched much more than the trailer but the fight against the giant tree with the triangle arena looks like it's going to be a hell of a lot of fun. I'm glad they took note of the positive reaction to how they utilized the arena in P2S to make the fight interesting and they're leaning more into it. Square/Circle arenas for every fight was getting boring, so if you're going to make us do the dance, build on some fun and interesting arena designs - and I'm very stoked to see that they've taken that feedback and seem to be playing with it more. I can't think of a single fight in all of Eden that wasn't just Square or Circle arenas, so this is a good step IMO.

All in all, issues with job design aside (and if you know my post history you'll know probably 90% of what I do is complaining about the state of healers and Scholar) I'm actually pretty excited for this. I wasn't planning on doing the new tier at all, but now I think I will, just on DPS this time.

[Kazhar]

Excited for the new dungeons, I read somewhere that Criterion Savage is meant to be done in full Savage BiS? Which is an interesting and bold choice if true, and one quite frankly I think I'll end up liking. They can't provide an Ultimate every patch so the game having something to do combat wise once you've cleared the tier and geared is a good one, especially since it wont require coordinating with 7 other people and instead just 3.

I think this is indeed the intent, as the next two criterion dungeon are scheduled to release in 6.4 and 6.5 respectively (while the next Ultimate will be in 6.3). This is great idea to keep raiders busy all year long, so I hope this experiment will be successful.

[TheMightyMollusk]

As long as y'all are having fun.

[Semirhage]

Good god, the Emet fanclub is still raging about that evil wicked vile hateful witch Venat and her murderous evil horrible nastiness that must be SHAME SHAME SHAMED verbally in the MSQ otherwise this is the worst story in the entire universe because we didn't spend 4 hours talking about how duplicitous and horrible and genocidal and awful and mean and stinky and disgusting and wretched that awful backstabbing hag Venat killed the beautiful perfect Amaurotine race through her pettiness and laziness?

I must be on the FF14 forums.