Live Letter Thoughts

[Alleo]

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 in saying that they need to take a break from them. This is not demonstrated by the polls you have posted.

I wanted to show that one thread on reddit does not make a good statistic. Especially when its quite often said here on the forum how "bad" reddit, twitter and others are.
So bascially you have a high chance to find a thread on reddit that shows your own opinion but that does not make it a fact.

@Lauront: So now we shift goal and take threads not into account even though they are made after Endwalker thus should show the opinions of people after they finished it but small threads with barely any comments should?

The character poll from China is also quite recent.

This forum, and even places like Reddit, are a tiny percentage of the playerbase. Its near impossible to really get a 100% accurate idea of what the population think on any aspect, be it job changes or story. Anger and discourse will always have a louder voice in the pack. One just hopes that those in charge like Yoshi-P know to look beyond just these walls when seeking feedback.

Exactly. Which is why I just took a few minutes and searched for FF14 reddit Endwalker and got threads with many different views. So having one thread that somehow says that a few people who like the scions are fine with them being gone from the story is not proof. Its just that, one thread.

It also shows how the information is used. My threads, with one of them having over 500 comments (unlike the other links with barely any comments) is somehow not accurate because somehow many people will just change their opinion of a story after a bit? I am sure if these threads would have been against Endwalker they would have been fine to be used.

So maybe we should better just stick to our own opinions and not try to give any side some majority this / minority that.

But again I am not sure why the MSQ and characters are so much a topic, since seemingly quests are not important in a MMO and gameplay should be more important...

About the topic itself: Still looking forward Island Sancturary.

[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.

[AwesomeJr44]

Perhaps not here, where honestly it feels rather daunting at times to speak out as a fan of Venat,

Are you joking? Please tell me you're joking. Being an open Venat fan is the easiest way to have the GCBTW accept you instantly on any other social media platform, and even on the forums you're accepted by half of the people here. On the forums, you'll actually meet people from both sides, people who like her (somehow), and people people who don't. Don't pretend like Venat fans are some persecuted group, that's so ridiculous it would be hilarious if I could believe it was a joke.

- You guys have the GCBTW to banish any anti-Venat people to downvote hell on Reddit, while if you make a pro-Venat post you get to swim in upvotes for almost zero effort.
- You have Pro-Venat Reddit Mods to just outright delete pro-Ascian/Zodiark posts and art to prevent them from getting even some small level of attention.
- You have your own personal derailing squad on the forums to ensure that anyone who disagrees with you can't have a proper thread because god forbid someone talk about how they don't like mommy or how she's a murderer. (The derailing happens even when its a positive thread like this one was. Guess people hate Aveyond THAT much for being honest)
- Every Youtuber on Youtube is forced to agree with you so they can get MSQ watch time as not liking the story isn't popular.
- You have big FFXIV streamers like Zepla painting the entire portion of the community that didn't like Endwalker/Venat as 'trolls'.

Being a Venat fan isn't 'daunting'. You just prefer the Reddit/Twitter/Youtube echo chamber where you don't often encounter people who don't like your precious mommy.

[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.

[Lauront]

I wanted to show that one thread on reddit does not make a good statistic. Especially when its quite often said here on the forum how "bad" reddit, twitter and others are.

Yeah, for reasons that have been rehashed here multiple times, but if posters were to limit their examples to the OF, the usual anti-OF arguments would crop up, hence an example drawn from the XIV Discussion subreddit.

So bascially you have a high chance to find a thread on reddit that shows your own opinion but that does not make it a fact.

Is anyone suggesting that the existence of opinions makes whatever is being said within those opinions a fact? But when the question initially posed was one of doubt that some people are bored of the scions, yes, the existence of said opinions does make it a fact that such opinions exist.

@Lauront: So now we shift goal and take threads not into account even though they are made after Endwalker thus should show the opinions of people after they finished it but small threads with barely any comments should?

Introducing threads about the expansion and Scion popularity is goal-shifting in the first place, while failing to take into account the fact that a character being popular does not mean the same thing as not wanting to shift to new characters in the story. It is not a: "I want the same exact cast in the story for the next story arc" poll - one could point to the existence of characters outwith the Scions outstripping certain of them in popularity as well, on that note. SE often seems prone to this confusion themselves by dragging out a character's presence just because they previously had been popular. But regardless, the two things are not the same. The Chinese poll falls under this same issue. And to reiterate a point made by the below poster for the earlier threads:

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.

So maybe we should better just stick to our own opinions and not try to give any side some majority this / minority that.

Indeed, hence as the above poster put it (and I have stated multiple times before when the Strikers of the world allude to supposed "majorities" that just "love" EW, which includes attempts to present other sites as somehow reflective of majorities in contrast to the OF, when the reality is no major site the fanbase engages can claim that and we must remain agnostic as to how representative any of them is since we have no basis to determine this):

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.

[ReynTime]

Daddy Thancred Arc was a good Arc.
His relationship with Ryne was really good. One of many reasons why ShB IMO was the Best Expansion.

If they were really concerned about making good character development closures, that would have been the end of his arc. Since 1.0 his story was based on the guilt from failing to stop Minfilia's father from getting killed, evolved into him feeling he had to make up for it by working harder under the Circle and consequently the Scions while still being too hard on himself since, stumbling to grow due the circumstances of his missions (falling for the trap in Drybone, being taken by an Ascian, etc), then feeling like he 'lost' Minfilia in Heavensward... until he meets what is essentially his 'second chance' in Ryne, which was the primary reason he got so over protective of her.
Only reason he's still around now is because muh fans who can't let go of characters with concluded arcs just because they love them too much.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Are you joking? Please tell me you're joking. Being an open Venat fan is the easiest way to have the GCBTW accept you instantly on any other social media platform

Herein lies a big part of the problem; we're not on any other platform. The victim play about how you all get downvoted to oblivion elsewhere is meaningless here. If we really cared what Reddit or Twitter or wherever else thought, we'd go there. Maybe save your anger for them, and try approaching the forums as its own place.

And before it comes up: I'm not very pro-Venat. I'm neutral about her at best. I want to play through Endwalker again for better context (I was kinda rushing the first time to outpace spoilers, and still only met with moderate success at it), but I keep getting distracted by other stuff, so I try to keep my thoughts about the matter to myself.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

If they were really concerned about making good character development closures, that would have been the end of his arc. Since 1.0 his story was based on the guilt from failing to stop Minfilia's father from getting killed, evolved into him feeling he had to make up for it by working harder under the Circle and consequently the Scions while still being too hard on himself since, stumbling to grow due the circumstances of his missions (falling for the trap in Drybone, being taken by an Ascian, etc), then feeling like he 'lost' Minfilia in Heavensward... until he meets what is essentially his 'second chance' in Ryne, which was the primary reason he got so over protective of her.
Only reason he's still around now is because muh fans who can't let go of characters with concluded arcs just because they love them too much.

Cool Story Bro.
Im not going to argue about if the Devs were concerned about his character development closure, or why he's still around for any reason.
His arc and that story in ShB was great, thats the only thing I can & will say on it. Why he's still around? I dounno, why didnt he die back in ShB, not an answer I can give. If he's still around, then he still has a purpose. And Ill wait to see what that purpose is. For now, my attention and energy is on other things in the game.

The only person I question is Kryle since it just seems like she does nothing more then exposition. But thats exactly how Urianger started out. So there is potential she could see a bigger role in the future. But again, for now my attention and Energy is on other things.

[AwesomeJr44]

Herein lies a big part of the problem; we're not on any other platform.

I know the forums are different, I even said as such in my post. I was pointing out how every other platform caters to pro-Venat people, while the forums are a more fair place for discussion. The person I was responding to said that it was difficult or 'daunting' to be pro-Venat on this platform. This is not the case, it is merely not as incredibly easy and popular to be pro-Venat here as you'll actually encounter people who don't share your opinions. The forums are what a social media community SHOULD be (or at least far closer than anything else), but this person is accustomed to echo chambers and thus apparently finds the opposing opinions on the forums to be scary.

I did bring up one thing about the forums that makes it more difficult to be anti-Venat, but even with that in mind, I'd rather be posting here than on other sites.

Being an open Venat fan is the easiest way to have the GCBTW accept you instantly on any other social media platform, and even on the forums you're accepted by half of the people here. On the forums, you'll actually meet people from both sides, people who like her (somehow), and people people who don't. ...

Being a Venat fan isn't 'daunting'. You just prefer the Reddit/Twitter/Youtube echo chamber where you don't often encounter people who don't like your precious mommy.

[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.