What Zero Could've Been

[Lunaxia]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

[Boblawblah]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

I loved the uncertainty of Heavensward, and slowly getting to know the Fortemps, and them becoming like family to the WoL. They've never quite hit the same feeling since then for me, although I love a lot of the story afterwards. fighting for Ishgard in the competition was such a great moment for me, I really felt like I had a home that wasn't just "go here weapon of light and kill".

[Brinne]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

Yeah, I feel you on that. Honestly, I generally enjoyed the 6.2 MSQ (Y'shtola aside), but one of the letdowns was definitely that, while I don't mind Zero - I don't have a strong opinion of her yet, beyond "we'll see where they go with her" and "I'm happy for the people who like her archetype" - I was super looking forward to Vrtra/Varshahn as a major "new face" in the party and then it felt like he barely got any focus, even though he was our entire reason for being there. You could just wholesale delete Y'shtola from the 6.2 MSQ and I think it'd only improve it, honestly...

[SannaR]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

The statement released to the public is that the band broke up. So that at least on the surface it looks as though they're not an organization. They're trying to go back into the shadows in order to try and let the leaders of the various countries handle stuff on their own. So we start 6.1 looking for adventure and get led to a guy who's got supposedly genuine map of this treasure map. Estinien buys it and we agree to go with. Now we did promise G'Raha one adventure so we go poke him. We also think about Y'Shtola as it's hinted that the mythical ruler might have stumbled onto how to travel the rift. And that's what we know she was researching about. Now I know why we get pointed towards Urianger but he is the only one I feel is shoehorned into our group. Where we also bump into Thancred who is doing whatever after not being able to locate some kind of past mentor. For me the 6.1 grouping makes sense and two of them peace out soon after the dungeon. Now could they have done it differently? Sure, but they didn't. And at least they seem to only be bringing in members when they need to. The only disappointment of 6.2 is that Urianger got used again to be the one who ends up giving our group a macguffin. At least we got him to stop it with the secrets/lies.

I feel part of the reason why Shotla come off as bland is due to her well being raised by Matoya since she was 7. That doesn't really teach a person how to pick up on some social ques. So she went and took a roll of be the cold observer who can be an exposition dumper when it would make sense for her to be the one doing so. We're just now getting to see her open up and pick up on some ques that her time in the First clued her in on.

[AwesomeJr44]

On the subject of the Scions, does anyone else crave another situation like Heavensward where we just get dropped into the next expansion by ourselves and have to find our own bearings? I really miss that sense of uncertainty and adventure, and when they were pushing the "you're just an adventurer again" idea I rather hoped that's where they might be going. I enjoyed the presence of the Scions in Shadowbringers, but with Endwalker on top of that plus these latest patches after it was teased we'd be saying goodbye to them (did I imagine that?) I've got heavy character fatigue, as with the majority of our quests feeling like a school trip or that I'm packing an entourage with me wherever I go. I'm more than a little fed up of coming up against a new place or character or what have you and rather being able to acquaint myself with it, I have a Scion loudly shouting down my ear who or what they think it might be.

I think that would vastly improve the direction of the game's story. We've been around the scions for too long now, and it's time to go on an adventure by ourselves, and meet some new friends.

Honestly, as much as I like the trust system, I feel that's it's almost limited what the writers can do with the story and its characters. 6.1 was supposed to be an adventure with Estinien, yet a bunch of other scions get dragged in because we need NPCs for the trust dungeon. I get why Yshtola needed to be there, but it really felt like we were dragging the scions back in just because we need a *insert role here* for the dungeon. It feels like the story is shackled to the requirement of needing the scions for trusts. Ktisis' trust NPCs were great, but that feels like the exception to the rule nowadays. Perhaps they could take a page out of the ARR trust system's book and have the trust dungeon NPCs be random people if it would fit the story better. About to go into a dungeon and don't have enough scions in the area? Perhaps some random unnamed NPCs that you've befriended and live in the area can show up and help out.

I feel the Trust system could benefit from some randomization going forward. Rather than the Scions (barring dungeons where it is narratively appropriate, of course) accompanying the WoL into battle, the roles could be filled by randomly generated NPCs. It would do a good job of giving that "I'm fighting alongside random adventurers" feel the game lost a long time ago. Couple this with decreased Scion presence in the story, and you've got a recipe for success.

^ This. This is exactly what I'd like to see.

I don’t know why they push Yshtola so much in game, the only thing I can imagine is because she might be popular in the Japanese community since they even made an overpriced doll of her instead of any others.

She's the official mascot for FFXIV in other FF games so the dev team probably has some level of favoritism towards her.