Thread: New story writer for 7.0

I've been burned one too many times by FFXIV's story in recent memory to permit myself to have hope, so my faith in Hiroi is stagnated. We'll just have to see what he gives us, and how much Yoshi-P's bullshit hamstrings the process. Nothing good will come from allowing that man to taint the narrative again like how we was allowed to inject his Mommy fetish everywhere in Endwalker.

Originally Posted by Cleretic

I think for a lot of people (not everyone, of course), it's quite simple: if every side is wrong, it means that their favorite side is wrong. And if they happen to care A LOT about their side, perhaps even identifying with it, then that feels like a slight on them.

You know, I oh so desperately wish some of y'all were self-aware enough to realize how you sound when you proselytize this "both sides" shite. I can't take it seriously coming from Lore forums regs, not when such ideals suddenly fade from your minds when it comes to any Ancient fans who are not fervently pro-Sundered.

My confidence in Yoshi has dropped significantly over time as this game has gone through numerous controversies starting with Blue Mage when it became clear that it was his interests he was putting first instead of stopping to think, "Wait, would this actually work for this playerbase or does it fly in the face of what we've delivered on in the past?" Then the limited races happened (which he had no intention of updating until other people proactively took on those tasks in spite of his instructions) and his recent attempt to get into storytelling helped spark a 700+ page thread criticizing the end of a 10 year arc.

If he wants to stay on, he isn't exactly giving me the impression that would be in the interest of people who want content and the sort of storytelling that falls outside his wants. And now with 6.25 set to give us a beast tribe that has us dancing on the Crater of Martyrs while Ivalice/Bozja was dropped in favor of Hildibrand relics, this game is in dire need of course correction by a firm, unwavering hand that holds fast to mature, fantasy-oriented storytelling. Not what we saw in Endwalker's 6.0-6.1 MSQ.

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

My confidence in Yoshi has dropped significantly over time as this game has gone through numerous controversies starting with Blue Mage when it became clear that it was his interests he was putting first instead of stopping to think, "Wait, would this actually work for this playerbase or does it fly in the face of what we've delivered on in the past?" Then the limited races happened (which he had no intention of updating until other people proactively took on those tasks in spite of his instructions) and his recent attempt to get into storytelling helped spark a 700+ page thread criticizing the end of a 10 year arc.

If he wants to stay on, he isn't exactly giving me the impression that would be in the interest of people who want content and the sort of storytelling that falls outside his wants. And now with 6.25 set to give us a beast tribe that has us dancing on the Crater of Martyrs while Ivalice/Bozja was dropped in favor of Hildibrand relics, this game is in dire need of course correction by a firm, unwavering hand that holds fast to mature, fantasy-oriented storytelling. Not what we saw in Endwalker's 6.0-6.1 MSQ.

From the time Yoshi-P came in to take over FFXIV back in 1.0, he set it up to be a "Final Fantasy Theme Park" and began first introducing FF content (classic FF jobs with their more fantastical-looking armor) into what was otherwise a super medieval, realistic, and mature setting. ARR ended up doubling-down on that and it's in the DNA of the game now. He's gone on record multiple times to describe the game as his life's work and he's never leaving, despite other projects being added to his load like FFXVI. While there are some mature moments, the thematic direction of FFXIV has been very apparent since then and it's a bit late to complain about it now 10 years later.


Blue Mage is what it is because of player expectations for spell hunting. That mechanic works for a job in FFXI where the jobs didn't get spells automatically at level-up anyway, but doesn't work in FFXIV where things are more regimented. Otherwise people would get upset about BLUs joining their parties with wrong spell setups or even missing spells. So it got spun-off into its own content, which I don't agree with, but some people I know really enjoy it and at least they were doing something different. If everything in FFXIV had to be compared against "what we've delivered on in the past", then everything will just be even more samey than it is now with jobs becoming more homogenized and patch schedules that are extremely predictable in the type of content that will be delivered, with said content generally being what we've had before in other expansions with a new coat of paint on it.


As far as Ivalice/Bozja, Matsuno himself said that Bozja's storyline is already finished. There's nothing left for us to do there, the country has been liberated. Dalmasca could have been explored further with side-content in a new expansion but the Bozja content apparently had a negative reception among the Japanese playerbase and even to this day I think the way they did Castrum and Dalriada was stupid and I'm still waiting for them to change those. I don't see how Ivalice has anything to do with us doing Hildebrand relics though. SB and ShB relics had nothing at all to do with any relic storylines before them except "Gerolt is there", and the first Ivalice content was alliance raids, not relics.



Edit: Sidenote, I'm a little confused by your signature. Garlemald and Garlean-associated terminology are full of the Latin language, not Russian. The Hrothgar use Russian/Slavic. The word "glory" in your signature is even called out by the dev in this forum who posted the Hrothgar naming conventions: "Hrothgar forenames are similar to old Slavic names, though certain lexemes differ─most notably, the Hrothgar word for “glory” is “thgar” rather than “slav,” so the former proliferates where one might be used to seeing the latter in real-world names (e.g. “Vladithgar”)".

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

From the time Yoshi-P came in to take over FFXIV back in 1.0, he set it up to be a "Final Fantasy Theme Park" and began first introducing FF content (classic FF jobs with their more fantastical-looking armor) into what was otherwise a super medieval, realistic, and mature setting. ARR ended up doubling-down on that and it's in the DNA of the game now. He's gone on record multiple times to describe the game as his life's work and he's never leaving, despite other projects being added to his load like FFXVI. While there are some mature moments, the thematic direction of FFXIV has been very apparent since then and it's a bit late to complain about it now 10 years later.

If you think there isn't some strange disconnect between the general level of mature storytelling of ARR/HW/ShB and frickin' Endwalker, than I'm not sure what to tell you as I'm reasonably certain we're not living in the same universe. Operating on entirely different logical wavelengths.

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I do often find myself wondering how different the story would be if it didn't have to get the Yoshi P seal of approval; particularly after the mention of Endwalker having to go through several drafts before he accepted one of them and his...weird takes about certain characters.

Kage said it best, Endwalker was influenced by the big green dinosaur man up top way too much and his influence needs to be severely curtailed if Final Fantasy XIV wishes to have a future worth taking pride in.

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

As far as Ivalice/Bozja, Matsuno himself said that Bozja's storyline is already finished. There's nothing left for us to do there, the country has been liberated. Dalmasca could have been explored further with side-content in a new expansion but the Bozja content apparently had a negative reception among the Japanese playerbase and even to this day I think the way they did Castrum and Dalriada was stupid and I'm still waiting for them to change those. I don't see how Ivalice has anything to do with us doing Hildebrand relics though. SB and ShB relics had nothing at all to do with any relic storylines before them except "Gerolt is there", and the first Ivalice content was alliance raids, not relics.

You neglected to mention a critical piece of context here. Ivalice/Bozja is done because they cut Matsuno off and wouldn't let him tell the story he wanted to tell there, wrapping it up rapidly and incompletely in field notes. It's a rather similar scenario to Endwalker, the formerly two expansions it was and Ishikawa's intended story. As I said, Yoshida NEEDS to have his influence over this game's direction curtailed if it wants to survive into the planned next 10 years.