The Lessons Not Learned.

[Alleo]

What an apt description for Endwalker's 6.0 MSQ. An expansion that betrayed everything that came before it in order to let a handful of ocs shine. This is not what brought me to FFXIV back in the Heavensward/ARR days. Even if we were to return to that style of writing wherein you'd see that I have very little to critique, you'd still love the game with as much enthusiasm as you do now.

However, when it comes to content, the game is failing in spectacular fashion.

Yeah in your opinion. I found the writing style in Endwalker not much worse than other expansions. No I was even surprised how they were able to finish this long long story with a (IMO) great ending. Reading about your different views on the story including the newly introduced Zero I doubt that something that you would have liked would be something I enjoy. I hate grim dark stories. I stay away from books/movies like Game of Thrones because I find them utterly depressing. Endwalker and Shadowbringer (another great expansion you did not mention in your text I quote) are emotional for me but not too depressing. We do lose people but its not a mass slaughter of favorite characters. The themes can be quite dark (that szene with the family in the dschungle dungeon) and mature (Uriangers grief), yet we also have nice scenes to bring our spirits back up.

Honestly I really dont see how ARR or even Heavensward were better in that regard. In ARR none of the scions die, even Minifila still exists in a way. Its mostly the bad guys that perish. Yes we have the attack on the scions headquarter but again no major character dies there. And scenes like the headquarter exist in Endwalker too. After all we see quite a few people die on screen when the Final Days start. In Heavensward we lose some characters but overall the themes are not that deeper than in other expansions. We are able to stop a war that is going on for thousand of years and make peace between dragon and man.

So I am really not sure how these are so much better than Endwalker. We still solve the problems of these long going on conflicts with the power of friendship (and some good trashing).

About the new content:
Variant itself was a reward to me. It did not need many rewards for me to run them quite a few times. Honestly even just the notes and the puzzles would have been enough for me. I barely even looked at the rewards until I was finished. This was something great, something new. Something that they can build upon and that could be a nice little side content. Side content which brings us more lore without being mindnumbing grindy. I am sure that the long living content will come with the new deep dungeon (including gear and/or weapons) and the next relic steps.

Also have you finally done Island Sancturay and have you run the Variant dungeons yourself?

[VelKallor]

I am not interested in writing for 50+ year olds with the tastes of children

I tend to find children a great deal more honest than their adult counterparts, you are also mistaking childish for childlike..they are two separate concepts.

The childlike wonder of new things, or to admire the beauty of a single flower, when you can no longer find wonder, joy,. laughter in simple things, when you cannot suspend disbelief..you havent grown into an adult..you have grown OLD.

Guess what...even at 61 I never stop growing, learning, enjoying a good book, even at 57 I was with Capt Nemo at the bottom of the ocean, walked with the Elves in the forests of Lorien and heard their cries under the glory of the moon...when you can no longer find joy or laughter in every day...when you stop growing, you stop living.

That is just SAD.

.I find those people extremely creepy and off-putting, especially with the fever with which they've defended the catastrophic state of Endwalker's writing.

I find you are no one to judge what i should or should not enjoy. I loved all of it. You didnt. Your loss.

I consider my rewrite superior to the anime fanfic that was the MSQ that released in 6.0, and I say that with 0 reservation.

I dont.

My grade school had Fahrenheit 451 on the library shelf. I'm still not convinced the librarian didn't do it as a prank.

So did mine. I memorised it. Every single word. That book should be required reading. They also had Lord of the Flies, it said a lot when none of my class knew who Lord of the Flies was.

Except me.

that should've been giving more people a reason to log in daily

Yup. Was waiting for this.

This is your major mistake, right here. That one sentence illustrates exactly why you are dead wrong about all of it.

That one sentence proves you have not understood one of the major core design principles on which FF 14 was created.

[CheshCa7]

I am not interested in writing for 50+ year olds with the tastes of children. I find those people extremely creepy and off-putting, especially with the fever with which they've defended the catastrophic state of Endwalker's writing. I consider my rewrite superior to the anime fanfic that was the MSQ that released in 6.0, and I say that with 0 reservation.

For a few seconds I wondered where did you get the age of 50, as I am for sure younger then that but then I remember the quote. If that is what you got from it I am truly sorry but it seems your reading comprehension is not the best and yet you consider your opinions superior. Rarely have I seen such utterly misplaced arrogance. Bit amusing, really.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I am not interested in writing for 50+ year olds with the tastes of children. I find those people extremely creepy and off-putting, especially with the fever with which they've defended the catastrophic state of Endwalker's writing. I consider my rewrite superior to the anime fanfic that was the MSQ that released in 6.0, and I say that with 0 reservation.

Superior for like when people when they were in their edge lord high school days. Believe me I would've loved your script back in the day but nowadays I know better that good stories don't mean appealing to the "mature audience".

This honestly sounds like corporate talk to me

[CheshCa7]

Superior for like when people when they were in their edge lord high school days. Believe me I would've loved your script back in the day but nowadays I know better that good stories don't mean appealing to the "mature audience".

This honestly sounds like corporate talk to me

I am proud to say that not even high-school me would have liked that. Maybe as a literal child, I don't know. But in high-school you already have access to quality writing so you kinda know how it looks like.

[MikkoAkure]

I consider my rewrite superior to the anime fanfic that was the MSQ that released in 6.0, and I say that with 0 reservation.

Your own fanfic where you contradicted existing lore so that a pretty blonde Garlean girl with a title that doesn’t exist could become empress? And a Hrothgar (Russian) name instead of a normal Garlean (Roman) one just to suit your own personal tastes?

Where characters laugh at Alphinaud trying to democratize like this is a tumblr story where everyone claps at the end? And Venat is a crazed murderer because you feel the need to overcorrect on characters you don’t like?

[LittleImp]

People who don't raid should really stop trying to make statements about how raiding is or how the community behaves, it's legitimately fatiguing and the baseless things they authoritatively spout can be discouraging to newer players who don't realize the source is probably intentionally misrepresenting things.

Yes, she is. Nothing you have said has any direct parallel to our argument. Jojoya is positing that players will lock people out after going through their gear and seeing they have a DET/TEN ring instead of the hypothetical CRIT/DET ring from Criterion. The notion it absolutely ludicrous. It simply doesn't happen at any level of play. Not even at the high end parsing level would anyone remotely care. I, for example, could still parse 100 despite the healer having some non-bis i630 PIE pieces. So long as they're putting Misery under buffs and pressing Glare, we're golden. So your comparison here is entirely a strawman.

To bolster Forte's point,

I have a meme alt that I pentamelded in Tenacity materia because it was cheap and available. I have been savage raiding on it in pugs periodically for like 2 months, and haven't received so much as a comment concerning my gear. If you are competent and consistent, no one is seriously going to care about your substats.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yeah in your opinion. I found the writing style in Endwalker not much worse than other expansions. No I was even surprised how they were able to finish this long long story with a (IMO) great ending. Reading about your different views on the story including the newly introduced Zero I doubt that something that you would have liked would be something I enjoy. I hate grim dark stories. I stay away from books/movies like Game of Thrones because I find them utterly depressing. Endwalker and Shadowbringer (another great expansion you did not mention in your text I quote) are emotinal for me but not too depressing. We do lose people but its not a mass slaughter of favorite characters. The themes can be quite dark (that szene with the family in the dschungle dungeon) and mature (Uriangers grief), yet we also have nice scenes to bring our spirits back up.

Honestly I really dont see how ARR or even Heavensward were better in that regard. In ARR none of the scions die, even Minifila still exists in a way. Its mostly the bad guys that perish. Yes we have the attack the scions headquarter but again no major character dies there. And scenes like the headquarter exist in Endwalker too. After all we see quite a few people die on screen when the Final Days start. In Heavensward we lose a bit more character but overall the themes are also not that deeper than in other expansion. We are able to stop a war that is going on for thousand of years and make peace between dragon and man.

So I am really not sure how these are so much better than Endwalker. We still solve the problems of these long going on conflicts with the power of friendship (and some got trashing).

Variant itself was a reward to me. It did not need many rewards for me to run them quite a few times. Honestly even just the notes and the puzzles would have been enough for me. I barely even looked at the rewards until I was finished. This was something great, something new. Something that they can build upon and that could be a nice little side content. Side content which brings us more lore without being mindnumbing grindy. I am sure that the long living content will come with the new deep dungeon (including gear and/or weapons) and the next relic steps.

Also have you finally done Island Sancturay and have you run the Variant dungeons yourself?

It's baffling to me how much people over shill Heavensward and Shadowbringers stories for being these "masterpieces" and highlights of the entire game. Baffling because singling them out kills a lot of the substance owed by everything that came before it. They're all very shallow stories on their own. Ishgard is just a lite version of FF Tactics's plot, Shadowbringers is just a very lite version of FFX and Tales of Symphonia that deal with it's themes and conflict much better.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

It's baffling to me how much people over shill Heavensward and Shadowbringers stories for being these "masterpieces" and highlights of the entire game. Baffling because singling them out kills a lot of the substance owed by everything that came before it. They're all very shallow stories on their own. Ishgard is just a lite version of FF Tactics's plot, Shadowbringers is just a very lite version of FFX and Tales of Symphonia that deal with it's themes and conflict much better.

Ill shill the Heck out of Shadowbringers, But not because I think its some Masterpiece or because it did anything better, took risks and all this crap people throw around.
I just think it was an interesting story, and just about everything we knew and learned in previous expansions came to a-head (If Im using that word correctly) I loved the Reveal of Hydaelyn and learning more about the Ascians and learning about their Motivations, I liked that things became a little grey and how I began to question things. I just enjoyed that.

Heavensward is a great story to with a Great Villain...but I do think HW personally is abit over-rated. Its good, really good, but I dont feel it to be the height of the Game or the best of the Game.
Also..heck yeah, Tales of Symphonia.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Ill shill the Heck out of Shadowbringers, But not because I think its some Masterpiece or because it did anything better, took risks and all this crap people throw around.
I just think it was an interesting story, and just about everything we knew and learned in previous expansions came to a-head (If Im using that word correctly) I loved the Reveal of Hydaelyn and learning more about the Ascians and learning about their Motivations, I liked that things became a little grey and how I began to question things. I just enjoyed that.

Heavensward is a great story to with a Great Villain...but I do think HW personally is abit over-rated. Its good, really good, but I dont feel it to be the height of the Game or the best of the Game.
Also..heck yeah, Tales of Symphonia.

I love HW and ShB stories for what it brought to the overall FFXIV narrative as a whole, but I also hold the same standard and regard for ARR, SB and EW too. I dont think each one does anything better than the other as it delves into completely different things that'll be a hit or miss with people. Some people enjoy dragons a lot so they give HW such an easy time despite its flaws, others like me enjoy the more grounded strife and war tales with SB even though its overambition was its own fault, some like isekai-shin megami tensei apocalypse themes so ShB was their cup of tea etc.

Also I hope we're talking about Nidhogg rather than Thordan and the Heavensward when it comes to HW's main villian because that old man and his entourage were the biggest let down in terms of character and depth Ive been wanting for my villains. They werent even entertaining on-screen imo.

Also heck yes Tales of Symphonia is super great. Ive played a ton of jrpgs, and I mean A TON! so I feel like I have a general scope when it comes to a standard good quality jrpg story. FFXIV's narrative is pretty top tier due to its expansion structure, but when we single out each one on it's own in compared to single player stories, those narratives lack a lot of oomph and depth needed to stand on its own. Which is why I always say that cherry picking expansion narratives is a bit pointless when it relies on the game's foundation to give meaning despite its terrible pacing.