The Lessons Not Learned.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

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.

Oh yes, Definitely Nidhogg. The Heavensward wasnt that interesting to me, even though they are the source of Nidhoggs Rage. Which I could relate to abit, because they made me mad with the crap they pulled. A time you can understand the Villain.
And yes, I kind of poke fun at one of my friends that: You only love Heavensward because of Knights and Dragons.
He is in fact into that stuff, so obviously HW tickled that passion for him.

I agree with you, honestly I think its just weird overall to compare any single expansion to a Full Single Player experience.
They are just different animals entirely. Some things work better then others, but its really just a subjective opinion, one that will be different for everybody, like how I like and Im engaged with where EW's post is going, while others dont feel the same.

Dumb unrelated question....you think Tales of. Could make a decent MMO?
I know Tales of Radiance was a mixed bag, but hey they made 3 games. Now just imagine that on an even bigger scale.

[Midareyukki]

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.

I just think the way they took a theme (Plato's Loves, Aristotle's concept of a perfect society -> More's Utopia), broke it down into ways that theme can be manifested and explored each in specific sections and people. Then they brought them all back up at the end so that it'd all connect. I like how it draws on philosophy. ARR was mostly worldbuilding, HW was exploring faith and how far a lie can go, SB explored how war is a constant back and forth/the values of freedom/how all it takes is one person to be mistreated to make them agree with opressive regimes... But SHB was mostly just blatant philosophy on the structure of society and the virtues of man. I liked that. And I liked that it wasn't especially preachy with it unlike Endwalker's vague aesop of "Suffering is what makes you appreciate life". Endwalker rubbed me the wrong way. SHB let you explore the concept, see how they do it and draw your own conclusions. And each character grows a little based on those aspects.

But that's just bc I'm a massive nerd and my favourite FF is 12, so I have really bad tastes as far as the FF community sees it.

idk



of course, it does still have flaws, particularly the way they use some characters (Ran'jit) and the weird insistance on some elements. But it was still my cup of tea, and that's why I generally defend it as a good story. If it's not your cup of tea tho, it's fine, it doesn't have to be. Hopefully something else about this game is.

[Renalt]

But that's just bc I'm a massive nerd and my favourite FF is 12, so I have really bad tastes as far as the FF community sees it.

Depends. Did you like 13 or X-2? I might judge a little bit then even though you're a real chill dude.

[VictorSpoils]

But that's just bc I'm a massive nerd and my favourite FF is 12, so I have really bad tastes as far as the FF community sees it.

You mean as far as a small handful of contrarian zealots are concerned.

[Midareyukki]

Depends. Did you like 13 or X-2? I might judge a little bit then even though you're a real chill dude.

I like them. Generally speaking.

I liked FNC, I'm the kind of guy who feels Type-0 was dropped too quickly and damned too harshly. I liked 13 and its world. I understand why people had such an issue with the game's story being mostly told in Analects and the linearity of the gameplay. But to me, those were fine. The linearity was justified, even if a little overdone: not only are they running away all the time in Cocoon, they're also in a technological world thar likely doesn't have that many open-ended paths when security is that tight. And as for the plot, all you need to know is told to you, and you can sort of tell what some stuff is through context. Consider this: if I liked the FF12 Bestiary, the Analects really didn't bother me. It's part of why I like Bozja and the Variant Dungeon. You go through the adventure yourself, but if you want more, you can look it up.

As for 10-2... Even if it is too goofy and causes whiplash, I kinda didn't really mind it? I understood why they went for that sort of mood, even if I prefer 10 itself over the sequel. I know so much is different from 10, but it just didn't feel like it NEEDED to be. 10 was gloomy and mournful, whereas in 10-2 the reasons for why that was are gone, and people clearly became more indulgent. So it made sense, since breaking 10's depresso-espresso spiral was 10's whole point. But I did mind one thing: not all of the humour was my taste, especially the really cringeworthy dialogue. Even if I enjoyed the gameplay and the story was alright, the writing was... disasterrific. Besides that, I like how some stuff are explored from the past game too, especially some Ronso who obviously don't like the Guado after Seymour Thanosed them. I need to replay it, actually. I only learned that you can end up making Garik kill all the Ronso in these forums ^^; I never saw that.

i thought garik would just ignore me getting stuff wrong lol... What? :| That happens in FF14 all the time, don't @ me!

Also helps that I liked Koda Kumi as a kid xD

You mean as far as a small handful of contrarian zealots are concerned.

o,o;; FF12 isn't that popular in the community, by far. A lot of people criticised it back in the day, from its "boring and political" tone to Vaan being annoying. A meme in 2010 was that they thought 12 was the worst until 13 came out.

[VictorSpoils]

o,o;; FF12 isn't that popular in the community, by far. A lot of people criticised it back in the day, from its "boring and political" tone to Vaan being annoying. A meme in 2010 was that they thought 12 was the worst until 13 came out.

It's a pretty big community and 12 is one of the most popular ones. The fault would be on these hypothetical people for finding quality boring and an easygoing character annoying.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Thordan was fairly interesting (even if "the church is evil" is one of the most obvious plot twists ever for anyone who's ever played a JPRG before), but most of the Heavens' Ward were set dressing. Only three of them even do anything outside of the Vault and the Singularity Reactor. They get a little more story in Encyclopedia Eorzea, but that doesn't really help in the game.

I think the main reason Heavensward and Shadowbringers get higher marks, at least for me, is that they're clearly telling one story, rather than two. Stormblood has a very uneven split between the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs, and Endwalker is pretty blatant about being two expansions crammed together, with both suffering for it, especially in pacing.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Thordan was fairly interesting (even if "the church is evil" is one of the most obvious plot twists ever for anyone who's ever played a JPRG before), but most of the Heavens' Ward were set dressing. Only three of them even do anything outside of the Vault and the Singularity Reactor. They get a little more story in Encyclopedia Eorzea, but that doesn't really help in the game.

I think the main reason Heavensward and Shadowbringers get higher marks, at least for me, is that they're clearly telling one story, rather than two. Stormblood has a very uneven split between the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs, and Endwalker is pretty blatant about being two expansions crammed together, with both suffering for it, especially in pacing.

To me Thordan is a villian written to just "show up and be a villian" there was no nuance to it besides the usual "lust for power" and wanted to keep control oh his own people despite the ignorance in history. For characters like that, I would've at least preferred if he was entertaining or had unique odd quirks to make him stand out and memorable like Vauthry....actually yeah...LIKE VAUTHRY. He was in the same position and goals as Thordan yet he did a lot more in his villany and had a good personality and quirk to boot. But he wasnt and how I would've loved if they gave each Heavensward knight at least some screentime to show us their reasons and motivations for what they were doing. Didnnt need to be much but SOMETHING at least in-game and like you said, we only got 3 out of them doing just that and even then it was lackluster.

Yeah it told one story for sure and it worked for me but honestly it was kinda "boring"? I suppose this is why I enjoyed ARR, SB and EW a bit better because I enjoy stories that have us travel and see more of the world, despite the pacing issues. If its just one story, I just get reminded of how other games tackled this story much better as Ive said with Final Fantasy Tactics or Tales of Symphonia. Its not the game's fault, due to it being an MMO and no matter what, the story pacing in a quest based MMO will always be inferior to the more better presented single player experiences in other games.

[RukoBoshi]

Thordan was fairly interesting (even if "the church is evil" is one of the most obvious plot twists ever for anyone who's ever played a JPRG before), but most of the Heavens' Ward were set dressing. Only three of them even do anything outside of the Vault and the Singularity Reactor. They get a little more story in Encyclopedia Eorzea, but that doesn't really help in the game.

I think the main reason Heavensward and Shadowbringers get higher marks, at least for me, is that they're clearly telling one story, rather than two. Stormblood has a very uneven split between the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs, and Endwalker is pretty blatant about being two expansions crammed together, with both suffering for it, especially in pacing.

That's also why i prefer HW and SHB, the fact that they are both self contained story allow them to focus on a new unique plot (i consider the ascians backstory to be completely new).

Stormblood and Endwalker are both plagued by having to follow up multiple stories (Ala Mhigo or Garlemald) while introducing new plots and areas at the same time.

It's a weird patchwork of unrelated places that each have their individual story.
Endwalker having to introduce Radz-at-han, Sharlayan or Elpis while dealing with Garlemald or the moon, makes the plot too spread out and unfocused.

Cramming two expansions worth of areas and stories, while having to finish the current storyline is a hard task. Especially when your a follow up to Shadowbringers.
Despite the expansion story feeling a bit rushed, I think the devs manage to arrive at a satisfying results even if it isn't on par with the previous expansion imo.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I will agree that I rose an eyebrow when I heard in the Event that the Epic Saga would Conclude in 6.0.
Its like...wait really? Because it would definitely mean its being rushed, and they really wanna get us started into the next Saga.

And I still very much enjoyed EW Vanilla despite its flaws, but one of its glaring issues is it did feel like they tried to do to much all at once.
EW should have solely focused on ending the Saga, instead of just 6.0.
But, idk, I guess a whole expansion dedicated to starting anew might not have worked either. But maybe EW could have been the longest running Expansion with say....6.7 or 6.8 being the ending. And then the last couple could have been to set us up.

IDK, we can sit here and talk about other things they Could have done, but its already done.