A game for 4 year olds

[Kazemon15]

For the record, I did actually quite like them. I was wondering if you had made anymore since the last time I watched one.

Wait, what videos were these? I never saw a thread like that.

[Cleretic]

Then by all means why don't you grace us with a rewrite of your own? One that preferably avoids the terrible mishandling of grief, depression, and genocide in Endwalker.

That's completely unrelated, but okay. I'll admit I have a failing of taking the bait.

But here's the thing: I think the story is mostly fine, so I don't need to do a whole rewrite fanfiction to 'fix' it. Most of what I'd change are more editors' notes than full alterations. But sure, I'll toss them out. For the entire live game up to now, in fact.

A Realm Reborn: A tough one, since ARR has the difficult job of introducing a bunch of the world, but not really enough screentime to make any of it appealing, so there's not a lot of rewriting you can do without losing something important. I'd probably just have a whole editing pass to make sure we lose the weirdly out-of-place stuff that's more a relic of 1.0's tone (let's maybe not put down a slave uprising in Copperbell, and lose about 80% of the sexual assault references). And a special little idea of mine: include an 'Ala Mhigan's theme' for Raubahn, Ilberd, and some other relevant Ala Mhigan NPCs, that includes the Stormblood leitmotif.

Heavensward: Let's not kill Ysayle this time; she was killed for a bad reason, and would have interesting value to the story if she were still around for later parts of it. This has the side-benefit of making the Warring Triad storyline's attempt to sell Regula as a respectable person less terrible. Other than that, Heavensward's fine.

Stormblood: This one's really hard, because the main problem with Stormblood is baseline structural: it's essentially the exact same story told twice, once in Ala Mhigo and once in Othard. And yet, just removing either would cause enormous problems both in planning the future of the game (both Ala Mhigo and Othard introduce hugely important players) and in player appeal (people like both those places a lot). My best idea is basically to spice up the Ala Mhigan areas and make them more distinct from both each other and Yanxia. Let's use the existing Ala Mhigans and make each zone a reflection of where they grew up; have the Fringes be more religious to reflect Widargelt and the Rhalgr fanatics (since their holy sites are still around there), have the Peaks be where Raubahn's from and you can see both the principles and places that shaped him and perhaps the places where he feels he failed them (so maybe it's the most like Ul'dah, but you learn that's because Raubahn influenced Ul'dah rather than the other way around), and the Lochs is where Ilberd's from and it's still a simmering powder keg with regular outbreaks of violent resistance cells. That ARR change of introducing an Ala Mhigan theme also pays off here, as it's more immediately clear during the Imperial-occupied anthem that Garlemald co-opted the anthem rather than getting 'why is the Garlean theme playing everywhere' responses.

Shadowbringers: So I don't like Emet-Selch, which means he's the main thing I'd change here. But unlike Aveyond I actually respect other people's tastes and opinions, so while I could make more dramatic cuts to him, I don't really want to. Right now the angle I think I'd take is twofold:
A: Let's not have him be the founder of Garlemald. It cheapens Garlemald that their turn towards imperialism was from an external actor rather than entirely human choices, and it causes huge problems for Emet that the guy they're trying to paint as a tragic figure who had to make heavy, abstract but difficult choices also did extremely non-abstract terrible things that rightly shouldn't be lumped in with them.
B: A bit of a weird pitch, but: we're swapping the Warrior of Light and Hades. The WoL fight takes place down in Amaurot, and perhaps it's a mystery as to who actually built the place (Elidibus can deny it was him in the ending), meaning that Amaurot gets to make its pitch by itself rather than being tied so heavily to Emet. Emet still gets to throw down and go down in 5.3, where this time it's him that's the last Unsundered standing; he delays a bit before going even bigger on the angle of 'you failed to save the First by my reckoning, I'm gonna smash the First myself' that he does in the game anyway. In all honestly, this is mostly so that 5.0 ends in a more thematically consistent way than it currently does; it really bothers me that The Lightpocalypse Expansion ends in a completely incongruous figure of darkness, so let's give it the light-iest ending it can have.

Endwalker: I've thought about this, because I don't think Endwalker is perfect, but I think there are two ways to make it better. I've posted about them here before actually.
1. Lop off Elpis' start through to when Meteion freaks out; while I respect the direction of falling action, it completely obliterates the momentum the game has to go from Thavnair's apocalypse to 'land without problems full of pretty people'. Meteion freaking out means the place isn't entirely free of complications, but is still a drop in momentum, and still gives space to introduce all the relevant players, just in a more interesting context. It also means things are a little rushed, so people don't get the idea that we entirely influenced much of anything; we can still have scenes with Venat where she learns what's up, but things never really slow down enough for her to plausibly have more than a vague idea of who we are or why we're here. This frees up a bunch of space in the quest runtime, so let's instead give that to Garlemald to expand on that camp of indentured slaves off in the south that the MSQ sorta completely forgets about after introducing them. I used to think Ultima Thule could use the space too, but the Omicron questline does that just fine.
2. I don't have a problem with a lot of the things Labyrinthos' revisit does, but it doesn't do a lot with the space it's allocated, and while there is a ticking clock in the background, it's WAY in the background. We need essentially a 'Team Rocket' to raise the immediate stakes without raising the actual stakes. So I propose that the Illuminati break in to steal parts for their own spaceship/bunker, since they're exactly the type to already be working on that. Also, the Alexander questline is conspicuously near-absent in the 'celebrate everything you did' sequence.

Wait, what videos were these? I never saw a thread like that.

Also, the videos are over here! The last one I posted here was the one on NPC jobs (which I experimented with putting in General Discussion since it was less lore-ey). Since then I've done one on FFXIV's crossovers, a series on job lore (that's currently just the ones that started in FFI), and one on 'stuff we know about Allag that isn't the focus of any major stories'.

[Kazemon15]

Also, the videos are over here! The last one I posted here was the one on NPC jobs (which I experimented with putting in General Discussion since it was less lore-ey). Since then I've done one on FFXIV's crossovers, a series on job lore (that's currently just the ones that started in FFI), and one on 'stuff we know about Allag that isn't the focus of any major stories'.

Ohh I love analysis videos. I'll be sure to check them out. I hope I can make out most of it, since I usually follow ones that have closed caption (I'm actually hard of hearing) but will check them out sometime! Thanks.

[aveyond-dreams]

The issue is that you're accusing people of lying about an incredibly common human experience of lost a loved one or family member.

Most people in the world have in fact, experienced grief or loss in thier life. Why on earth would anyone ever need or want to lie about something like that? You might as well accuse someone of lying about having parents, or going to school.

Most well adjusted adults don't wield it like a cudgel against people they disagree with over the themes Endwalker tried and failed to address in a sensible way. I do not believe that certain FFXIV players are not beyond resorting to extreme emotional manipulation along with nonsensical lies in order to paint me and others as villains. When I witnessed this extremely bizarre behavior, I called it out.

Rewrite

Your rewrite does not have my seal of approval, though there are parts I will commend you for. I object to the removal of the darker elements that underlie ARR's world along with Ysayle's sacrifice, despite my appreciation of her character. I did however enjoy your ideas for the Stormblood section. I think the Shadowbringers section makes sense, we can agree to disagree on which characters we like or dislike. Your proposed solution for Elpis is partially helpful, though issue of Endwalker's themes and whether you would change them/express them via different means remains unaddressed.

[AwesomeJr44]

If you think a story is being written for four year olds, but frequently misunderstand it anyway, maybe it's time to reach a four year old's reading level.

As I said earlier, the FFXIV community seems to have a lot of Rick and Morty fans in it. If you don't love the story, you're apparently too stupid to understand it. FFXIV's story isn't that complex, it's quite easy to understand.

Then by all means why don't you grace us with a rewrite of your own? One that preferably avoids the terrible mishandling of grief, depression, and genocide in Endwalker.

As much as Cleretic is talking about of her anus, you probably could have come up with a better response. Telling someone who loves the story to give us a rewrite isn't really a good point. What are they supposed to significantly rewrite if they're happy with how it came out? Sure they can do little tweaks and edits here and there, but not anything groundbreaking.

Meanwhile you continue to belittle, talk down to, make fun of several people.

I'm of the opinion that once a stone has been thrown by another person, you're free to throw a stone at them if you so choose, and that the person who threw the first stone doesn't have the right to complain. Everyone I mentioned earlier has thrown a stone first, be it here in this thread, or in others. Besides, I have yet to call someone a Russian sympathizer for liking a fictional nation that isn't real like Kazemon did, nor did I say someone was less than human like Aveyond allegedly has, (I didn't see it if it did happen) so I'm not losing any sleep from struggling with the thought of whether I'm a terrible person or not.

And even though you say you might not agree with some people you never are seen doing so.

I've disagreed with Aveyond in the past if that's what you're referring to. He's not perfect and not every post he's had has been a good one. (See above)

All you ever seem to do is attack people so why should anyone want to even try to have a discussion with you.

If you're one of the people who aren't worth having a discussion with, it would certainly seem that way.

The guy you're defending had no better response to a 10-sentence-long post I made so he called it an essay, said he gave it only a "passing glance" and then tagged the thread with "essay writer's guild". But sure, everyone else is the problem.

Aveyond's nowhere near perfect, and I don't claim that he is, but I'd rather have a discussion with him than with most of the other people in this thread. The only reason I'm even here was because the thread itself was interesting.

Most well adjusted adults don't wield it like a cudgel against people they disagree with over the themes Endwalker tried and failed to address in a sensible way. I do not believe that certain FFXIV players are not beyond resorting to extreme emotional manipulation along with nonsensical lies in order to paint me and others as villains. When I witnessed this extremely bizarre behavior, I called it out.

^ This. Love or hate Endwalker, I don't care. But if you're not a trustworthy source, don't be surprised when people don't believe your stories, be they true or not. I'm not going to take what you have to say as truth if you've given me reason not to, especially with how rabid the community can be when it comes to defending the game. If me not accepting your words as truth offends you, then that's your issue to sort out.

Your rewrite does not have my seal of approval, though there are parts I will commend you for. I object to the removal of the darker elements that underlie ARR's world along with Ysayle's sacrifice, despite my appreciation of her character. I did however enjoy your ideas for the Stormblood section. I think the Shadowbringers section makes sense, we can agree to disagree on which characters we like or dislike. Your proposed solution for Elpis is partially helpful, though issue of Endwalker's themes and whether you would change them/express them via different means remains unaddressed.

I mostly agree with your assessment. The ARR and HW sections weren't great, but SB was pretty good and SHB is alright. I'm not sure if I'd personally want to swap WoL and Hades but it's an interesting enough idea. For EW, the Elpis part is alright but I think the answer to fixing Labyrinthhos is to just make it a lot shorter. Put more of Labyrinthos in the lv 80 quests, remove the unnecessary questline split, have Thavnir happen after Labyrinthos 1 is done,(it feels like they only did the split because SHB did) and have Labyrinthos 2 be much shorter. This would fit the story better in my opinion.

[SannaR]

Awesome you called me disingenuous and thus not worth the time to discuss things with. Yet I want to say that you from the start at least the first time I saw a post of yours you were attacking someone right off the bat. Just because you didn't like how someone was disagreeing with someone else. Which most likely wasn't in a harsh way. The person who was disagreeing. So according to you everyone should have a right to throw stones at you. And again when your first interaction with someone is you seeing them attack a person for just disagreeing with someone why would anyone want to interact with that. Don't play victim or whatever. You tend to go around labeling people things just as much as others do. Or are you going to tell me you've never called someone a Fora Knight amongst other things?

[AwesomeJr44]

Awesome you called me disingenuous and thus not worth the time to discuss things with.

I didn't specifically call you disingenuous in the post you're referring to, I said that I disliked the lore forum in general because of how many people in it are disingenuous. I did say that you're a performer in this circus and thus not worth having a discussion with because quite frankly, you're not.

Yet I want to say that you from the start at least the first time I saw a post of yours you were attacking someone right off the bat. Just because you didn't like how someone was disagreeing with someone else.

You can say the same about nearly everyone in this thread depending on what post of theirs you first saw, whether you chose to misinterpret it, and/or whether you chose to remove the context from the situation (such as whether or not that 'disagreement' was truly simple 'disagreement'). This includes you.

So according to you everyone should have a right to throw stones at you.

Not really how it works as I wasn't the first to have thrown a stone but if you want to, go ahead. I've made it clear in the past that I don't care if I'm popular with the part of the community you're a part of. Your scorn means nothing to me. Having seen what earns your praise, it's better to be hated than loved by you and yours. If I'm disliked by your part of the community, it probably means I'm right.

Or are you going to tell me you've never called someone a Fora Knight amongst other things?

The term 'Fora Knight' was Senti's creation and I used the term a handful of times (after having Senti explain the meaning of the term in private) before not using it again for the past few months. It definitely suits certain people on the forums but I personally don't use it anymore as it doesn't really mean anything to anyone who doesn't know its meaning, and I don't feel like explaining it every time. As for other labels, I only call people things when the shoe fits.

[KariTheFox]

To be clear, nobody ever wielded thier deceased loved ones like a cudgel. The exchange actually went something like this.

Avenyond: "People with whom Endwalker resonated with have not actually experienced meaningful loss in thier lives."

Several posters: "That's not true, I experienced loss in my life and related very much to the story of Endwalker. It's messed up that you would say something like that."

Avenyond: "You are all clearly just lying and trying to gaslight and emotionally manipulate me."

To any outside observer, this is utterly deranged behavior.

[Kazemon15]

To be clear, nobody ever wielded thier deceased loved ones like a cudgel. The exchange actually went something like this.

Avenyond: "People with whom Endwalker resonated with have not actually experienced meaningful loss in thier lives."

Several posters: "That's not true, I experienced loss in my life and related very much to the story of Endwalker. It's messed up that you would say something like that."

Avenyond: "You are all clearly just lying and trying to gaslight and emotionally manipulate me."

To any outside observer, this is utterly deranged behavior.

Also to add, he not only said it wasn't meaningful loss, but said they didn't grieve "like a normal human being", which was dehumanizing anyone who didn't "fit" into what grieving should be.

[aveyond-dreams]

I derive no satisfaction from a story where characters die only to come back to life and preach to me about their forge ahead nonsense while unjustly maligned groups are brutalized in spectacular fashion. I should think that this is readily understandable, as it is to those I speak to outside the world of this game’s community, whose defenders somehow claim this story gripped them so strongly, for reasons that have no logical basis.