Review of 6.3 Story Content

[aveyond-dreams]

I decided to resub and played through the current MSQ as well as having watched a playthrough of the Alliance Raid so I could weigh in on them, though to be honest my main motivation to return for this week is limited to me wanting to get my hands on the latest fomo PVP set since mages have little to no armor let alone caped options in this game. My interest in any storyline outside Pandaemonium remains low overall, which sets the tone for my thoughts contained within the following spoiler tags – despite desperately wanting this game to return to my good graces.

It hurts to see the game in such a state after the many good years I’ve had with it. Genuinely, I tried to give this patch as fair a chance as I could and I hope this feedback proves more valuable than the unconditional gushing elsewhere:

MSQ:

In the past at least the antagonist faction made up for the perpetually lacklustre state of the main cast following the breakup of the Heavensward party, but that is no longer the case. Golbez despite being one of my favourite FF villains still has very little intriguing aspects going for him – words can’t express how let down I feel by both him and the archfiends that have been reduced to mere monster of the week filler. Once again the writers are choosing to be philosophers instead of focusing on telling a good story and gave us more chores combined with “what is a friend” stuff instead of getting to the point already. Except, when they finally did, the actual motivations of these antagonists is to just die. Seriously? Was I supposed to find this deep or meaningful? Who is this being written for because not even 13 year old me would’ve been able to stomach this.

I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to bring back the twins this patch but their presence was as grating and unwanted as always. They should have either died in base Endwalker or been retired indefinitely along with the other scions at the conclusion of 6.0, to pave the way for a brand new party that should have been delivered on by no later than 6.1. Unfortunately the new party members we’ve been getting or will get in the future are plagued with a number of issues – Zero and the power of friendship nonsense writing they’re going with, Vrtra’s uncanny human “prettyboi” face being the exact opposite of what those of us who wanted a male Au Ra in the party wanted, and the fact that of all lalafells in this game 7.0 is set to star the one and only: Krile. Estinien’s cool factor being reduced to one-off lines combined with destroying his iconic look with the ponytail lends him no favors.

Also, for the love of Christ get rid of Y’shtola already. People are sick of her. They have been for quite some time, in fact. The time to make a better postergirl/mage character was several months ago, though we would be better off without a Hermoine Granger in the party altogether. Society at large is tired of these characters – despite an increasingly smaller yet loud vocal minority going out of their way to defend them by trying to mischaracterize those of us who are fed up with demeaning know-it-alls like Y’shtola that hardly have any kind of arc to their characters. This game did an excellent job writing a female heroine when it came to Ysayle, but instead of characters who have flaws or ideological differences that are allowed to grow over time, all we get with Y’shtola is the same bouts of lore expositions every patch with 0 charm or charisma. I guess I was supposed to find a book falling on her head in 6.1 funny and quirky, but I didn’t. There’s also the complete irrelevance of her blindness and aether-seeing consuming her life force. A retcon so convenient it puts the plot device crystal that we used to recruit Zero to shame. For a blessing, it seems that FFXVI is set to avoid such characters entirely in favor of more likeable female cast members like Benedikta and Jill. Flawed, but with more chance of growth than Y’shtola ever had.

I must once again voice my marked disappointment in the continued misuse of the animation budget for even more food scenes. The amount of time and money that has been wasted on this could’ve been made up twice over by a proper animated depiction of key events like the sundering, Hydaelyn/Zodiark summonings/transformations, or even the much requested elezen animation rework because goodness knows they need one.

Alliance Raid:

What on earth were they thinking with Menphina’s design? Not only is the Twelve one of the more uninteresting pantheon of gods I’ve encountered in video games but they’re also set to claim the title for the strangest looking too with the way Menphina the alleged “lover” turned out. A massive downgrade from the likes of Azeyma, with Nymeia being nothing interesting and Halone being...just meh.

In any case, I wasn’t impressed by them bringing up Dynamis again. Their duties were entrusted to them by Hydaelyn and prayers/Dynamis can influence their physical form. Seriously? Guess the fake goddess realized that smashing the star into 14 pieces was a bad idea and couldn’t hold it all together herself. Can’t say that I care to be remotely associated with anything spawned from her meddling, and this revelation about the gods’ lore just deepens the void between me and them. They went from being boring to being another insult as to the state of this world’s underlying mythos.

This entire experience was also made more difficult due to the presence of the latest insufferable scholar character, the female roegadyn one whose name I won’t even bother to type out. I offer all the prayers and Dynamis in the world to not have to endure its presence again in any other questline. I did not bother to read G’raha Tia’s dialogue and only got his lines second hand – my thoughts on him have already been articulated a thousand times over. What is clear to me is that this femroe is offering fierce competition for him as to which character is more annoying.

That pretty much sums up all the thoughts I have so far and that I care to give until 6.4 delivers the end to Pandaemonium and lets me determine whether or not Hiroi will steer the MSQ in a direction for 7.0 that I care to play through after the disaster that was base 6.0, which has proven to be the most controversial and hotly debated MSQ the game has ever seen in the past decade. I will not play another expansion that is more concerned with its messaging and pushing certain characters onto the player than telling a compelling story with stakes, drama, and all. Heavensward remains the benchmark for the storytelling that made FFXIV a game worth investing in and for all the defenders of EW’s pushback I struggle to believe that they would be turned off by a return to that style of writing and worldbuilding unless they’re deliberately choosing to be contrarians about it.

I do not plan on returning for 6.35 since an Allagan Deep Dungeon with neon blue and white weapons no one asked for is the last thing I wanted to see, combined with KPOP Loporrits desecrating the moon further with Zodiark’s grave right on their doorstep. If anything I’ve said about sounds familiar, it’s because my positions regarding these matters remain unchanged and I strongly believe it is in the game’s best interest to push back against some of these longstanding issues that to this day remain unresolved.

Update -

Lo and behold the response to this patch on Reddit. Really interesting stuff here compared to the usual posts on there:

I find it quite interesting to note that after over a year of some posters telling me how only the forums was a pocket of negativity, lo and behold the response to this patch on the mainsub reddit: