I hope the Writing doesn't remain like it did from Post 5.0 to Now (post 6.0)

**Eisi** · 09-08-2023 08:02 AM

We're gonna get a new lead writer for 7.0, so I assume the writing will change in some ways. The quick developments in the story happened because they wanted to wrap up everything in Endwalker, which they only got one expansion for and one of the goals was to end the ambiguous moral nature of the Eorzean citystates, so that no more stories need to be told in Eorzea and we can look beyond and know our home in safe hands and that everything has become good and we are no longer needed. This happens in every expansion and everywhere the WoL goes, we appear and then everything becomes good so that we no longer care about the place. That will happen in Tural as well of course, so it will start out as an interesting place with conflict where we wanna go, then by the end the conflict will have been resolved and therefore nobody will care about Tural anymore and we will wanna go somewhere else where there's new conflicts to solve. It's kind of like the Omicron, but instead of destroying places literally, we destroy them narratively.

**Rufalus** · 09-08-2023 09:34 AM

Glad I'm not alone in feeling this way. I stopped connecting with the story when the miracle breakthroughs went into overdrive.

I wouldn't mind so much if there was some unprecedented world-changing event as an explanation for all the brand new science. Some reason that the impossible became so easy in this era. Not just the same group of prodigious youths bulldozing through scientific barriers whenever something inconveniences them because they are so smart.

I mean honestly, the contrived story has the same root cause as the repetitive gameplay formula problems -- it's the Yoshida style. He told the writers to not feel restricted by Oda's pre-existing lore, just make up some convenient excuse on the spot to smash through it.

The history of the realm has much better writing than the present-era player's journey. We're just gonna keep on liberating cities, planets, dimensions, whatever we focus our gaze on because it's so easy. The main scenario is about as serious as Hildibrand at this point.

Yoshida isn't alone in hurting the series reputation for good story content, it's all the directors and writers in the S-E age. XIII was some incomprehensible Fal'Cie god nonsense, XV was half-finished with some major story locations and events cut for time, XVI didn't finish as good as it started but I guess it could be called progress, it's better than the worst game.

**Eisi** · 09-08-2023 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by Rufalus

I mean honestly, the contrived story has the same root cause as the repetitive gameplay formula problems -- it's the Yoshida style. He told the writers to not feel restricted by Oda's pre-existing lore, just make up some convenient excuse on the spot to smash through it.

Citation pleazeeeee! That would be big if true! Also how does this tie into the repetitive gameplay formula, wouldn't that be the opposite?

**Cleretic** · 09-08-2023 10:49 AM

Yeah, that's not really what's going on and I thinks tems from a radical and uncharitable memory of what actually happens.

It's been mentioned by the writers in interviews (that sadly I haven't bookmarked), but FFXIV isn't written from some secret grand plan that's always had clues to it. Instead, the writers are making what works for the story they're telling, and then going back and finding lore that already exists that helps that new story feel like it's part of the world that already exists. For example, let's talk about some Endwalker side content and put together what that process might've looked like there:

Anden: Well we want something that explores the male viera of the First and/or Il Mheg. As it happens, we do have that heavily characterized leafman from the pixie tribe quests.
Eureka Orthos: We want an Allagan-themed deep dungeon. Well, there's been Noah sitting around for years, and also the seeds of the original Allagan Eureka dating back to even A Realm Reborn.
Sil'dih Subterrane: Let's do a variant dungeon focused around the history of Ul'dah. You know what, ARR Hildibrand provided us the perfect backdrop!
Mount Rokkon: Okay, another variant dungeon, this time exploring Hingan spirituality. We've got a lot of pieces of that lying around since Stormblood, we basically just need someone to pull it together, and hey, we've also got a total weeb of an NPC who'd be a perfect tour guide!
Pandaemonium: Look, we have to do something in the Ancient world, that's too big a canvas not to use. So let's fix all that incoherent rambling Lahabrea did back in ARR!

The Endwalker role quests are also a perfect example, and REALLY don't need to be elaborated on.

None of this is 'Yoshida style', it's basically how most long-term serialized storytelling works, it's just that most people writing those stories don't say it until long after the fact; superhero comics have been stated to be written like this a few times. I think FFXIV is just more open about this because they were basically forced into it; the difference between the 1.0 and ARR team is huge overall, and on the writing team the only person remaining is Banri Oda. They already had to throw out whatever ongoing story 1.0 had and make something out of what was left; there's been skeletons of future plans since then, but a bulk of individual stories come from wanting to explore something new, and then linking it to something old. Basically, they've got a formalized and publicized process for the stuff that other stories like them do all the time in a more ad hoc way.

One more thing worth saying here: the writing process involves several lore checks involving people who are dedicated Lore Experts; Banri Oda's one of them. (One of the others is Kathryn Cwynar, the English localization lead.) So it's not like someone can just go completely off the reservation and declare that actually primals are clones made from alien data in a hijacked supercomputer hidden under the ocean; there's people making sure all this stuff makes sense.

**Lady_Silvermoon** · 01-02-2024 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by Rufalus

Glad I'm not alone in feeling this way. I stopped connecting with the story when the miracle breakthroughs went into overdrive.

I wouldn't mind so much if there was some unprecedented world-changing event as an explanation for all the brand new science. Some reason that the impossible became so easy in this era. Not just the same group of prodigious youths bulldozing through scientific barriers whenever something inconveniences them because they are so smart.

I mean honestly, the contrived story has the same root cause as the repetitive gameplay formula problems -- it's the Yoshida style. He told the writers to not feel restricted by Oda's pre-existing lore, just make up some convenient excuse on the spot to smash through it.

The history of the realm has much better writing than the present-era player's journey. We're just gonna keep on liberating cities, planets, dimensions, whatever we focus our gaze on because it's so easy. The main scenario is about as serious as Hildibrand at this point.

Yoshida isn't alone in hurting the series reputation for good story content, it's all the directors and writers in the S-E age. XIII was some incomprehensible Fal'Cie god nonsense, XV was half-finished with some major story locations and events cut for time, XVI didn't finish as good as it started but I guess it could be called progress, it's better than the worst game.

Well a cat boy did travel 200 years into the past with a building full of the most advanced technology ever created by man. That probably helped.

Thread: I hope the Writing doesn't remain like it did from Post 5.0 to Now (post 6.0)

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