Can we have an honest conversation about the Scions? Dawn Trail

[Rekh]

I'm tired of the scions; it's not that they're bad characters or anything like that, it's just their archs ended with endwalker. The WOL gets a pass because WOL's the world's savior and would travel anywhere to save it. But what of the scions? Even G'raha tia's starting to look tired, forced, and old in these cutscenes and he's only really been around 2 expansions as a main character. The game's starting to feel like tourism rather than an adventure; we're literally starting to become the The Sims now.

[RinaB]

I for one would like to say goodbye to the scions and be on that boat in the trailer by myself. Yes they've been with us forever but I'm not gonna sit here and say they're my favorite characters....the warrior of light should be on their own journey now after growing so strong and enduring through all of these insane predicaments.

[lawren]

When I saw the scions would still be here for Dawntrail, I was also disappointed.
But also I understand why they probably wouldn’t abruptly give us a new cast.
So I’m hoping we meet new allies in Dawntrail and we slowly split from the scions and go on adventures with the new allies we meet.
And eventually the scions will be a thing of the past, and will just have occasional small cameos.

[HappyHubris]

I don't know why you'd think that. This is a Final Fantasy game and the Scions are the party, you know, the main characters?

The standalone FF games feature a new cast every few years, yet we've been recycling the FFXIV cast for ten years now. There are other stories to tell.

[HappyHubris]

I would like to leave behind Alisaie but I know that's never going to happen.

The series has left behind her character development for a decade, so we might as well make it official.

[HappyHubris]

I was really disappointed to catch up on the post-MSQ content and find that fate is sending almost the entire cast of scions on our new adventure. The scions feel tired now, and I was looking forward to focusing on a new cast. Dawntrail could even bring 1 or 2 of the less-developed Scions along to bridge content and then develop a fresh roster of faces, with the rest of the team making a cameo here or there.

Instead we're pretending that there will be multiple teams of scions competing, even though we know that either a great threat will be revealed or the other sponsors will turn out to be evil, necessitating the group reuniting to save the day. As of right now there are zero Scions who would meaningfully oppose another member of the group, as everyone shares an copy-paste alignment, outlook, and relationship with the WoL. I feel like you could swap them out in most of Endwalker at will, with the only thing changing being the etherbabble used to advance the plot.

It's a shame that every single character is too marketable to bench for an expansion or - heaven forbid - kill off to give the plot some bite. Because then they'd have to forgo $X in sales of Y'shtola body pillows or Thancred shot glasses or whatever.

[Asari5]

send the twins back to garlemald
tataru can work on her empire
make a sidequest for shtola and thancred going back to the first.
make urianger an important figur in sharlayan
estinien... i dont know, protector of thavnair?
make a side quest chain for all of them

so we have a nice little crew in erenville, krile and wuk lamat having still room for new characters without white hair

[Oizen]

Personally I don't think its going to be possible to tell engaging stories with the main cast of 7+ people all having plot armor so thick they cant even have character arcs.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The standalone FF games feature a new cast every few years, yet we've been recycling the FFXIV cast for ten years now. There are other stories to tell.

The standalone games are also separate stories, while XIV is one long continuing story, so that's apples and oranges.

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

That would require having an actual main character. WoL does not have a real personality that would allow for that transition. In ff14 Alphinaud is closer to being well defined main character then WoL.

But the one constant is the WoL. You can tell stories with other characters around them. They are the force moving the story forward.

I personally think Y'shtola has other priorites to her character. I see no reason for her to come to Tural. Thancred should try to work with Y'shtola instead of coming. The twins didn't need to come and hopefully don't have a huge role in the plot. Urianger and G'raha are fine coming. I wonder what excuse they'll use for G'raha to tag along after all. Estinien has no relevance so...

Krile is finally relevant. Wuk is nice addition already. I hope she becomes a permanent member.