In regards to G'raha Tia in Dawntrail and going forward *MSQ SPOILERS*

[BakoolJaJa]

The devs had already solved this issue once. Endwalker room visit. Somebody knocks on WoL's door, you decide who it is you want to speak with. Simple, genius solution with something for everyone.

No need to force a deeply personal conversation with romantic subtext on every player. No need to remove it from the game either. No need to shamefully hide it away in some optional quest line and mess with pacing, etc. If at THIS specific point in the MSQ NPCs might have something to chat about - just let me choose who I will be chatting with and that's it.

Dawntrail even has a perfect spot for this to happen again, the one where Wuk Lamat forces her way into your room (and I stupidly expected a repeat of Endwalker). Why they decided not to use it? No idea.

[AureliaF]

Dawntrail even has a perfect spot for this to happen again, the one where Wuk Lamat forces her way into your room (and I stupidly expected a repeat of Endwalker). Why they decided not to use it? No idea.

I thought the exact same thing when I first landed in that cabin. "Ooooh, we're going to have cutscenes with friends here for sure!" Since it's like a perfect beach haven. And then, yeah, Wuk Lamat...

Not only invites herself in, but then has a meltdown for no reason and makes us hike up the mountain to her palace overlook? (Yet she's suddenly "not good with heights" later in the dirigible, but I digress!)

I do agree that the "who's there?" room cutscenes were a nice way to add this element into the MSQ, I miss that.

[Local_Custard]

I feel similarly about the scene. I enjoyed it a lot. It was a very good moment. I have complicated feelings despite being a G'raha simp. I would have enjoyed more scenes that were about understanding the characters. This is what makes ffxiv. A lot of DT does not feel like it meets the writing standards set by its own game.
Though, I'm not sure if I would want Rhel'a to date G'raha. If this were optional content I wouldn't really mind.

[Loggos]

The devs had already solved this issue once. Endwalker room visit. Somebody knocks on WoL's door, you decide who it is you want to speak with. Simple, genius solution with something for everyone.

No need to force a deeply personal conversation with romantic subtext on every player. No need to remove it from the game either. No need to shamefully hide it away in some optional quest line and mess with pacing, etc. If at THIS specific point in the MSQ NPCs might have something to chat about - just let me choose who I will be chatting with and that's it.

Dawntrail even has a perfect spot for this to happen again, the one where Wuk Lamat forces her way into your room (and I stupidly expected a repeat of Endwalker). Why they decided not to use it? No idea.

Yeah I agree, I think the way they handled it in EW was a great solution and I would love more of that. It's still open to interpretation but lets you have an important and personal bonding moment with your favourite npc that can easily be seen as platonic or romantic, depending on your preference.

[CosmosNovaRose]

I'd rather they keep any "romance" involved with the WoL restricted to purely Eternal Bonding, which is something with other players, not NPCs.

I get that you're marketing this as optional content, but they don't even have the resources to do individual job quests, so they certainly wouldn't have the resources to make romance routes for the characters.

Not to mention there's probably a sizeable portion of the playerbase such as myself who isn't interested in anything romantic with NPCs, and out of the portion of the playerbase that is interested in a certain NPC in that way, they would only pick 1, maybe 2 NPCs and the rest would stay untouched.

Seems wasteful to use resources to make content that appeals to a very small portion of the playerbase, has no replayability, and just frankly doesn't fit into the game.

I feel this is a fair point to make, but this is the same company that added as many cutscenes in Dawntrail's MSQ as it has. I personally don't see the argument holding much water when this is a major company in the market who gives us so much side content already. Though I am aware game development takes a long time. This *would* be an undertaking if they did one quest for each Scion and major NPC (Lyse, Hien, Yugiri, Erenville, the list goes on and on....) and adding any more to this theoretical will skyrocket the amount of writing and/or potential voice acting. So it really depends on how many characters would be in this pool and how long they would make this theoretical date. Cost and time management would make or break this idea.

I also think you might be lowballing the amount of players who *would* express interest in this sort of thing. I may not have played many other Final Fantasy games in the series, but having been terminally online since I was a kid I've always seen romance as a big source of discussion online. Many games in the series explore romance and feature it with its main cast. Off the top of my head without even having played FF7, I know there's ship wars for Cloud/Tifa and Cloud/Aeris. Even Aeris/Sephiroth and Tifa/Aeris has crossed my path more times than I want to admit seeing. I know there's a whole romantic subplot and dialogue throughout the game can influence how they feel about Cloud. To say such a thing doesn't fit into the game seems like you're overlooking the series' history with this sort of thing. A quick search on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Fin...sy%20XIV/works . You can see the numbers for yourself (On a work computer so I can't upload screencaps), the WolGraha is the most popular ship on that website. And that's only counting the fanfics on that website- so many more people go on there to read what's there. That's also only considering English speaking, there's plenty of overseas interest. Twitter and Pixiv have countless fanarts of WoLs and their NPC ships. I would be hard pressed to say that there was no demand for this.

Will be responding to more comments soon, may have slower replies because, again, at work.

[CosmosNovaRose]

Yeah I agree, I think the way they handled it in EW was a great solution and I would love more of that. It's still open to interpretation but lets you have an important and personal bonding moment with your favourite npc that can easily be seen as platonic or romantic, depending on your preference.

I agree with this! The Endwalker room visit was another highlight of MSQ for me because it allowed the NPCs to speak to the WoL on a personal level. We don't have enough of that, I feel. It's moments like those where I feel our character actually exists and has chemistry with our companions. It feels unnatural to me when sometimes the Scions or NPCs hardly regard our character as human, barely recognizing that our character should have thoughts and feelings. So when the WoL gets acknowledged and treated as a companion, it makes my heart do a happy face.

[Granyala]

Due to the circumstances (gondola, wedding ring, heart to heart, graha being your biggest fanboy and that is an understatement), it frankly feels like this scene was aimed at and chiseled for G'raha shippers.

While I did interpret it as a lil' fanservice, I though the actual conversation was neutral enough.

To be honest: from what Raha actually said, people that interpret ROMANCE into this are overreaching.
That's like saying Aymeric inviting us to dinner or Haurchefant inviting us to his fireplace = romantic interest.

The moments in which NPCs see us as more than just a tool are so rare in this game, I treasure them.

[CosmosNovaRose]

I want them to leave romance to the headcanon of the player and not go further on it. But I would have no problem with optional stuff in that form if only to get it out of my MSQ.
For example, I really like Kipih Jakkya but I wouldn't want her to be forced on other players in a romantic way. I agree with you in that case entirely.
But before we do that I would like it more if they cared for the MSQ again and only go into this stuff after they found a way how to write a story again.

That said I liked the gondola scene itself because it showed the wise side of G'raha I liked of him as the exarch. I dind't see it as romantic but as a bonding and silent time between friends.
I also have to say as a former big G'raha Tia hater that he really got into his role starting from 6.5 onwards and mellowed down. I don't mind him anymore and given the MSQ in DT I was really happy to spent time with him if only to get Wuk away from me.
I want to see more of this side from him and less of the fanboy he was after Shadowbringers.

This is also a very valid take! I appreciate what Square Enix has done so far and leaving it up to interpretation has done wonders for the fanbase. I agree that they should continue to keep things dubious and up in the air, but what inspired me to make this thread in the first place was that the gondola ride felt intentionally fanservice-y. On its own, a boat ride together is one thing- but preceding it was searching for a wedding ring, discussing a proposal for a loved one who you were separated from in life and death, and not wanting to pass on without expressing those feelings. G'raha then laments on wishing he spent one more day with someone he lost in life- and I think it was meant to imply the WoL in the doomed timeline, so the subject matter is fitting with the aforementioned NPC couple. A gondola is also a very romantic trope- we can even ride one for the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding. The canals were in "a land of romance and pleasure".

The framing really sold me on that this interpretation was intentional on Square's part. And I feel like, while I am enjoying the tease, it might be for the best if they tone it down for the future. If they want to keep exploring this thread with him and keep writing these sorts of interactions for him and other popular characters, I believe it should be kept out of MSQ and moved to optional content.

[Voidmage]

The framing really sold me on that this interpretation was intentional on Square's part. And I feel like, while I am enjoying the tease, it might be for the best if they tone it down for the future. If they want to keep exploring this thread with him and keep writing these sorts of interactions for him and other popular characters, I believe it should be kept out of MSQ and moved to optional content.

Yeah. Either make it sidequests or give all the scions a heart to heart from time to time.
For example, I liked the heart to heart scenes in Xenoblade. They were there for all characters but optional. That would also help with giving the characters more... well character.

[ReynTime]

I'm against making any romantic relationship canon, but it's not like there wouldn't have been a way to implement NPC romance.
They'd have to do it like Persona games do it. The romance doesn't interfere with the main story. It goes into play in separate scenes based on who your romance is, and is mostly there for people who care about that sort of thing.