The Next Expansion cycle needs 2 things. 1) A Break from the Scions and 2)Time Skip

[Kozh]

The people constantly pushing to de-emphasize the Scions last expansion in favor of seeing fresh faces was what got us WL as our new proxy main character in this one. Sometimes you don't realize how good you had it until it's gone.

Also the "I don't want to be important. I just want to be a normal adventurer" getting our own role and ability to connect with the story through our interactions diminished.

Funny you blame it on the players rather than the writer's incompetence of writing good story.

[Kozh]

The idea that you need "a compelling story" to justify the inclusion of a supporting cast is one of the silliest idea that float around modern story discussion. The only reason we need to justify the Scions being around is they are our friends. Like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen to Superman, or Mary Jane, Aunt May, and J. Jonah Jameson for Spider-Man. Sometimes, they'll be a story reason why they are around... Other times, they are just there to give consistency to a character.

But if they don't do anything interesting, they might as well do other things off screen rather than standing there saying nothing.

[Leon-Valeren]

I AGREE SO MUCH WITH THIS LIKE i rly dont understand why we continue our journey with the scions. no matter how much i love them.
why did they even make them seperate if they just put them together after a hot minute. i would love to see them having their own journeys and stories, see the wol doing their own thing finally and not being the hero of the world. even if they stay together i want them at least to have more devlopment or change, i feel since SHB they didnt have any development anymore. and some like estinien (who i love deeply) just became comic relief.

[Lyth]

...

It's a bit of both, really. I do think a good writer would be discerning in reading through player comments, because they'd have an internal sense of what works and what doesn't. It was just ironic how your feedback worked out in the end.

It was really unfortunate that the writers didn't also incorporate that 'Zodiark Trance' line, when WL blasted through the dimensional barrier. That would have seriously have made my day. It would have been the FFIX collab that nobody anticipated.

[OliviaLugria]

I don't think I've ever seen a timeskip be a good idea. Ever.

Now progression of time over the expansion? That's not a horrible idea. Even if it's not explicitly stated but just hinted at.

Also real talk but most of DT main was essentially this anyway, with most of the Scions taking bit roles. That said, an expansion where they shift focus on one or two Scions, having fewer of them for most of the story but getting into their motives and feelings and fleshing those out properly could get somewhere. Kinda like what Heavensward did.

Never? That seems pretty far fetched. Fire emblem has had several successful ones. The Last of Us features one at the start. XVI has a pretty dominant one though I haven't played it, but the beloved VI has one. The entire premise of Ocarina of Time is a time skip.

I think there are ways to make it work.

[Kozh]

I AGREE SO MUCH WITH THIS LIKE i rly dont understand why we continue our journey with the scions. no matter how much i love them.
why did they even make them seperate if they just put them together after a hot minute. i would love to see them having their own journeys and stories, see the wol doing their own thing finally and not being the hero of the world. even if they stay together i want them at least to have more devlopment or change, i feel since SHB they didnt have any development anymore. and some like estinien (who i love deeply) just became comic relief.

God knows what inside yoshi-p head when he made the decision. But my guess? Simply because some of the scions are very popular, namely the twins, G'raha, and ysthola. Imo they're not confident enough with their writing to ditch those characters entirely for a whole expansion.

[Zaniel]

hell, Yshtola could use some more spotlight too in all honesty

God no, Y'Shtola has fallen into deus ex machina territory, she just gets wheeled out to be a magic genius and mcguffin fix everything WAAAAAY too much these days. If they want to keep her for the fans they need to get her writing under control (I don't object to her personality).

EDIT: The problem with the Scions is that ALL of them have had their development arcs, they are complete characters who don't need any further exploration, indeed further "development" might harm the existing character. Some like Thancred and Estinien are literally at writing-retirement stage. The only two Scions who could still be really truly further developed as people are Krile and Alisaie, even Alphinaud has done his full arc. I'm all for cameos or even semi-regular drop-ins from other Scions but we need some fresh blood. I would kill to see Makoto replace Y'shtola and another fighter/rogue added to the group, not just more mages.

[Ostheim89]

I'd desperately love to see the setting evolve and change more than it does now expansion-by-expansion - which is to say, barely at all. I get the sense this is gonna remain the status quo if only to allow for us to teleport around and do quests everywhere without them having to make new instances, like say a whole-different looking Ul'dah or Limsa or whatever. The time bubble, essentially, is convenient for them since they barely have to touch anything world-wise and just funnel all the development into cutscenes and NPC dialogue. But this obviously leaves the world feeling extremely static and sterile after a while. Honestly, I'd love an expansion where they go big on some developments in Eorzea itself, really do some bold changes and intrigue there, but it'll never happen.

This sort of ties into the Scions too, of course. If you age up the twins, suddenly that's incongruent with any possible appearances they have in other parts of the MMO you haven't gotten around to doing yet. That said, like... I sort of don't care about that? I wish they'd trust their audience a little more to suspend that disbelief and accept that some things are happening in the past and some are happening in the present. Let the world change, let it evolve, let characters live and die and have character arcs that end. This is crucially important especially for the main cast. Thancred's arc is 100% over, let the guy rest, bench 'em or kill 'em. I yearn for a story I actually feel things about with these characters I've been with for a long time, it's all right to let them go when their time is over - better that than to watch them become inert and wheeled out as a plot convenience when needed.

[Wired-Lain]

Never? That seems pretty far fetched. Fire emblem has had several successful ones. The Last of Us features one at the start. XVI has a pretty dominant one though I haven't played it, but the beloved VI has one. The entire premise of Ocarina of Time is a time skip.

I think there are ways to make it work.

Lord of the Rings, arguably the foundation for all of modern fantasy has a meaty 17 year time jump.

I wanna see someone try in vain to map out all of XIVs expansions within the single year its supposed to take place. Would be a funny exercise.

[Vhana]

I am open to anything as long as it's written well.

But...like them or hate them, the Twins are written as the default deuteragonist to the WoL for the majority of the ffxiv msq. We get other characters popping in and out, but always end up back with Red/Blue. They were not written in this way from 6.x onwards and it is not an easy role to simply slot another character into.