Thread: So that 7.1 msq...

Now we have: Problem -> Solution within a cutscene -> play happy music and everyone smiles. This is childish and insulting, and I think it all stems from Endwalkers rushed state of storytelling, where they wanted to vomit everything out at us because they couldn't be arsed to write properly and just wanted to cram in as much as they could. So we get a speed version of Thavnair, a speed version of Garlemald, the plot-expositionville of SHarlayan that conveniently knows everything in the world, so we just have to go to them for a solution after one day of research. I hate Sharlayan because it's a convenient tool for the writers now to okay their way out of any problem solving writing, much like how KOANA uses Sharlayan in the New World. "Oh lemme just quickly invent a train whistle that transfers aetheric sounds that mimic a beast, but in an inoffensive way so the Rroneek don't get TOO SCARED in a day! Because Sharlayan powers!"

Dawntrail is way too much of a course correct towards "Oh look at this perfect society where everything is solved by talking and understanding."It's talk-no-jutsu land with rubber bullets, and the occational brawl to try and gaslight you into thinking there's any actual problem happening that can't be solved over some tacos. The shonen anime-level writing is bleeding through really heavily and I cringed with Koana having the fastest ever "oh I love rroneek now" turnarounds and the "I must protect everyone!" suicide jump. In JP it's line for line the exact thing that every shonen anime character yells out too.

Highlights of this MSQ: Someone mentioning that Y'shtola is researching the rift travel (yeah we know) and that she wants to meet us for the key. For her to APPEAR in a scene later to tell us that she is researching the rift travel and that she needs our key eventually. THE SAME THING, 10/10 fan service, 10/10 writing, hand them all the writing trophies and prizes. They still have no idea why they brought the Scions to Tural aside from fan service and problem solving the plot for us.
Oh you don't like Sphene? HAVE TWO SPHENES!

I don't know what needs to happen to the writing, if they have a formula in place I don't think new writers will help. if they chose a line of "Make it really happy and anime" I don't know how they are gonna make this interesting anymore. Unless a new writer fights to put in some NUANCE into the writing at the threat of his/her job and having Yoshi-P or Ishikawa yell at them.

- Garlemald destroyed offscreen, MISTAKE. We could've gotten a full expansion dealing with a civil war and change in Garlemald, seen the royal family, given Zenos an actual proper storyarc that wasn't some shonen anime villain wank off of "Oh look, cool guy with sword is edgy and like a mad dog." He could've robbed his father of power and we could've had a hand in a rebellion in Garlemald and seen reform, and having them withdraw the empire from their conquered lands. There was so much to that.

- Even after that, we could've explored how BOZJA, how DALMASCA, How LANDIS, NAGXIA and other regions dealt with the power vacuum of Garlemald going away. DAlmasca already had tensions between civilians and the royal family even before the Empire came in. Bozja has several resistance factions that want a say in how the nation is rebuilt, not to mention every other tiny region in ILSABARD WHICH IS STILL COVERED IN A FOG IN THE MAP, while we gallivant to the edge of the universe!

- Long gone are the moments where we argued with Varis about ruling, and how he points out the hypocricy of the city states of Eorzea on how they treat the beast tribes for example. Long gone are the plots of walking a tight rope in political scheming like it was done in Ul'dah. Any sort of nuance that we had in Ishgard. Any nuance of how crappy the Far East is as an estalishment (Yotsuyu) and could brew tragedies.

In summary: Going to the end of the universe was a mistake, it was like WoW going to the afterlife, did I mention SHARLAYAN has a listening post IN THE AFTERLIFE? (ugh..). If only they could be arsed to write more nuanced storytelling that isn't an instant solution. Have world conflicts, have political conflicts that are ONGOING. Have new wars, in new regions. The WoL might be powerful, but the WoL isn't unbeatable.

Go back to the basics, have people have conflicts and arguments, including the scions. Respect your own worldbuilding from before. Every region has it's own problems and power struggles. Tural is a lost cause I think, writing-wise in terms of the MSQ.

It's more important that they are consistent with the tone of their story, Tural is way too much of an utopia that it borders on unbelievable within the world its supposedly in and it has this weird feeling of being a cultural displaycase instead of being actual living breathing cultures. (Funnily enough AGAIN the sidequests shine with their writing on this compared to the MSQ, I highly recommend the rolequests for example.)

Originally Posted by Hallarem

I don't know what needs to happen to the writing, if they have a formula in place I don't think new writers will help. if they chose a line of "Make it really happy and anime" I don't know how they are gonna make this interesting anymore. Unless a new writer fights to put in some NUANCE into the writing at the threat of his/her job and having Yoshi-P or Ishikawa yell at them.

- Even after that, we could've explored how BOZJA, how DALMASCA, How LANDIS, NAGXIA and other regions dealt with the power vacuum of Garlemald going away. DAlmasca already had tensions between civilians and the royal family even before the Empire came in. Bozja has several resistance factions that want a say in how the nation is rebuilt, not to mention every other tiny region in ILSABARD WHICH IS STILL COVERED IN A FOG IN THE MAP, while we gallivant to the edge of the universe!

correct me if i'm wrong, isn't illsabard map being covered in fog \ clouds because those areas are uncharted? probably due to the occupation of garlemald preventing modren scholars from traveling through the continent to chart it, still, it is weird that corvos is still not visible on the map even though it is the entery point to illsabard from thavanir

it is also known about illsabard having a harsh terrain and weather so that could be another reason

Also, speaking of worldbuilding. There's 0 ways of justifying the Ishgard still being stuck in the middle-ages or any other region for that matter, if they just insert whatever tech they fancy from flying mechs to please their plot. If things exist to improve life, it will spread in the world. People argue that Final Fantasy is always a mixture of Scifi and fantasy, yeah.. But there was always a reason in the world for it, there was a reason why one nation had tech and another didnt. And if they insist on just tossing in Allagan stuff that is supposed to be SUPER RARE into the screen all the time, along with space ships, radios and more.

Honestly, FFXIV should just pull the plug on pretending to care about worldbuilding anymore, with their modern clothing glams and such and just make it a scifi game fully with society advancing leaps and bounds. We are getting "SPACE EXPLORATION" in a coming patch. Stop pretending to be fantasy.

simply put, we have B team while whatever SE has forced yoshida to shit out as the next FF game has the A team working on it, FF16 was the beginning of the end for quality control

that 7.1 just felt like a filler, nothing interesting was said for 90% of it

7.1 was basically three short stories and a prologue for 7.2. Lets have a funeral and reminds the players that Alexandrians have no idea about deaths (nor emotions), lets help the gecko find out something about his mom, lets retread all the miqo'te native lore because Koana is here now and we love cows.

What are the odds that the fake queen is one of the remaining ascians (if the writers can even remember that some are unaccounted for).

Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

I hated the 6.X patch series and it looks like I am going to hate the 7.X series too. I think the new writing team is completely unsure of what new story arch they are setting up because DT and now 7.1 don't feel the like start or foundation of anything new.

They're setting up more rift travel, it's the only real plothook they got left that can carry the story. What happens to the Alexandrians really don't move the story unless they all go evil, and finding out more of the lizard mom won't do much to set up a new story.

Just finished it, the stuff with Gulool Ja was alright I guess. I was interested in it but it seems they already resolved that plotline.

The stuff with Koana genuinely feels like the biggest MacGuffin they've ever done. They took one of the cool things about Koana and just wrote it off. Because Tural can't have flaws, it has to be 100% perfect where nothing bad happens with no bad people, everyone has to get along just fine.

The random hunter showing up that just so happened to be at the village when Koana's parents were killed and explained away as "I heard them say "Protect our son!!!"" just took me out of it. That whole portion of the MSQ was so awful. It just perfectly solved every issue they had within a single day. The issue with the train tracks scaring the animals, solved perfectly. The conflict between the train operators (if you can call it a conflict) and the nomadic tribe, solved perfectly. All it took was the death of a single monster and it just fixed every single issue.

I seriously don't know what they're doing or expecting out of this. I enjoyed DT's story for the most part. It had flaws but it's no where near as bad as people make it out to be. But this is something entirely different. This genuinely is probably the lowest MSQ has ever been. Unvoiced Side quest content is more interesting than this.

I'd rather go back to Post Patch ARR.

That said the fight content is great. Newest dungeon is my favorite dungeon now. I wish I could be as positive about the story content.

Originally Posted by St0rmy

Just finished it, the stuff with Gulool Ja was alright I guess. I was interested in it but it seems they already resolved that plotline.

The stuff with Koana genuinely feels like the biggest MacGuffin they've ever done. They took one of the cool things about Koana and just wrote it off. Because Tural can't have flaws, it has to be 100% perfect where nothing bad happens with no bad people, everyone has to get along just fine.

The random hunter showing up that just so happened to be at the village when Koana's parents were killed and explained away as "I heard them say "Protect our son!!!"" just took me out of it. That whole portion of the MSQ was so awful. It just perfectly solved every issue they had within a single day. The issue with the train tracks scaring the animals, solved perfectly. The conflict between the train operators (if you can call it a conflict) and the nomadic tribe, solved perfectly. All it took was the death of a single monster and it just fixed every single issue.

I seriously don't know what they're doing or expecting out of this. I enjoyed DT's story for the most part. It had flaws but it's no where near as bad as people make it out to be. But this is something entirely different. This genuinely is probably the lowest MSQ has ever been. Unvoiced Side quest content is more interesting than this.

I'd rather go back to Post Patch ARR.

That said the fight content is great. Newest dungeon is my favorite dungeon now. I wish I could be as positive about the story content.

Hello breastie!!!