Our Characters Apart

[Fensfield]

As I follow the new main scenario through, while the story and characters remain incredibly enjoyable, it's continuously undermined by the fact that they all insist on continuously singing the praises of my character. There seems never to be a scene without my character being lavishly glorified, let alone a scene wherein my character is offered the opportunity or perceived to be somehow at fault - at least not by anyone who isn't already clearly written out to be a bad person, like Ungust the corrupt and treacherous merchant.

The game is going to great lengths to make sure we know that our characters are special, apart and separate from the mere NPC's. Worse, the efforts of NPCs - or even other player characters - who fight alongside us not only go unrecognised, but oftentimes are actively downtrodden. Apparently, despite being forced to face Ifrit in a party of three others, without whom she would have been flattened, my T'aemi defeated the primal single-handedly. The situation was even set up to make the presence of others in the fight make sense by having players appear in the same prison chamber together, along with other people the Amal'jaa had captured.

And honestly, it's spoiling things. The characters are undermining their own worth by not only denying their own value but by spouting outright falsehoods about my character's achievements. Not only is it undermining my ability to suspend my disbelief, it's actively forcing my character apart from the game world rather than helping me to believe they're a part of it.

I realise it's too late to make changes the current storyline, but please, could the writers try not to go quite so far in sucking up to our characters in any subsequent narrative content you might add? And if you aren't able include our party companions in cutscenes they logically should be present in, at least have the NPC's recognise we aren't just some lone superhero with everything handed to us by the whim of the writer?

We play these game to explore and travel with our friends, not to have our egos endlessly stroked and be told we need no-one but ourselves. The original storyline in v1.0 may have gone too far in the other direction, reducing our characters to mere background swords, but at least it went to great lengths to show we were supported not only by story characters, but by anyone who cared to form a party with us. Please don't make the mistake of swinging wildly in the opposite direction, and invalidating our efforts by setting our characters so far apart that you remove the believability of the people around them, and world they inhabit.

[Vydos]

It's a good thing that I read your entire post. I was about to mention how bad 1.0 was at depicting our characters lol. I complained about that part a lot in 1.0.

That said, I sort of agree with you. But I'm not at the point where it bothers me. I do however notice that we're indeed being glorified a tad too much. But I think that's because our characters are becoming these well-known heroes that everyone knows about.

(Sorry to pull the FFXI card up)
But I liked how my FFXI character was portrayed in the Chains of Promathia storyline. We were important yet we became like this unknown hero that saved the world without most people knowing about it except the npc's that you interacted with. I for one, like this type of hero/protagonist. The silent hero, the one that doesn't seek fame and glory but is more like "the right man at the wrong time". Who simply decides to help those in need to then resume his adventuring days.

However, this is how I like my heroes to be. My personal opinion. I know that a lot of people like the kind of hero that FFXIV is making us to be. All we can do is accept it and hope that S-E will switch from time to time during future expansions.

[Fensfield]

However, this is how I like my heroes to be. My personal opinion. I know that a lot of people like the kind of hero that FFXIV is making us to be. All we can do is accept it and hope that S-E will switch from time to time during future expansions.

You're right of course, and I agree by and large. I'm glad it's not troubling you as it is me but, if there is one point I would like to be taken away from my little rant it's that if nothing else, it would be a very good idea if the NPC's stopped outright lying.

There have been occasions where narrative NPC's fought alongside us and their efforts were subsequently dismissed as if they hadn't existed, or far worse ones like the example I gave above, where the system actively forced us to face a challenge in a group and then subsequently claimed we overcame it alone. Either the story isn't bothering to maintain coherence, or it's presenting our characters as dishonest opportunists capitalising on the efforts others to make themselves look like some kind of lone, legendary hero. I'm not sure which is worse - at least the latter would be a deliberate twist.

[Raeletta]

I though this was a little wierd too, the Ifrit fight was where it hit me most. Apparently everyone else was put to death. D:

Still, I hope the whole party does become a bit more included later on.

[Vydos]

*snip due to character limit *

That, I can fully agree and be behind that. It's true that we're the only ones taking most if not all the credits. This was something that was done better in 1.0 (Nael Van Darnus story arc that is.) We defeated Nael Van Darnus but Cid also received the much deserved praise. And this came from our character actually doing so. Let's just hope that future storylines will also put enough attention to the npcs that helped us.

[Noata]

I though this was a little wierd too, the Ifrit fight was where it hit me most. Apparently everyone else was put to death. D:

Still, I hope the whole party does become a bit more included later on.

Well mortals only have 1 soul, and Ifrit couldn't take yours cuz the crystal got to you first! (Just kidding... maybe) In all honesty they put the others to death because Ifrit warped their minds into always wanting to worship him. its essentially keeping around the cult your in a blood soaked war with.

The story does seem to glorify you early on, in 1.0 you initially were just an adventurer who got lucky on a few missions. Just because your special does not warrant you privilege though, after getting called the savior of the realm, shorty after some dialogue I found myself being called private by a no name flame sergeant