What's so good about FFXIV?

[Lane]

It should be expected everyone isn't going to like everything depending on the writer and subject matter. I feel this is more akin to thinking all of WoW is great because Wrath was or all of WoW is awful because WoD was. Neither are true, but it's acceptable that players would find one section more or less enjoyable than another. Just because FFXIV has a continuous storyline doesn't mean it's not applicable. Even in book or television series this is true with certain ones being praised or criticized more than others, so I don't find those comparisons apt especially as there were several series I did not like the introductions to that I grew to love later.

My main complaint about ARR was the superfluous dialog. There's even a line in an animated parody where one of the characters says, "You just summed up 30 quests in one sentence." Yep, that's ARR. I found the majority of the characters unlikable. Some of them vastly improved and are now among my favorites. I was not interested in the bulk of the subject matter, most of which changes or at least evolves to become interesting in subsequent expansions.

I did not like how my character was treated as a tool. Left to my own devices, I was given no reason to join the Scions. It was as if my character decided she had nothing better to do than be at their beck and call, which Alphinaud at least later admits to using us. This also changes substantially as you start to become viewed as a friend or family to those you interact with at length.

Once I got to HW, things improved dramatically. The problem is ARR is so long, it's a massive time sink to convince players to get through and there's no guarantee to be a payoff at the end if they turn out to not like HW. While the gameplay itself doesn't change, the characters and story certainly do. I would recommend not quitting ARR if you're liking everything else but those two things because they do get better (along with combat). I find saying that the whole game is like ARR factually incorrect as I would 100% buy a story skip if I had to do ARR again, but I would NG+ HW.

[Miriamel105]

im waiting for you to write why you think the story is good vaguely like i wrote to you vaguely why i think the story is bad, and then we can geet deeper into a discussion,....but lets face it, you dont want any discussions....we touched your sensitive spot and now you gonna just repeat "tell me what you were doing in the story at level 64" over and over again and thats probably as far as you can intellectually go. it was a pleasure talking with you, as im sure it will be to the next person lucky enough to hear your opinion on something, altho we didnt hear any reasons ... like....at all.

You will never get an answer for that. I asked it many, many, many years while playing the game, seeing a story with potential getting worse, ridiculous until it eventually became unbearable stupid.

The reasons for this are endless.

The protagonists are shallow, bland, one sided and only work thanks to their plot armor. They got no character developement and even worse the whole group got neither internal nor external struggles. Thanks to the obviously ingame knowledge plot armor, which bends the whole world around them all the time, they can just do what they want, ignore everything, be absolute psychopathic in their deeds and still win. What people praise the most, the story of Shadowbringer, is just terrible in all the big parts, because the antagonists are just reduced to idiotic, incompetent balloons you poke to solve everything. At no point of the story there is an actual plan - even the one of the catboy makes no sense at all - and by that of course also no developement toward it. You run in and thanks to being plot armor invincible you just win.

The antagonists are most of the time hundred times more powerful in different way, can easily crush you all the time in endless ways and then just do nothing, because, well, that would end the story. And that's the ONLY reason. The antagonists that makes the most sense actually is sadly someone like Zenos, because he at least simply does not care so him never doing anything, well, makes sense. The other guys got an agenda and there is no reason at all, why they shouldn't end you or at least do something to wreck your endless murder spree. But then the story wouldn't continue. The worst kind of writing, when things just happen because the writers enforce them.

Next is the overall lore. It's close to non existent with so many plot holes and inconsistencies. It of course all hangs together with the points mentioned before. The big players like Ascians and Garlemald, while around since the train wreck of 1.x, got close to no lore, they just make up stuff as they please what does still hardly fit together and if you fill all the space they leave on purpose (as they said themselves, so they can retcon stuff better), then the story simply still just don't make sense, because in that case Garlemald simply can't be the big bad at all. A big bad empire with that absurd amount of power would just obliterate you and not just stand there all the time watching you as you slaughter it. That's as absurd as thinking the USA would just watch when the IS would start to fall into their home country.

Protagonists part II, the WoL itself: absolutely no working. The center of all attention, but can't speak, can't think, got no own motivation, got no interest, not even in their own history. Big revelation in ShB about an epic background story of gigantic proportion? There is not even a single thought about it. No one cares.

The other big guys? Hydaelyn and Zodiark? Again, no one cares. You are told how bad Zodiark is and everyone just believes it with no proof at all and that's supposed to be good? That's how stuff like holocaust and alike happens, people just following what other people make up and start genocides over it.

Later you get some infos - which don't fit at all with the told narrative and would HAVE TO lead to an almost 180° turn. But what happens? Nothing. It's just ignored. Again.

Things like 'time/dimensions travel is very bad' is just thrown out of the window when the protagonists need it, plot armor again. Interesting characters will always die first, because anything that would make the story interesting would be harder to write than the usual: WoL and Scions just start their assault and slaughter all problems - plus all the pointless fillers put in the place where the actual inner and outer struggle should have been.

Beside this you just get some other Square game stories badly copy/pasted in, not fitting at all, but yeah, who cares.

Sure, why not, it's an MMORPG, it does not need a good story and interesting characters. And if people would be honest about it, it wouldn't even be a point. Instead they run around and spit on actual good story writing in putting it below that gigantic mess.

FF14 got some moments and characters here and there, which COULD have become good. But those are all wasted.

Elidibus? Wasted, Nothing of what he did ever made any sense. Varis? Completely wasted. His best friend? Wasted and forgotten. Zenos? Well, story not finished yet, but it's hard to believe they will make much out of this guy after having done nothing with him in all these years. I know less about the (way more massive) WoW lore and story, but Zenos is like Sylvanas, just without any motivation and goal. Hades? Utterly wasted. Even all he stood for lore and story wise was again just completely ignored. Other Ascians? Complete jokes, what makes no sense at all again when you look back from the actual position. Garlemald? Another giant joke that only makes sense if they are a very benevolent empire, but in that case we would be the bad guys and the plot armor does not allow this. So Garlemald is just left being stupid.

The worst part is anyway Hydaelyn itself. Shady from the start, what you find out later is absolute terrible. And this leads... nowhere. It's again just ignored. And even worse: the player seem to be fine with it. And that's sick. There is nothing to defend this.

But you can't talk about this. The FF14 community is so toxic, that near to no one dares to speak about all this (and there are way more problems). You will just receive aggressive hate over it. Over some bad fiction.

- - - Updated - - -

This also changes substantially as you start to become viewed as a friend or family to those you interact with at length.

When shall this change? You are getting abused all the time till the end and I don't think this will ever change, since the game sells being abused as a tool of mass murder against supposed 'bad guys' is something good.

They lie all the time to you, they abuse you, they don't care what you - or others - think and the only way this is good is from their point of view.

One of the first thing catboy in ShB tells you is, to not tell the people of the first the truth. God beware to tell people the truth so they could decide on their own for example if they just want to be reborn or maybe find a way to travel in/to a not ruined world.

Or every single time they play with the destruction of the world, because, hey, we all know the WoL got plot armor so it will work, right? Let's just fool around with it. Why not summon primals? Why not summon two primals at once? Why not just become a primal for the lols? Oh, this almost killed everyone? Yeah, but thank to plot armor it worked out, so let's just forget about that completely and plan the next completely psychopathic murder spree risking everything and all, burning down whole continents and then blame others and use this as reason for even more murder, because we are the good guys so it's not insane mass murder, it's heroic.

Funny how in HW the story went for a very short time in a direction about that just abusing your power to slaughter everything in your path will likely not lead to peace and freedom, but - who would have guessed - into total destruction. But this is of course just ignored and forgotten again, too hard to write I suppose. We just use the usual might makes right to solve everything.

The game gave me never an actual reason to be on the side of the Scions or Eorza in all these years. Why? Eorza is corrupt, incompetent, ignorant and the leaders don't care at all about their people and even less the rest of the quite doomed world. Same for Doma. The Scions? Minfilia was the one caring for the whole Echo thing as solution to primals and 'stuff'. The other Scions were just foreign soldiers from an extremely arrogant and quit racist country who for some reason wanted to wager war in Eorza. And that's what the Scions solely became after Minfilia, they are just soldiers who move around and cause havoc and the only reason this does not lead to terrible blood shed and mass death is that it is fictional - and the 'bad guys' being far more peaceful than us. What was Stormblood more than us slaughtering through the rows of other nations with close to no resistence? Mainly slaughtering inhabitants of these nations by the way.

Garlemald got a high tech army with hyper sonic flying fortresses, drones, rockets and so on. They could just obliterate those few small towns whenever they like with no problem at all. Never happens. Interesting, no? Instead Thancred comes around the corner, telling us, we should put a whole continent on fire, because that's what good guys do, playing with the lives of millions we don't know at all.

Or the whole Doma part. A 100% war crime from start to end. The reason the Scion soldiers went there? Just to cause a distraction. The plan was, to cause some havoc so the evil, evil empire would use their forces to crush Doma and by that get some pressure from Ala Migho. I don't think many people even think about what a monstrous plan that was. The only reason it did not come to the worst? Not us. You have to thank the empire for that again. They simply did nothing and the most death was caused by us again, especially Hien and his plan with the flooding of the castle town, you know, where all the civilians live you need to run a castle. Or this abuse of foreign natives and their rites, typical for fascistic nations, proxy wars. You let other people fight for you, who cares what this means for them, right? If Garlemald would be an evil empire, all these guys would be toast afterwards, they would just throw some bombs on those small villages and burn them to the ground.

[Lane]

What people praise the most, the story of Shadowbringer, is just terrible in all the big parts, because the antagonists are just reduced to idiotic, incompetent balloons you poke to solve everything. At no point of the story there is an actual plan - even the one of the catboy makes no sense at all - and by that of course also no developement toward it. You run in and thanks to being plot armor invincible you just win.

The antagonists in ShB don't get enough credit. Both Emet and Elidibus would have won their battles with no contest except for external events they couldn't have foreseen. The WoL was seconds from becoming a sin eater and would have were it not for the Ardbert merger. The CE had to summon in additional WoLs to help you fight him because it wasn't a battle you could win on your own. Even after all that plus the Scions trying to help in the background, you still almost lose except that you're able to make a weapon of pure light from all the aether you accumulated from the Lightwardens to finish the job. Emet was no joke and it was a fight we had no business winning, we basically got exceptionally lucky. Likewise, Elidibus was a game over except for the Azem crystal and Emet's plan to release him from his duty. The only villain I feel matches your description was Vauthry. Also, Emet was clear from the beginning he was trying a different tactic because Lahabrea's hadn't worked.

The problem with the CE's plan was having no backup if something went wrong. The WoL was supposed to absorb all the Lightwardens then the CE was going to take all the light aether and die. They didn't anticipate Emet shooting him in the back before that could happen.

Protagonists part II, the WoL itself: absolutely no working. The center of all attention, but can't speak, can't think, got no own motivation, got no interest, not even in their own history. Big revelation in ShB about an epic background story of gigantic proportion? There is not even a single thought about it. No one cares.

The other big guys? Hydaelyn and Zodiark? Again, no one cares. You are told how bad Zodiark is and everyone just believes it with no proof at all and that's supposed to be good?

I don't care about Garlemald and the Ascians got their lore dump in ShB. As much as I would like to have more agency, that's not what the developers have in mind. The WoL is the hero, that's it. You can create your avatar, but you're still role playing as a hero.

I was disappointed there wasn't more attention on the 'revelation' in ShB, but I'm hoping that's because it's been kicked back to EW. I get the impression the WoL doesn't tell the Scions everything. Were it not for a comment from Urianger, I would've assumed we didn't say anything about the memory crystal and we still might not have told them the whole story.

They do start questioning the Hydaelyn & Zodiark narrative towards the end though (finally). Except for the Ascians, I've never seen anyone say anything disparaging of Hydaelyn. This is like someone telling you that your saint of a mother might not be wholly good or have the best intentions, that's going to take some time to process when that's all you and the generations before you have known. I expect this is going to be thoroughly addressed in EW. Frankly, had Emet not told them she's a primal they likely wouldn't have ever investigated it.

When shall this change? You are getting abused all the time till the end and I don't think this will ever change, since the game sells being abused as a tool of mass murder against supposed 'bad guys' is something good.

They lie all the time to you, they abuse you, they don't care what you - or others - think and the only way this is good is from their point of view.

This is subjective because I don't feel that way at all. I accept that the Scions have some deep seated beliefs that they've never had to question until recently. As much as I, the player, may feel differently unlike the WoL I am omnipresent. I just have to accept that the WoL I'm roleplaying is probably in the same boat.

The thing in ShB is only 3 people knew what was happening with the WoL absorbing the Lightwardens, everyone else thought you'd be fine and it was no big deal. Y'shtola starts getting angry at Urianger for not doing anything about it, but at the time both he and the CE think they have a failsafe plan. Once everything goes awry, everyone is upset about it. Remember that your entire time on the First is to save not just the Source but YOUR life.

The rest of it can be boiled down to self preservation and everyone believing they have more of a right to life than others do. All sides are guilty of this. The Scions at least admit that put in the same position they might do the same. ShB in particular I thought handled morally grey fairly well or at least as well as could be expected.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

-snip-

I wouldn't say that the FFXIV story is the worst ever. It's better than most game plots. That said, yes a lot of the plotholes and the hypocrisy is infuriating. Zenos killed thousands of people and has a ton of people who want to kill him to avenge their friends and loved ones. The WoL too has killed hundreds of Garlean soldiers (both purebloods and conscripts) and beastmen, and yet nobody wants to kill him to get revenge. Hien floods Doma Castle, killing hundreds of innocents, including his own countrymen, such as masons, painters, chefs, administrative clerks, etc, and yet literally nobody brings it up after. Hades is condemned by the narrative for trying to destroy the present world to save the old, when time travel man did the exact same thing (tried to wipe out the future to bring back his preferred old world), and the story praises him for it. And so on.

- - - Updated - - -

The antagonists in ShB don't get enough credit. Both Emet and Elidibus would have won their battles with no contest except for external events they couldn't have foreseen. The WoL was seconds from becoming a sin eater and would have were it not for the Ardbert merger. The CE had to summon in additional WoLs to help you fight him because it wasn't a battle you could win on your own. Even after all that plus the Scions trying to help in the background, you still almost lose except that you're able to make a weapon of pure light from all the aether you accumulated from the Lightwardens to finish the job. Emet was no joke and it was a fight we had no business winning, we basically got exceptionally lucky. Likewise, Elidibus was a game over except for the Azem crystal and Emet's plan to release him from his duty. The only villain I feel matches your description was Vauthry. Also, Emet was clear from the beginning he was trying a different tactic because Lahabrea's hadn't worked.

The 5.3 reveal makes Emet looks really stupid in comparison. If the Exarch could have used the Crystal Tower to nuke an Ascian at any time, then why did Emet repeatedly walk within close vicinity of the tower multiple times?

[Lane]

The 5.3 reveal makes Emet looks really stupid in comparison. If the Exarch could have used the Crystal Tower to nuke an Ascian at any time, then why did Emet repeatedly walk within close vicinity of the tower multiple times?

Considering it physically killed the CE to draw enough power to contain Elidibus even after the WoL's beatdown I would guess because it's not that easy. Also, Emet had knowledge of what the tower could and couldn't do, so much like everything else I assume he had a contingency plan. Given the difficulty the CE had with Elidibus, I don't think he could have done the same with Emet, he was too powerful.

[FlubberPuddy]

After ARR all the voice actors change because they moved the voice studio to England from USA. And they are a lot better aswell.

Good to know thank you, seems like the game keeps improving with each expac, looking forward to whenever I get there starting working on my gladiator job and the crafting/gathering jobs for now!

[Poppincaps]

im waiting for you to write why you think the story is good vaguely like i wrote to you vaguely why i think the story is bad, and then we can geet deeper into a discussion,....but lets face it, you dont want any discussions....we touched your sensitive spot and now you gonna just repeat "tell me what you were doing in the story at level 64" over and over again and thats probably as far as you can intellectually go. it was a pleasure talking with you, as im sure it will be to the next person lucky enough to hear your opinion on something, altho we didnt hear any reasons ... like....at all.

I'll bite. I'm going to try and avoid specific instances for spoiler reasons. For the most part I think the characters in the story are mostly complex characters with clear flaws. Each of the Scions have made major mistakes or haven't always been complete paragons of virtue. They've never dipped into evil territory but some of them have done things that have had major consequences and they've had to wrestle with those consequences.

I also like the way that they handle their antagonists. A lesser game would treat the beast tribes as monstrous creatures that just want destruction, but in many ways you can see how the beast tribes are justified in their actions. A good example of this is the storyline of the Kobolds. Unfortunately the power of the primals is such that they have to be put down or they'll destroy the world so we have to step in, but it doesn't necessarily treat the beast tribes as evil creatures which I appreciate. Shadowbringers delves deeper into the Ascians motivations for what they're doing and the tragedy that befell them. Ultimately once again, we have to fight for our survival but you can at least understand why they're doing what they're doing.

Basically, the heroes of the story (other than the Warrior of Light) aren't treated as perfect beings and a lot of the antagonists aren't treated as monsters. Additionally, I think the game does a great job of making things relevant. Even more minor characters can be made relevant later on. I appreciate this as not a lot of games make those call backs and I think an MMO especially is a cool place to do that.

Additionally, I think it's the framing of the story. Moreso than other MMOs you are a very central figure in this world. In most MMOs you're just an adventurer that's well respected but not one of the main heroes. As a result I feel like this story is my story and every quest I do, even if it's minor contributes towards my character's legacy and impact on the world. Not everyone may see it this way, but I certainly do and I haven't really felt this way in other MMOs other than maybe SWTOR in some ways.

I also think it manages to evoke laughter, awe, sadness, and anger in a way that few games and certainly few MMOs do. It can definitely be slow paced which I understand why that may turn some people off and it definitely isn't as interactive as I'd like, although it does a better job of that in Shadowbringers, but if you can get past those things and generally like the format that JRPGs use to tell stories, then I think you'd appreciate the game a lot.

[Cthulhu 2020]

i already wrote my review, you didnt...i gave my reasons...you didnt

"its bloated with so much irrelevant crap and gibberish/banter just used as a timesink to prolong content that even the ok parts feel like you just wasted your time watching it all."

There's a little of this in ARR, where some of the dialog doesn't really mean or do anything, but late and post ARR, every bit of conversation is relevant to what's going on in the world, whether it be character development, exposition, story progression, or plot devices. I know there are people in MMOs who just want to get to the fighting, and find FF's story boring, but that's because THEY find the story boring, not because the story is bad.

"i found it cheezy, with cheezy characters with cheezy jokes i didnt feel or care one bit about any of them... quests sending you around like an errand boy teleporting around the world so each person can tell you one sentence what happens next usually something totally irrelevant as well."

Really now? The situations and characters are always quite serious. Later in your review, you describe the story as "kiddy-cartoonish anime mmo story" which I can tell you it certainly isn't. The FF story gets EXTREMELY dark. Without going into spoilers, not only do people you know frequently die but your friends die, people who you know get turned into monsters and abominations. It deals in war and genocide. Loss of loved ones. Complex enemies who are the protagonists of their own stories. That's not kiddy-cartoonish. That's deeper and more complex than WoW's "story". Not that I want to compare them, but it's pretty funny when people were leaving Everquest and jumping to WoW, the EQ stans main point was that WoW looked like a carebear cartoon, and it does. The WoW story quality also feels like one giant original fanfic written by Metzen and eventually his buddies.

If you got to level 64 IN THE STORY and not just as your personal level, and said everything was cartoonish, I'm going to call you out as a liar. Maybe if the highest level you got to was 40 I might buy it, but not 64.

And when people say the characters are shallow, or there's zero character development, again, they're either lying or they just didn't pay enough attention. I get the feeling people have spent 15 years in WoW and have been trained to just not care about story of the world. Yes, there's problems with the FF story, but "The characters are shallow, there's zero character development, it's cartoony-anime for kids" kind of criticism makes it so obvious that people weren't paying attention or they're just lying. All of those criticisms are just super duper ultra generic stuff someone can say about a story to appear as if they've read it, and if they're saying it to someone who doesn't have a clue either, they might even believe it.

[Florena]

FFXIV isn't perfect. But what draws me in a lot is the story and world. After having felt like WoW was being run by the rule of cool too much and becoming increasingly disenfranchised with its lore and story over the past several expansions, I latched onto FFXIV and grew more immersed.

It also has some stuff I like for RP. Player housing, the ability to shift your standing/sitting posture etc. Though the races are less diverse, it feels like you get generally better customization within those races. No artifact power or similar systems you have to grind up throughout a whole expansion. Fantastic music. Dyable gear. I'm a roleplayer and finding the lore/story/setting of FFXIV more appealing makes it easier to get into RP and care about that RP. Where as my disenfranchisement with WoW's lore has left me unable to get into RP in WoW anymore.

FFXIV has its flaws, but that's a lot of what really draws me in. If I cared about the ilvl loot treadmill and chasing better and better gear I'd probably prefer WoW still, but I burne dmyself out on caring about that a long time ago, and now how determined I am to get a set of gear in FFXIV is based more on whether I want it as a glamour option than how good the stats are.

It's not a perfect game. There are things WOW and other games do better than it. But for my personal experience, I find it much more engaging.

[Miriamel105]

Antagonists

Emet had no reason to fight the WoL at all. It would only have made sense if his actual plan would have been to force the WoL to 'eat' Ardbert to avoid that fate. Emet Selch is sold as a master genious, someone who is able to even trick the smartest people into doing what he wants them to do. Instead he just dies for nothing and throws away everything. Hydaelyn is a Super Hitler machine, that has slaughter all life and reduced it to a mere shade of itself on top of obliterarting the planet, putting it into a decaying state. Something neither Scions nor anyone else (but the 'bad guys') care about. If you cut a planet into pieces, that's normally just the end of it. In a high fantasy setting you could do something insane like this with some kind of omipotent god who is able to alter reality itself - so if Zodiark would have done this (though maybe it is the reason the planet is still alive, since Zodiark IS the planet - but not even that is the case. Hydaelyn is an insane machine created by a bunch of likely complete crazy people in their hideout. And how terrible instable the result is, well, the 13th shows that very clear, just as the first. Following the story, the Ascians never planed to destroy the 13th at all. They likely just tried ot fix their loved ones by putting together the slaughtered souls, but instead of a normal 'human' that just created insatible monsters which devoured the chaotic shard, making it void of all aether/lifeforce.

And the first? I mean, just look at the little Ardbert and Co had done there. They were just not complete as****es and that was enough to push it at the border of a flood, what they then triggered by killing the Ascians, killing 95% of all life in the first. Something we by the way don't seem to care about, even though we got time travel retcon on our side - if the Mary Cat Sue can use time travel to travel back to an already united shard, how hard can it be to travel back to the time before Ardbert killed 95% of the planet? Does anyone ever care about this? Or ask how Cat Sue is any better than the Ascians, when sacrificing the source of his timeline (we suddenly got timelines, also interesting) for the mere planet to take a glimpse of light away from the first. I mean, really, if Emet Selch wouldn't have shot this guy, this plan would have gone terrible wrong. He's dead, the first is still full of light, Crystal Tower, WoL, Scions (though those may likely just have died?) thrown back to the source, everyone living around CT likely dead from this or just slaughted by Sin Eaters with all protection gone. Great plan, man, great plan...

And Elidibus? Sorry, that was soooooo dumb what he did. And saved by Emet Selch? Why? What has the WoL even done to prove anthing? The whole point of Emet Selch was, that the slaughered life fragments are egomanical, brutal, know nothing but violence and destruction without any care for others - something we just keep proving. What have we proven by beating him up? That we are better human beings? No, that we are better at killing stuff. He suddenly comes up with 'Remember us, remember we once live'. He's saying that to people who a) know NOTHING about them and even worse b) didn't care to change that at all. The WoL does not even care about their own past. Neither the WoL nor the Scions even questioned Hydaelyn for a single second, after learning, that it's just some made up primal from a few ancients who just wanted to murder everyone else to not bring those back who gave their lives to save everyone - including them. Since start of the game, there is not a single reason given, that Zodiark is acually evil nor was shown that it has done anything evil. We get the info: Zodiark is the only reason that planet and life and by that also the shards are even able to exist. Any thought about this? Nope. Not a single one. How is this good story telling?

Elidibus plans are terrible and make no sense. None of them. And his last one - for what? Ascians can just teleport people - including the WoL - against their will. Just por the WoL into a mountain or lava or a sealed box or whatever. Just watch the WoL from their unseen place and one shot them in a good moment. Or just start with the Scions, just kill those. Elidibus even talks about this. Well, why isn't he doing it? He can without any problem. He can just port right in and stab them. Done.

But that would ruin the story? No. To create such an antagonist who then is just not doing anything, so the good guys can win, THIS already ruined the story.

So Elidibus would win, but then Emet Selch ghost appears and saves us. Fine, just port us again? Or leave and kill us the next day. If I would see Emet Selch, my 10.000 year old friend I thougt dead, I would port out and get new infos.

Good story telling means, that the characters act as if they are real. Neither Emet Selch nor Elidibus nor most other antagonists act like real people. They act like cardboard monsters, simply there to get beaten.

I don't care about Garlemald

That doesn't get rid of the problem, that they are size-wise the biggest player.

the Ascians got their lore dump in ShB

By far not enough and everything that HAD TO come out of this is just ignored, what is worse than everything just staying in the dark. If you tell the protagonist all this (including such a strong link to it) and the protagonsits just moves on without even showing any reaction to this, that's just bad.

that's not what the developers have in mind. The WoL is the hero, that's it. You can create your avatar, but you're still role playing as a hero.

Indeed and that's the reason it's not good story telling. It's just some background noise for the 'slaughter the next monster' gameplay. You are the hero, you slaughter monsters. I've seen many RPG maker games from single person who care more about world building, lore and character developement. And since FF14 treats the story 100% like a single player RPG, that wouldn't be a problem at all.

They do start questioning the Hydaelyn & Zodiark narrative towards the end though (finally)

The last thing I have seen is them simply asking the WoL if Hydaelyn had talked to the WoL again. That's it.

This is like someone telling you that your saint of a mother might not be wholly good or have the best intentions

One of the first thing this thing tells you itself is, that it is the reason that the planet is ripped apart. It just adds to it, that it's of course benevolent and just had to do it, because other guy is evil. Hydaelyn never gives you any reason to trust it. It protects you? Because you are its weapon. If the weapon gets destroyed it can't let it slaughter stuff anymore. People like the song, but what does the song actually has to do with what is happening during it? Bahamut isn't get beaten by Hydaelyn.

The big protection is, when you fight Ultima Weapon. Question would be why you fight Gaius at all. What would Gaius have done? Uniting Eorza, making it one country instead of corrupt city states only not at war with each other for selfish reasons? Getting rid of the primal threat and the war/slaughtering of the beast tribes? How evil and bad. Bringing technology, education order and social safity to people? That bastard. Who is the actual main reason for the pain even in Ala Migho and Doma? Is it Garlemald with a 20% tax rate? Or are it the underground terrorist guys who kept the country in a chaotic state over almost two decades? What's actually good about monarchy? Why do we want to bring Hien back in power? From all the infos we go, all 'nations' we liberate had been terrible places long before Garlemald. And when you get infos from those rebells, they got a lot of very good education. Just imagine for a second, the terrorist in Ala Migho and Doma would have helped their people instead of fighting and endangering them.

This is subjective because I don't feel that way at all.

I get, why. Becacuse the games sells them as friendly. I look at what they actually do. And there is nothing good about it. And the game gives zero reasons to change this beside simply focing you. It just forces you to stay with them, there is no other way. They want you to just storm into another country you got no clue about to start a giant slaughter and somehow win against an army that could just easily obliterate you with hyper sonic drones? Well, yeah, you will just do it. When I tell Lyse "This is not MY war", the absurd answer to it is: I'm sorry I lied to you about my name. - Girl, I don't care if you call yourself the nutsack of santa goblin, I care about people DYING for your insane nationalism.

The whole plan on the first is stupid from start to end and as explained wouldn't have worked at all. I would never have gone along with it at all for obvious reasons. And 'my' WoL life does not matter. It's the whole part of being a soldier that you put YOUR life in danger for others. Instead all the time you act like everything is just a dumb game and so many 'pseudo plans' of the Scions would normally have led to mass death and only work inside fiction that just let things happen.

The WoL and Scions dying? Yeah, absolute just. Warmongers should die. Why did it happen? Because the Eorzan fascist could not stop pushing further, causing more and more bloodshed over nothing but their power. They got no plan going on like Garlemald, who wants to stop all the wars between all those mini nations - what has for example obliterated them by being easy victims to magical fascists for such a long time - by uniting them and of course get rid of that desastrous threat of primals, every single one potentially able to end the planet with their power to brainwash people and get endlessly stronger by consuming more and more aether. Garlemald is by far the most natural ally of the WoL. Eorza just abuses you as their murder hobo and to what has this led? Likely millions of dead people now, since all you did just brought chaos over the world and now crazy 'I just want to die and take the world with me' Super Asahi. Great job. What is the reason Varis wanted to use chemical warfare? Simply to protect his soldiers from the even worse magic we use all the time. The game doesn't show it, but what do people think it feels like dying towards magic, that scorches your flesh, rips you open, creates magical diseases consuming you from the inside and the on? In comparison to this Garlemalds weapon is one of the nicest ways to die. You just stop living. Sure, the light thing is a problem. Next time just send them a letter about this (just like we could have warned them regarding the attack of Captain Sloppy). Or just just wagering war. Varis hold back the whole time. Ala Migho. Doma. They just have done nothing and let it happen. Both Ascians want to push him. Nope. Not following. Talking to the Eorzans about the truth. Nope. Eorzans want war. Yeah, we really followed the plans of the Ascians well the whole time. If it would be badly writtn fiction, these guys would have no prob at all to reach whatever they want. We never even try to hunt them down. The Ascians could simply ignore us. We are not doing anything.

Oh, by the way: no, the Ascians are the ones who want to save the source. The source is the core planet, it's the one planet they want to restore piece by piece. The reason it's much more stable than the shards is them and their work. Our goal seems to be, that everyone will die. Since the chance that Hydaelyn's slaughter of the planet won't lead to all shards dying sooner or later is more than just slim. We never care to even think about this most likely problem.

- - - Updated - - -

FFXIV isn't perfect. But what draws me in a lot is the story and world. After having felt like WoW was being run by the rule of cool too much and becoming increasingly disenfranchised with its lore and story over the past several expansions, I latched onto FFXIV and grew more immersed.

It also has some stuff I like for RP. Player housing, the ability to shift your standing/sitting posture etc. Though the races are less diverse, it feels like you get generally better customization within those races. No artifact power or similar systems you have to grind up throughout a whole expansion. Fantastic music. Dyable gear. I'm a roleplayer and finding the lore/story/setting of FFXIV more appealing makes it easier to get into RP and care about that RP. Where as my disenfranchisement with WoW's lore has left me unable to get into RP in WoW anymore.

FFXIV has its flaws, but that's a lot of what really draws me in. If I cared about the ilvl loot treadmill and chasing better and better gear I'd probably prefer WoW still, but I burne dmyself out on caring about that a long time ago, and now how determined I am to get a set of gear in FFXIV is based more on whether I want it as a glamour option than how good the stats are.

It's not a perfect game. There are things WOW and other games do better than it. But for my personal experience, I find it much more engaging.

I'm not so deep in the lore and story of WoW, since it's so vast. But it's overall still fascinating how coherent it is over all these years, epecially regarding the size of it, even though it's of course just impossible to have everything planed like this when for example the first RTS came out. It's not compareable at all and when I read criticism regarding the WoW story, it sounds more like childish crying around for the sake for crying around. It's almost the same as FF14. While in FF14 no one can explain me what's so good about it, in WoW no one can explain me what's supposed to be so bad about it.

Take Sylvanas beating Bolvar for example. What's bad about it? Bolvar is a Lich King who simply holds the crown to keep it in check, trying his best to not succumb to it, fighting it. Sylavanas meanwhile got the support of an actul god on her side, even more the power of the god who had creatd the Helmet of Domination. And Bolvar doesn't even have a mourneblade. So what's to cry about? Yeah, sure, it was clearly not planed over a decade ago, that there is an imprisoned god in the realm of death and so on, but that just makes it more impressing, that they made it work that well. Such an old story line and fit right in, those dreadlords as agents of death and of course all absolutely fitting into this eternal struggle between the great powers.

WoW got much bigger power levels. Something like that makes it harder to handle, but they handle it well, by balancing it out and letting the normal people dance in the middle of it.

If you tell the WoW story in the way FF14 is, everone and the void lords grandma would only talk about the player character all the time - and everyone would lose to them without the need of support and plans and whatever.

FF14 simply uses way more cutscenes (and way less voice acting). The cut scenes suggerate, that there is 'story', while most of them don't really tell much at all. Other mmorpgs just don't force all text down your throat as much, that's the actual difference.

And content - the reason I stopped paying for FF14 is, that they just cut content all the time. What people enjoy now is mostly years old and they stopped doing much with it. We got less and less content, the quality of the gameplay also got less, while the cash shop blooms. And when you unsub - you lose your house. That's the reason I won't come back anymore. After my friends left over the years, when I still tried to hold them against the trend, it was one thing, but when I lost our mansion now we got since 2013(!), because you can't just unsub until for example Endwalker, no, not anymore.

If I would play WoW, I could unsub whenever I want and would never lose anything. I still don't play it, but that's how it should work.

And sorry, Square is a giant company. When I look at the SOLO housing, you get a giant island ther FOR FREE, you can put 3200(!) objects onto it as you please, increase their size, turn them, hover them up to 1km high and whatever and every server got 18.000 such islands! And this game does not even have a sub.

And then Square comes to me: yeah, sorry, we can't do more, give us money!!!! Yeah, not anymore...

If you are new to FF14 - sure, you got content of EIGHT years to play through. I played all this content in those eight years, so I only got the current content, a point you gonna reach, too. And that's when it becomes very, very bland and boring (if you are not into eRP).

- - - Updated - - -

I wouldn't say that the FFXIV story is the worst ever. It's better than most game plots. That said, yes a lot of the plotholes and the hypocrisy is infuriating. Zenos killed thousands of people and has a ton of people who want to kill him to avenge their friends and loved ones. The WoL too has killed hundreds of Garlean soldiers (both purebloods and conscripts) and beastmen, and yet nobody wants to kill him to get revenge. Hien floods Doma Castle, killing hundreds of innocents, including his own countrymen, such as masons, painters, chefs, administrative clerks, etc, and yet literally nobody brings it up after. Hades is condemned by the narrative for trying to destroy the present world to save the old, when time travel man did the exact same thing (tried to wipe out the future to bring back his preferred old world), and the story praises him for it. And so on.

Yeah, this exactly. The story got the potential to be a good one, IF it would have handled this. But they didn't. Didn't dare. Were too lazy or the producer/other money guys said: nope, too much work, we want earn money not spend money. Funny enough, most of it could be fixed easily - and actually: I would have written the whole story from the PoV Garlemald. SO much more potential in every way. What's even the point of the city states? Just imagine you would go there as undercover agent of Garlemald instead. Then come back, having all the internal struggles in that giant united states. Meanwhile all the corruption in Eorza is ignored. It has to be ignored, because how do you want to solve it? You would have to do what Gaius wanted to do and get rid of the corrupt leadership.

A whole expansion could have been about the three city states and to solve the problem there in a way that does not push them into total chaos. For example pushing the princess of Uldah to power, all against Uldah problems, warhawks in the homeland with own plans and Ascians dancing between all this. - Also something just completelys forgotten by the way, her plan to make Uldah more democratic. So much they bring up and then just throw it away - exactly what makes it look like that they GOT good writers but those are just simply not allowed to write an actual good story.

[Drindorai]

And so we come back to, "It's bad because it's not what I would have done," which makes the entire conversation worthless.

Especially in context with comments like this:

I'm not so deep in the lore and story of WoW, since it's so vast. But it's overall still fascinating how coherent it is over all these years, epecially regarding the size of it, even though it's of course just impossible to have everything planed like this when for example the first RTS came out. It's not compareable at all and when I read criticism regarding the WoW story, it sounds more like childish crying around for the sake for crying around. It's almost the same as FF14. While in FF14 no one can explain me what's so good about it, in WoW no one can explain me what's supposed to be so bad about it.

LOL WHAT.

Also this whole conversation about Hydaelyn keeps being framed, by dishonest actors, as if the story doesn't have a problem with her. As if she isn't responsible for the state of the universe too. And to that I just have to say have you just not been paying attention? Because it absolutely does. Literally the finale cutscene of the final zone in Shadowbringers has MULTIPLE characters telling the villain they fully understand why they feel and act the way that they do.

Miriamel, your entire post reads like someone larping as a Garlean when people are talking about the story from an outside-the-game perspective.

However the single sentence that made me realize you were just full of it was this one:

And content - the reason I stopped paying for FF14 is, that they just cut content all the time.

ESPECIALLY as you're negatively comparing FF14 to WoW in this regard. This sentence is fuuuuucking absurd on its face with regards to WoW vs FF14.

If you are new to FF14 - sure, you got content of EIGHT years to play through. I played all this content in those eight years, so I only got the current content, a point you gonna reach, too. And that's when it becomes very, very bland and boring (if you are not into eRP).

Been caught up to MSQ for over a month and there's plenty of stuff that I'm still doing. But thanks for dismissing it all as "ERP" I guess? The further along your post goes the more you reveal that you're just a fraudulent actor in this conversation. Frankly I'm surprised you didn't bust out the, 'HURR ITS TOO ANIME!' worthless comment in your giant wall of nonsense text.

[Lane]

Instead he just dies for nothing and throws away everything.

The conflict was going to happen at some point. Regardless of whether or not I agree with it, Ascians and primals are the top two targets on the Scions' hit list because they both lead to death and destruction. Also, I'll be frank, Emet presented as someone with depression to me, which is understandable. It had been 12k+ years and they were only halfway done with rejoinings. He mentions in the "Ere Our Curtain Falls" short story that he'd essentially considered suicide more than once.

Hydaelyn is a Super Hitler machine, that has slaughter all life and reduced it to a mere shade of itself on top of obliterarting the planet, putting it into a decaying state.

Well, that's not what happened. The sundering didn't kill, it just fractured everything 13x. The 13th shard was also mistakenly destroyed because they tilted it too far towards dark while not setting up a dark-based calamity on the Source so that it would merge.

Something we by the way don't seem to care about, even though we got time travel retcon on our side - if the Mary Cat Sue can use time travel to travel back to an already united shard, how hard can it be to travel back to the time before Ardbert killed 95% of the planet?

This was all explained in the Echo flashback in the CT. Cid would not have accumulated the knowledge he did without traveling with the WoL, it was that knowledge that led to the development of the CT being able to travel to the First. The CE also says that when he arrived at the First it was almost a century before he intended. I don't believe they knew what happened there or when, only that the First was what caused the 8th Umbral Calamity. He also says during this same cutscene that mankind was all but dying out at the time he left and he was sent back to hopefully prevent that fate.

As for Norvrandt, all of the sin eaters were dead. Yes, there was an abundance of light aether left over, but as long as people stayed away from the Empty the situation was stable.

And Elidibus? Sorry, that was soooooo dumb what he did. And saved by Emet Selch? Why? What has the WoL even done to prove anthing?

Emet knew that without him Elidibus would be carrying on the burden alone, a burden that Emet struggled to carry, that's why he sabotaged him in the fight against the WoL so he too could be at peace and not continue to suffer for an increasingly lost cause. Elidibus couldn't even remember why he was doing what he was doing.

Neither the WoL nor the Scions even questioned Hydaelyn for a single second, after learning, that it's just some made up primal from a few ancients who just wanted to murder everyone else to not bring those back who gave their lives to save everyone - including them. Since start of the game, there is not a single reason given, that Zodiark is acually evil nor was shown that it has done anything evil. We get the info: Zodiark is the only reason that planet and life and by that also the shards are even able to exist. Any thought about this? Nope. Not a single one. How is this good story telling?

I assume because it's going to be addressed at length in EW. 5.5 cutscenes: Krile says after what transpired on the first she and Y'shtola began questioning the true nature of Hydaelyn's blessing and how she's not made her will known to anyone. She's planning to look into it in the archives of Sharlayan.

One of the first thing this thing tells you itself is, that it is the reason that the planet is ripped apart. It just adds to it, that it's of course benevolent and just had to do it, because other guy is evil. Hydaelyn never gives you any reason to trust it. It protects you? Because you are its weapon.

I agree with you and hopefully that is all addressed in EW. I have theories about that, but they're not backed up by anything in the game yet.

Oh, by the way: no, the Ascians are the ones who want to save the source. The source is the core planet, it's the one planet they want to restore piece by piece. The reason it's much more stable than the shards is them and their work. Our goal seems to be, that everyone will die. Since the chance that Hydaelyn's slaughter of the planet won't lead to all shards dying sooner or later is more than just slim. We never care to even think about this most likely problem.

Eh, they do, they just don't care. You're preaching to the choir here, I am #teamrejoin. That's the problem with all of humanity, they always think their lives are important and paramount. It's especially ridiculous in the universe of FFXIV where reincarnation is confirmed and, even without that, there always seem to be a dozen different ways to cheat death.

[Aucald]

Repeating again for all involved:

This is not an FFXIV vs. WoW thread and needs no additional game vs. game rhetoric. Let's stay on topic concerning the enjoyment of FFXIV and keep unrelated criticisms in other threads.

[confety]

(not comparing to any specific mmo)
Casual content is more meaningful and enjoyable
Story is better
Better character customization (even if the game NEEDS a system like wow's wardrove)
Not having the need for alts.
Not feeling that Square is stabbing me in the ass with a needle so i do content i dont want to do because if i dont do it i lose a MASSIVE ammount of player power and character progress.

The only bad thing i see, well "bad" to me because now i feel i am an old lazy fuck is that the first Premade group content a casual player do (extreme primals) are probably too hard to be the first not automatic group content and i feel something else should be between normal raid and extreme primal to help new and casual players get more confortable with their characters before tackling an extreme.

[Miriamel105]

The conflict was going to happen at some point. Regardless of whether or not I agree with it, Ascians and primals are the top two targets on the Scions' hit list because they both lead to death and destruction. Also, I'll be frank, Emet presented as someone with depression to me, which is understandable. It had been 12k+ years and they were only halfway done with rejoinings. He mentions in the "Ere Our Curtain Falls" short story that he'd essentially considered suicide more than once.

Scions nor WoL never did anything in this regard. Every conflict with these guys was one sided and they could have simply ignored it. The biggest problem is, that the player character got plot armor, so a returning focus on killing this plot armored one (and the very first Ascian you meet on level 5 or whatever already got this focus - then not - then again - then again - then not - then they could easily kill you, but don't - then not - then again - then could again, but don't - and so on) becomes at best comedical.

In all these years, the biggest fans of FF14 story showed an attitude of a bored Superman with no moral. We are invincible anyway, we want to kill more stuff, we want to go to Garlemald and slaughter the whole nation - or when something like Zenos happened: How can this be, we are super strong and invincible, that's so dumb that we get defeated. That attitude was created by this writing. 'We' just win all the time against every baddy and that without any problem at all. We don't need plans, we don't need tactics, we don't need anything, we just win and that fast and hard. And it got worse, since in ARR and HW you at least got here and there people dying (often for stupid reason, like Shiva who only died because she tried to murder everyone on the Garlean ship, so they had to - however she even knew that the Garleans would be there and if, why just didnd't she warn us? Whatever). The conflicts just got bigger then.

SB is a full out war against a multinational state that is absolute superior in warfare and ShB ist a post apocalyptical world with death bringing angels - which sadly are just completely lethargic, I mean, how often are these guys and there quasi zombie virus a threat during the whole addon? Urianger and Thancred alone, with no blessing of light nor echo, just slaughter an army of them off screen for example with no prob, sure. Or all the summoned 'WoL' shades. Such a joke. Not even a nameless NPC falls against them. Everything is such an easy win for us and they don't even try to make it feel like any effort was put into it.

The fight against Elidibus for example. When you port back, then it's mainly about bad bread and telling them, that their bodies are about to die - thanks to catboy by the way - all of them just react: yeah, whatever, we just kill that immortal and super powerful mega wizard who can teleport anything at will, can see everything, can be absolute invisible and we got no clue what he gonna do nor any support of anyone, but it will be super easy, we just charge in and kill that guy. And as sad as it is, that's exactly what happens. We just charge in and kill tha guy. That's the end of an antagonist who's been around since ARR.

It's an end good enough for Zenos, because Zenos is not doing anything but waiting for more people trying to murder him, hoping for someone to actually be good at it. But for Elidibus? Just terrible. Even worse than the completely pointless death of Emet Selch and that was already bad enough (not that it even makes sense, since we never bound Emet Selch's soul, we just punched a hole in his body).

The needed plot armor of the player character in an online game is a problem for story telling. It's the reason why you shouldn't force the focus on this character, it deletes 90% of possibilities. But instead of writing around this, they just give almost everyone else plot armor, too. What makes the antagonist the actual main characters, because they are the one who struggle. The are the ones who got the internal and external fights. They are the ones who stand against that invincible might makes right super power that can't be stopped. And even more sad: they are the ones who more often than not go for reason instead of just kill, kill, kill. If Garlemald for example would act like us, we would simply all be dead. They are the ones holding back all the time, while we abuse this to push even further.

This could actually make a good story - when you show that the so called heroes might not be heroes at all. But they do not tell it like this. They stay with the story, that you are invincible, all powerful and no matter what you do, you also got the moral superiority. What you do is or becomes right, what others do is always wrong.

It's a story many people like. Because people like the feeling to be all powerful in every regard. Most people hate so much to be wrong, that they would even take part in killing others, just to keep the illusion to not having done anything wrong. It's sad, but an over and over proven fact. That's why so many are not even able to admit to be on the wrong side in a purely fictional setting, where they did not really kill anyone, where they did not really do anything wrong, since all of it is fake.

Well, that's not what happened. The sundering didn't kill, it just fractured everything 13x. The 13th shard was also mistakenly destroyed because they tilted it too far towards dark while not setting up a dark-based calamity on the Source so that it would merge.

So, you mean that for example the old praxis of taking people and lobotomize them to 'calm them down' is absolutely fine, since you don't 'kill that person'?

To take someone and eleminate everything what they are, all their memories, their being, to redruce their lifespan to <1%, to take away all their skills and talents, their families, friends and to keep them respawning in this artifically created pseudo life for all eternity - or until that prison fails, killing everyone inside - that's just even more fucked up than killing someone.

Would you be fine with someone building a machine on earth, shredding apart all humans and using their 'life force' to make small monkey humans or whatever with the life span of 1-2 monthes, extremely aggressive and even more driven by fear, egoism, hate and so on than already, on top of that seperated from each other by a gigantic wall between the continents. Would you see this as acceptable? As nothing to fight? Would you say: no, these monkey humans the machine has created which die every 2 monthes are more important than to undo this insanity and bring back humans? Not even talking about, that the work of the machine will likely cause the planet to dry out and everything dying anyway...

And no, the story in ShB made it clear, that the Ascians didn't know, that calamities can break down the wall between the artificial dimensions. They did not go for a calamity at all. Another little part of the story is told by the small guy (we for some reason trust), the child WoL from the 13th (so they likely didn't even know where they would go with it in ShB). He tells you, that the WoLs from the 13th simlpy became so powerhungry that they wanted to consume more and more aether, becoming monsters and in the end devoured so much aether that life collapsed.

The whole 'dark'/'light' is a thing for itself anyway. ShB established 'light' - beside being the usual light - as what we in RL know as cold, so less molecular movement. The more 'light' the less 'movement' until there is none at all anymore. In that case 'dark' is simply the same as 'warmth' in RL. It's odd and very counter intuitive, but, well, that's the story they made up.

The actual problem of course is, that Hydaelyn's planet slaughter created the overall problem, including the imbalance. No surprise, since it's just a killer machine created by a bunch of likely utterly insane people.

This was all explained in the Echo flashback in the CT. [spoiler]Cid would not have accumulated the knowledge he did without traveling with the WoL, it was that knowledge that led to the development of the CT being able to travel to the First. The CE also says that when he arrived at the First it was almost a century before he intended. I don't believe they knew what happened there or when, only that the First was what caused the 8th Umbral Calamity. He also says during this same cutscene that mankind was all but dying out at the time he left and he was sent back to hopefully prevent that fate.

He risks all existence, especiall of the source, which already is 8/14 combined, for a blind shot into the dark. Great. Really great. Meanwhile we cry about 'atrocities', when it comes to soldiers of the other side who give their life for stopping primals. But us risking all existence over and over again is of course absolutely fine. Sorry, bad story telling. Actually, ugly story telling, since it sends a terrible message.

As for Norvrandt, all of the sin eaters were dead. Yes, there was an abundance of light aether left over, but as long as people stayed away from the Empty the situation was stable.

Sorry, how were they dead? When? In contrary, with killing 'obvious mutant fatty', these guys would have likely just ran amok. And Eden still around anyway, while we would have been thrown back. You know one of the very first scenes of Eden? When an army of sin eaters arrive? You know, the guys which should not exist anymore?



Emet knew that without him Elidibus would be carrying on the burden alone, a burden that Emet struggled to carry, that's why he sabotaged him in the fight against the WoL so he too could be at peace and not continue to suffer for an increasingly lost cause. Elidibus couldn't even remember why he was doing what he was doing.
So you just created a story in your head. That's fine. I don't think it makes much sense, though. They were about to win. They were about to finally, after all this, be able to heal the planet and the shattered souls inside it, and no matter what you think about it, that's what they believed in. But sure, a murder hobo comes around the corner and the existence of this murder hobo who slaughteres everything in its path suddenly gave them the idea: nah, everything is fine, we should just let everything die and give up 10m before our goal.

No, sorry, it make no sense. Even more, the Ascians are sure, that even the shards will die. Everything will just die, when they fail, not only the real planet and the real people, also the shards and all life on it. That's what the Ascians believe in. From their PoV, we are insane, mindless monsters, mind-raped by that killer machine to make sure, that everything will find its end. And it's not like we ever even try once to make them think otherwise. We never care about even learning about the reality. We just say: we are good, everyone who is not with us is bad and will be killed. Not a single time we think about, what our victory means, where this gonna lead. But THAT would be good story telling. To just make up: us good, they bad, we kill, that's not story telling.

I assume because it's going to be addressed at length in EW. 5.5 cutscenes: Krile says after what transpired on the first she and Y'shtola began questioning the true nature of Hydaelyn's blessing and how she's not made her will known to anyone. She's planning to look into it in the archives of Sharlayan.

I mean, they must come up with something, sure. The thing is, when you look at SB, the story telling there was so bad (well, that was one of the reasons), because they took two countries and spread the time they got between both, leaving both - and especially Ala Migho, with too little. In EW it's even worse. Pretty much every map will be a different nation plus the moon plus some extra, still secret zone, they got all the piled up burden of everything since ARR and then they want to finish all this in 6.0? Sorry, in that case EW would have to be several times as big as all other expansions and this won't happen. SB was already cut down a lot, ShB even more, there is zero plan to change this with EW and the reason Square targets new players so much with their marketing is, that many old players left - like me (and I was one of those who stayed the longest and tried to hold many of the leaving ones, what is of course very futile, when the developers just give people less and less reasons to stay).

That all this starts with bored sitting man 'I just want a cool endboss fight' Zenos and 'lololol me so crazy' Asahi 2.0 (that guy makes no sense anyway, why should Emet Selch/Elidibus create something like that?) does not help. They wrote themselves in a corner and they will just solve it by making it fall apart somehow with more massive retcons and plot holes, but at least it's over somehow...

I agree with you and hopefully that is all addressed in EW. I have theories about that, but they're not backed up by anything in the game yet.

Oh, sure, I wish this would happen, too. I wished this for years meanwhile, when SB became so odd and ShB even odder, that something happens to clean up the mess. I meanwhile just lost the hope for that. I was fine with ARR, because it still got so many possibilities. HW was a good direction. Sure, the antagonist wasn't really anything special, just 'RAGE! REVENGE!', but I liked, that it was about creating peace, ending a war. SB was the opposite of this, even the start in HW was already terrible. It's hard for to me to play 'bad/evil' in any game, it simply goes against my nature or whatever, even in fiction I just don't like it. And FF14 - it forces my character to be bad, dumb, brutal and the worst part: ignorant - and that they sell this as heroic, good behaviour just makes it worse. When I play FF14 in SB, I feel like one of those Vietnam veterans in documentations. Those also just believed the story of we are the good guys and kill the bad guys, when all this started, going down this route right and through the 'killing zones'. When those veterans talk about this first, at start it feels like they really just enjoyed it. Then, at the end, you see that they learned, how big that lie was they fell for, and how it broke them inside.

When the Scions and Eorzan leaders come up with: we must invade Ala Migho (and make it look like it's no invasion, yeah, because telling me that makes you don't look like the usual fascist...), I don't want to follow them at all. I want to tell them, that they are crazy at best, and likely evil maniacs and that I will never go along with this.

When Thancred comes up with: 'Let's sow chaos in Garlemald', I want to pin that guy against a wall and tell him, that he should never dare to say anything like that with me around anymore and when I find out that he goes along with that plan, that will cause the death of endless innocent people, I will hunt HIM down and end HIS life for certain.

When Scions come up with going to Doma, to cause havoc there to distract the Garleans and make it easier for them to get over a fucking bridge!, I feel more kicking them down from this bridge than following alone with that hardcore evil CIA shit, again playing with the lives of endless innocent people.

When Scions come up with exploiting the rites of foreign tribes to drag them into a war they don't even understand, I want to leave these guys behind at once.

When later Yshtola makes some funny remarks about that one tribal guy and his advances, I want to slap that b*tch, because we are again just abusing these people and she could at least show some basic respect!

When Hien talks about flooding the civil sector of a castle, destroying the most vital part of it, I think more about to put this guy in chains and just deliver him to the Garleans, ending this whole farce of an anway corrupt monarchy for good. When he talks about selling out to criminals to get some BOATS, I can only wonder who the fuck we just brought back to power here.

When I tell Hien, that one of his officers is scared of Yotsuyu, because he HAD raped her in her childhood and all this prince/king replies to me is, that this guy is a good man, I'm more willing to punch his teeth in than to follow him any further.

And so on, and so on, and so on...

Eh, they do, they just don't care. You're preaching to the choir here, I am #teamrejoin. That's the problem with all of humanity, they always think their lives are important and paramount. It's especially ridiculous in the universe of FFXIV where reincarnation is confirmed and, even without that, there always seem to be a dozen different ways to cheat death.

The way should be to find better solutions. That would have been an interesting story. This would have for example led to working together with Garleans, since they are the ones who care about this just as finding ways to solve the primal problem (and no, killing primals obviously does not solve anything at all). The meeting with Varis for example was well done - and then just thrown away. Why? For that dungeon that does not even make any sense? I mean, what exactly did we even do there? We run in, kill some border guards, run back.

As things are, the source with 8/14 is of course quite stable. Stable enough, probably. But the shards with 1/14? People don't get, that the Ascians are not the ones ruining them, they are the ones leading this downfall in a way that does not lead to pointless destruction and instead rejoining. It was the Ascians who saved the first. Without them Ardbert and friends wouldn't have been able to go to the source. And by all means, it's way more likely than not, that they brought in Urianger by purpose. I mean, really, why else should they care to bring in him of all people? Either Ardbert succeeds in rejoining (likely by letting the beast tribes summon a primal of light), then the first is saved through this. Or Ardbert and WoL manage to make Hydaelyn stop the flood at least. The Ascians never wanted the first to become a 'void' of light, though they might have planed to save the 13th with all that light in the first.

Such things are interesting stories. Not just 'RAAAAH!' 'REEEEEE!' 'Oh no, me dead!'.

When you got this cutscene with Varis (a genious himself) telling how he thought he followed his own ideas, just to see that Emet Selch again just played him, that created the idea of a mastermind. But then... nothing. His 'death' should have been just that. A play. It would make so much sense. We kill him inside an illusion anyway. When we stand there after his defeat, we still are inside this illusion. And I could even accept the way Elidibus died in this case and the support from Emet Selch and part of freeing this 'fake' Elidibus from the shackles or whatever - or use Elidibus' Ghost in CT for further things. But if Hades really just died there for nothing, there is no way to save this anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

And so we come back to, "It's bad because it's not what I would have done," which makes the entire conversation worthless.

Especially in context with comments like this:



LOL WHAT.

Also this whole conversation about Hydaelyn keeps being framed, by dishonest actors, as if the story doesn't have a problem with her. As if she isn't responsible for the state of the universe too. And to that I just have to say have you just not been paying attention? Because it absolutely does. Literally the finale cutscene of the final zone in Shadowbringers has MULTIPLE characters telling the villain they fully understand why they feel and act the way that they do.

Miriamel, your entire post reads like someone larping as a Garlean when people are talking about the story from an outside-the-game perspective.

However the single sentence that made me realize you were just full of it was this one:



ESPECIALLY as you're negatively comparing FF14 to WoW in this regard. This sentence is fuuuuucking absurd on its face with regards to WoW vs FF14.



Been caught up to MSQ for over a month and there's plenty of stuff that I'm still doing. But thanks for dismissing it all as "ERP" I guess? The further along your post goes the more you reveal that you're just a fraudulent actor in this conversation. Frankly I'm surprised you didn't bust out the, 'HURR ITS TOO ANIME!' worthless comment in your giant wall of nonsense text.

I won't answer to this obvious trolling.

[Lane]

The needed plot armor of the player character in an online game is a problem for story telling. It's the reason why you shouldn't force the focus on this character, it deletes 90% of possibilities.

I may not prefer roleplaying the hero as opposed to an anti-hero or mercenary, but having spent years playing MMOs where my character may as well not exist I can confidently say I prefer FFXIV's method. I'm also not a fan of storytelling where characters have to die left and right to prove they don't have plot armor. This more often than not leads to shock value deaths that serve no purpose to develop the remaining characters or move the plot forward.

What makes the antagonist the actual main characters, because they are the one who struggle. The are the ones who got the internal and external fights. They are the ones who stand against that invincible might makes right super power that can't be stopped.

The problem is the Ascians got no love until ShB. They were your typical black-robed, followers of a "dark god" villains who presented as a supernatural cult. There wasn't any reason to like let alone sympathize with them. Their 'plan' seemed to be little more than to sow chaos, we were given no other context. Going back and applying ShB writing to the rest of the game doesn't work because they didn't know that was the direction they were going until the end of SB (Emet didn't even exist until then).

To take someone and eleminate everything what they are, all their memories, their being, to redruce their lifespan to <1%, to take away all their skills and talents, their families, friends and to keep them respawning in this artifically created pseudo life for all eternity - or until that prison fails, killing everyone inside - that's just even more fucked up than killing someone.

I'm no fan of Hydaelyn and I will be sorely disappointed if what she did is not addressed in EW. The fact that they used the name Venat for the leader of the dissidents was not lost on me. I hated the story of FFXII because of her. She made it sound like she was doing humanity a favor by giving them free will while ignoring her own hypocrisy (following the Occuria is bad, unless it's Venat then it's fine) and instigating devastating wars.

And no, the story in ShB made it clear, that the Ascians didn't know, that calamities can break down the wall between the artificial dimensions. They did not go for a calamity at all. Another little part of the story is told by the small guy (we for some reason trust), the child WoL from the 13th (so they likely didn't even know where they would go with it in ShB). He tells you, that the WoLs from the 13th simlpy became so powerhungry that they wanted to consume more and more aether, becoming monsters and in the end devoured so much aether that life collapsed.

The whole reason for calamities on the Source is because of the failure on the 13th. They're required to break down the barrier to allow a rejoining. Emet explained this in the CT. Unukalhai said the heroes of the 13th wouldn't work together and each one acting alone wasn't enough to save the shard, the cause of it was still the Ascians tilting the shard toward umbral.

Sorry, how were they dead? When? In contrary, with killing 'obvious mutant fatty', these guys would have likely just ran amok.

It's said during the storyline that only a few scattered remain that can easily be handled by the dozens of WoLs that Elidibus triggered in the Crystarium.

Even more, the Ascians are sure, that even the shards will die. Everything will just die, when they fail, not only the real planet and the real people, also the shards and all life on it. That's what the Ascians believe in.

I can't recall a single instance where this was ever expressed and since I've long held the theory that the current situation is unsustainable in perpetuity I would've latched onto anything canon that would support it. The Ascians want to bring back their civilization before everything went wrong, that's the gist of it.

Sorry, in that case EW would have to be several times as big as all other expansions and this won't happen.

Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree. It depends on how literally we take what they said about EW being the end of the Zodiark & Hydaelyn arc. I feel like ShB was too big of a lore dump to be done with everything by 6.1 and ready to move onto a new story. Are all the shards going to rejoin in EW? No? Are all the sundered Ascians going to cease to exist in EW (considering the WoL is one)? No? Okay, the there's still a LOT left to address.

It was the Ascians who saved the first. Without them Ardbert and friends wouldn't have been able to go to the source. And by all means, it's way more likely than not, that they brought in Urianger by purpose. I mean, really, why else should they care to bring in him of all people? Either Ardbert succeeds in rejoining (likely by letting the beast tribes summon a primal of light), then the first is saved through this. Or Ardbert and WoL manage to make Hydaelyn stop the flood at least. The Ascians never wanted the first to become a 'void' of light, though they might have planed to save the 13th with all that light in the first.

Mitron, Ascian, caused the Flood of Light. Emet had orchestrated a light-based calamity on the Source using Black Rose, which works by tilting people's aether towards light. The reason the 8th Umbral Calamity was going to be so devastating is the influx of light aether from the First was going to increase the potency of Black Rose exponentially. I would've thought the First could've been used to counterbalance the 13th, but that's not the story we got.

Elidibus has a LONG history of manipulating people into thinking joining him is the right thing to do, Urianger was no different. Ardbert & Co. were tricked into thinking the First could be saved because he never told them a rejoining would've caused their world to cease to exist. It's like saying Ardbert was 'saved' by merging with the WoL. Technically, maybe true, but we also now have a weird "Get Out" sort of thing going on where we're supposed to be one person, but he still exists in there somewhere.

I don't have anything to say about Garlemald or the Garleans. I haven't personally found much likeable about them. They're just sort of there as a continuous military threat with little of interest that isn't related to the Ascians. The Allagans are a lot more fascinating.

[Velnora]

Story is fine. Nothing to write home about. Pacing is often bogged down by archaic mmo fetch quests and what not. Lack of endgame progression and any meaningful gear acquisition really turns me off.

[Miriamel105]

I may not prefer roleplaying the hero as opposed to an anti-hero or mercenary, but having spent years playing MMOs where my character may as well not exist I can confidently say I prefer FFXIV's method. I'm also not a fan of storytelling where characters have to die left and right to prove they don't have plot armor. This more often than not leads to shock value deaths that serve no purpose to develop the remaining characters or move the plot forward.

You can have a focus on the player character, but then you simply can't make this focus all about death. Because it will make it stupid. It will make the antagonists stupid, incompetent loser who never succeed in anything. And for a good story it's simply not enough to have a protagonist. The antagonist must also be well written. But when the protagonists always wins and the antagonists always lose, especially in a darker scenario that tries to be serious, can't simply not lead to good writing. It lead to the typical problem of bad writers, where you see, that things just happen, because there is this author who wants it to happen. Good writing is about avoiding this, it's about making the characters and their decisions feel real and alive, that's the core of 'suspension of disbelief'.

The problem is the Ascians got no love until ShB. They were your typical black-robed, followers of a "dark god" villains who presented as a supernatural cult. There wasn't any reason to like let alone sympathize with them. Their 'plan' seemed to be little more than to sow chaos, we were given no other context. Going back and applying ShB writing to the rest of the game doesn't work because they didn't know that was the direction they were going until the end of SB (Emet didn't even exist until then).

Yes, the start wasn't good. It mainly worked better, because it was still the start and the plot holes weren't plot holes yet, just undiscovered land. Now, after discovering it, those are indeed just plot holes which make no sense. This aside, you still at least go the focus of the Ascians on Hydaelyn from the start. They simply presented this focus in a terrible 'MUAHAHAHA, ME EVIL' way. Just as the way they let Gaius speech distorted what he actually stand for quite a lot. Gaius speech isn't a bad one. You need power. Only evil people will tell you otherwise, so you let it slip and them have it. Power is nothing you can get rid of. It's always there. And if you don't work with it, if you don't take care of it, it will be used against you. His speech is about that. The incompetent leader will lead for desperation means to gain power, not with order and reason, but with violence and alike. He kind of fell for it himself, being powerless in regard of defeating primals even more being unable to wield magic, that's why they went for searching and researching technology. Of course not even Allag knew about Ultima's heart, so how should he? Well, many of his people paid with their lives for this mistake. - But such things happen. It's one of the things that make Gaius a much, much more interesting character than WoL or any Scion.



[quote]I'm no fan of Hydaelyn and I will be sorely disappointed if what she did is not addressed in EW. The fact that they used the name Venat for the leader of the dissidents was not lost on me. I hated the story of FFXII because of her. She made it sound like she was doing humanity a favor by giving them free will while ignoring her own hypocrisy (following the Occuria is bad, unless it's Venat then it's fine) and instigating devastating wars. [/spoiler][quote]
Indeed, FF12 Venat was no good being. I get the attention, but the ways were bad and brutal. At least the FF12 Venat got an understandable goal, though. What happens in FF14 is absolutely awful in comparison. It's like the typical AI story you got, where the AI sees: humans destroy themselves and the planet so better destroy humans. What would be okay, but then the story tells you: this is the right way to act and you should murder many many people to defend this! That's pretts sick.

The whole reason for calamities on the Source is because of the failure on the 13th. They're required to break down the barrier to allow a rejoining. Emet explained this in the CT. Unukalhai said the heroes of the 13th wouldn't work together and each one acting alone wasn't enough to save the shard, the cause of it was still the Ascians tilting the shard toward umbral.

I know the whole story in and out. Emet Selch explained, that they learned from the collapsing 13th shard, that this crushes the barriers between the collapsing shard and the source, so they got the idea how to heal the planet by collapsing the shards and reuniting it with the core again.

And no, Unukalhai explained, that they became monsters, distorted by greed and hunger for more power and that other WoL (it seems they got a bunch of them the same time in contraty to the source which got only one?) were not strong enough to fight that, likely meaning especially himself being just a kid. That kid is a manipulative bastard, though, I'm not sure how much you should trust him. Garlemald was just there to look for means to bind primals (simply finding out, that those are all failures). It's that kid which tries to enforce violence over and over again.

And no, I don't even count the scene after which Shiva dies. If they wanted to murder us, they could have done this. Easily. They got high tech weapons and surprise attack. They could have one shot us without any problem. Them shooting at us was just to shoo us away. Shiva's death was absolutelty pointless and it would have been enough anyway to just distract them. That they have to kill her, if she tries to kill them: yeah, of course. When is the moment in which the the Legatus give the obvious order to kill her? After her try to destroy them. He knew, who Shiva is, he very likely didn't want to kill her before her murderous attack.

It's always interesting to see how much Garlemald knows about everything that happens in Eorza. They could have easily abused this. And never did. Again something that makes the antagonists sadly far more interesting than the bland protagonists.

It's said during the storyline that only a few scattered remain that can easily be handled by the dozens of WoLs that Elidibus triggered in the Crystarium.

You mean in 5.3? Fine, whoever said this and how that person should know this is true (and how this should have happened in any way), the problem is: that would be quite later. With the plan going the way catboy wanted, CT and everyone from the source would have been thrown back right after the defeat of the fat mutant. With Emet Selch still alive, Eden around and Elidibus able to do as he pleases.

I can't recall a single instance where this was ever expressed and since I've long held the theory that the current situation is unsustainable in perpetuity I would've latched onto anything canon that would support it. The Ascians want to bring back their civilization before everything went wrong, that's the gist of it.

It's mentioned several time, the first very obvious one right from Lahabrea, about Hydaelyn being a parasite distorting reality. Beside this, everything supports this. How easy the 13th fell, how easy the first fell, the pure logic, that cutting a planet into pieces by something created by a bunch of people in their hobby cellar and so on. The game actually never gives any reason to think this can work out. Hydarlyn lies to you about being some super goddess of light and life, so as long as this was a theory, you could argue about, that some super potent god thing may be able to do something this insane. The moment Hydaelyn became nothing but a tool to cut Zodiark (= the planet) into slices, there is not really much hope left. Sure, in the end it's fiction, in fiction everything will just happen as the writer want it. But only if there is a reason it's good story telling. As writer you can of course just write that little Joey farted and suddenly the universe was completely changed and Joey was the uber god of everything. That's easy.

That the Scions and WoL never care about even asking this question: yes, that's exactly the problem.

Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree. It depends on how literally we take what they said about EW being the end of the Zodiark & Hydaelyn arc. I feel like ShB was too big of a lore dump to be done with everything by 6.1 and ready to move onto a new story. Are all the shards going to rejoin in EW? No? Are all the sundered Ascians going to cease to exist in EW (considering the WoL is one)? No? Okay, the there's still a LOT left to address.

They wasted too much time on nonsense. How often did we have a patch about doing stuff like: oh, the major of this lust palace got a little crisis, let's spend the MSQ of the whole patch about this, then delivering interesting stuff like what's going in Garlemald in a cutscene in the end, because that's of course not something you would want to play throught - and what woud probably help to build up the story for EW...

The problem likely is, as the developers said themselves, that they like to just don't tell much, so they can continue to make up stuff as they please without havint to retcon too much. But, sorry, that's not a plan. It's okay to some regard but somewhere toward the middle you really, really must start to plan your story toward the end at least the bigger parts and then work with and toward those. No need to tell everything, but EW will be 6.0 and there is still almost nothing known about Garlemald, Ascians/Ancients, Hydaelyn, Zodiark and not even the home nation of the Scions. And we already know, that a big part of the patch will be the usual circlejerk around the Scions anyway, so that's already a lot of occupied space. You got Zenos, who actually would have to be build up after two full expansions. You got that new Ascian who appeared out of nowhere who also has to be build up. You have to give every nation you visit some background at least, again already occupied space. It's simply way, way, way, way too much.

Mitron, Ascian, caused the Flood of Light. Emet had orchestrated a light-based calamity on the Source using Black Rose, which works by tilting people's aether towards light. The reason the 8th Umbral Calamity was going to be so devastating is the influx of light aether from the First was going to increase the potency of Black Rose exponentially. I would've thought the First could've been used to counterbalance the 13th, but that's not the story we got.

Elidibus has a LONG history of manipulating people into thinking joining him is the right thing to do, Urianger was no different. Ardbert & Co. were tricked into thinking the First could be saved because he never told them a rejoining would've caused their world to cease to exist. It's like saying Ardbert was 'saved' by merging with the WoL. Technically, maybe true, but we also now have a weird "Get Out" sort of thing going on where we're supposed to be one person, but he still exists in there somewhere.

I don't have anything to say about Garlemald or the Garleans. I haven't personally found much likeable about them. They're just sort of there as a continuous military threat with little of interest that isn't related to the Ascians. The Allagans are a lot more fascinating.

Again, I know the story. Mitron did not do this on purpose, but was distorted. Black Rose was just a trigger - they could have used anything else that is light aspected. What we were told was just a one sided story anyway and how bad can it be, when you are able to create the impossible? It's again full of plot holes anyway. Why should the Ascians even let them do this? These guys are still around in that future and got a lot of time to react. I hate that guy anyway for doing it, next time just send a warning, pretty sure even Garlemald itself would have liked to know this. The people of the source of this future were against it for obvious reaons but he gave a fuck. That the source would be ruined by Ascians makes no sense. The source is the planet the Ascians want to restore, not ruin. That it was a bad future was likely more cause by all the violence that is already the biggest problem, now.

It IS the story we got. The plan of the Ascians was to use the light to bring the void to the source, what makes absolutely sense. They need the 13th. Else the source would never be really complete. Ardbert just ruined this plan.

Elidibus got absolutely no reason at all to trust Urianger in any way if he did not simply just work with that possibility. Makes no sense at all, otherwise. Urianger delivers nothing of worth toward the group, only this possibility.

No, Ardbert knew completely, that they worked on a rejoining. It was all about saving the souls of the first, not the first itself he saw as lost. Of course the first would cease to exist, but the souls and all aether woud be rejoined with the source and could be reborn.

Ardbert was already dead, they said this themselves, that they had given their lives to go to the source. He then was simply made a ghost/plot device for exactly this reason, to join up with the WoL - what is actually pretty lazy writing with no way really leading up to this. Don't know what other reason there could be for this absurdity beside Hydaelyn just knowing that this would happen somehow for plot reasons.

at Garlemald:

It's the problem of the writing. They are actually the most reasoneable people, with some assholes around, sure, as all sides, but those are partly just very bad writing, like the Weapon story guy (his plan makes zero sense, it's just stupid from start to end) and/or not seen as good people there, too. I don't know what the problem would be, if Garlemald just succeeds. The worst part of service there seems to be being targeted by terrorists. Beside this they bring order, education, safity, technology (and even non Garleans are rarely good with magic) and care about getting rid of the primal threat and saving the planet. What do we fight for against this? From criminals (pirates), criminals (corrupt oligarchs), monarchists, nationalists, theocrats with most of them would have destroyed their nation without the magical super weapon WoL who kills all their problems. And we follow everything Ascians want all the time on top of this. Whole SB for example, from start to end 100% an Ascian plan. Who moves along with it? Us. Who doesn't? Garlemald.

What I hear most from people who hate Garlemald is just pure nationalism - as if that ever led to anything good. Both Doma and Ala Migho could have thriven perfectly without their terrorist groups, especially Ala Migho could need Garlean technology a lot plus being part of a big nation and its merchant network. But of course as long as terrorists randomly murder people from the shadows - in case of Ala Migho even their own people, even if they are just kids, wtf?! - no merchant likes to to there. But sure, now they are a colony of the super corrupt Uldah, this will help for sure, working in salt mines, while Doma is not even able to build a small village on their own - after their prince completely ruined the only city they got to get his throne back...

[Miriamel105]

Story is fine. Nothing to write home about. Pacing is often bogged down by archaic mmo fetch quests and what not. Lack of endgame progression and any meaningful gear acquisition really turns me off.

Sad as it is, it got some more cvariets at least in costumisation of your character. Gear was always a lackluster. Over time they just got rid of absolutely everything. It's their way to 'fix' things, they just cut them off - and don't replace them with anything. Did not really help with feeling entertained when you are an 'old players'.

Most people who cheer now how much there is to do simplay haven't played the game in all these years. Take gold saucer for example. Nice idea, but they did not really make anything out of it. You got something very little every years and close to no rewards - since they like it way more to sell stuff in their cash shop.

Wouldn't be reason enough for me to stop playing the game, but it's also no plus.

For a game that got its most prominent selling point in switchig classes, it's also not understandable how they don't work at all around that with gear. It does not really help to have all jobs, when the weeky lockouts will keep you down in gearing all of them up.

[Cthulhu 2020]

One thing I'd like to know is, what do people consider "meaningful" gear progression? Considering every MMO I've played in the last decade, you raid to get gear that will help you raid better and do nothing else, FFXIV is pretty standard in that regard. I don't think I've played a game where gear was anything more than a way to kill raids faster. And look better sometimes.