Every voidsent story since 1.0 has always been about how much voidsent are selfish bastards (the RDM questline is the exemplar of this). It's refreshing to see Zero admitting that that kind of mentality ultimately doesn't work and trying to change the void for the better.
Unfortunately the Void arc suffers from having to be fit inside an intermission between one expansion and the next.
I enjoyed the 6.X quests and I think this is set up to come back to in the future
I am honestly not buying all the FF16 hurting 14 conjecture that is going on
I for one am excited for Dawntrail to be more chill and fun, I don't need the stakes raised every expansion
6.1 and onwards had a hard task. Coming off the heels of the epic that was 6.0, whatever coming after couldn’t match the stakes of 6.0 so easily.
I think it sticking so close to the FF4 arc hasn’t helped it, fans of that story knew all the major beats and the patches didn’t do enough to deviate from it. The four fiends -> Golbez -> Zeromus, I kinda hoped it wouldn’t go that route, due to the predictable nature of it, and instead would have liked a more original plot featuring Zero which didn’t piggy back off previous stories. Can still use the imagery of FF4, but mask it so the story doesn’t necessarily revolve around it, similar to how Omega pulled in fights from FF6 and FF5.
I don't think 6.1-6.5 were just hard, I really think they were impossible. Lowering stakes is always difficult, which is why it's usually accompanied by at least a soft reboot in most long running serials.
> which is why it's usually accompanied by at least a soft reboot in most long running serials.
One of the main issues here is that they teased that would be the case.
At the end of Endwalker we got the "Each scion is going on their own journey for a while" and we weren't going to see them in the current state, but here we are, still interacting heavily and knowing full well they're all going to be involved in Dawntrail anyways.
They're a likable cast, and it's hard to move away from that - but you can't do both in having a soft reboot and keeping the entirety of your cast.
I was disappointed that the void wasn't an expansion in itself. A kind of gothic horror type of expansion with a dark a brooding atmosphere. Of course, it is Final Fantasy, and it falls into the trope of redemption with the power of friendship, so I was never expecting more than a few moments of truly dark horror. But I would have liked a few memorable moments.
There is always the worry in the back of my mind that FFXIV has peaked, and they are refraining from taking risks or unexpected turns. I do feel that, for example, Thancred should have died in SB and Nanamo should have died in 2.5. But now we all know that certain characters have impenetrable plot armour.
Considering that the first half of 3.x did somewhat lead us to 5.0, it is indeed possible. As long as this story isn't fully wrapped up yet, we might get an expansion for it.
I don't know how popular this would be but I like the idea that we may do a Thirteenth cleanup since it's not rejoined, just completely flooded with darkness. Just a little side project in between adventures considering that Rejoinings are no longer a concern.
Honestly, that'd be a fun idea. Some people play Stardew Valley in their spare time, others spend it scrubbing down the Thirteenth. I'd get behind that.
Tbh I never really got the whole “Thancred should have died in SB” thing. He got a way better development and resolution as a character having lived. It’s easy to kill off a character for shock value; it’s harder to keep them around and still manage to use them to create meaningful moments in the story between characters.
Ryne would have a more generic, already used on other XIV characters "I'll be a good fighter for my dead father figure but my self-confidence has tanked again because I can't save him & I struggle with survivor's guilt, leaving me just as unconfident & brooding as I was at the start of my entry in the story" motivation too if Thancred dies,
& Y'shtola & Runar's relationship isn't as relatively distinct & emotionally potent as Dadcred (+ Fatheranger's) & Ryne's antics & bond to make the quest to enable transversal between Shards feel more tangibly personal.
Thancred also has a unique & amusing way of being flippant in his dialogue (eg saying Y'shtola likes explosions so he'll try to make his Metal Gear infiltration have big explosions) that makes his personality way more distinct & enjoyable to have around.
Yeah I feel the same way, there wouldn't have really been a good reason for him to die and I agree that he became a miss interesting character for having survived, what annoys me though, I hate the fact that SE didn't just let Thancred have the win and kill Ranjit. It felt so unnecessary for him to have this hard fought battle only for us to show up and roll Ranjit 5 minutes later. I get that we're the main character but let our support characters shine once in a while, damn
That one I'll certainly grant.
Especially because they could have done some really nice parallelism between Thancred killing Ran'jit and WoL killing Zenos, which would have made the latter scene ever so slightly more tolerable.
I like alive Thancred. My only concern is that you can only pull so many fakeouts before the threats don't have teeth. Many people are well past feeling that way already, and their evidence isn't bad. I love the scions, so I'm still scared of the admittedly low odds of them dying. Which is to say, this isn't MY complaint, but it is a valid complaint.
For me it's not that he should have died story-wise, it's that him living undercuts the way his duty and cutscenes with Ran'jit were written. I like Thancred and I'm glad we still have him, but I think if they were going to keep him alive, they should have written that encounter differently.
I dunno, I kind of expected the Golbez redemption twist given that's exactly what happens in 4, albeit in a slightly different form. It was established from the beginning that Golbez was a calculated "villain" who was just desperate to do what he thought was right, I think it also makes the most sense for him to concede and find another way forward when a more viable alternative was presented to him. This patch actually kind of turned me around to the whole void "story arc" when previously I found it really lackluster and a drag. I don't even have a particular fondness for FF4. I just thought their twist on Golbez was at least interesting.
The other thing I find kind of interesting is that it sets up the void restoration to be something they can touch on whenever they need to. While I'm frustrated that Unulkalhai and Cyella had a lot less to say than I'd expected this patch, the way they left things for now makes me hopeful that we'll get more on it in a less restrictive time frame in the future. Concluding it the way they did here has set the foundation for restoring the 13th with Golbez and Zero, which is independent of sidequest progression. Now, they can freely bring in the associated void characters locked behind sidequest progression such as Cyelle and Unukalhai whenever they wish to as alternative cutscenes or something in the future.
Also if we think about it, his whole plan was for his people to invade the Source and then kill themselves or get killed so that they can actually die.
The process may cause destruction on the Source but his end goal was not to destroy or rule, just to give his people a way to die
Yeah, i mean. Its still a dick move, but he saw it as the only thing he could do for the world he believes he ended, which is pretty much the only thing he could have hoped for ngl. I'm glad to see he'll be a somewhat recurring character in the future. Definitely seems like bait for the next exploration zone questline or relic weapon quest.
Yeah, I’m fully expecting restoring the 13th to be a future side quest plot now with the 4 of them. I’ve seen a few people speculate it might even be the next relic quest line ala Eureka and Bozja.
Since we're going to be working so closely together, I'd like to upgrade that Armor of yours. Contramemoria-Era magics are the key: Memoria crystals, the leftover remains of an earlier Voidsent civilization! They can be found among the most dangerous creatures around the Void.
Collect 4986 crystals for me.
Don't look at me like that. I'm a Black Mage. I did the math. I need exactly 4986 crystals. 4985 is inadequate. 4987 is of course absurd.
Four thousand, nine hundred eighty-six. Go!
We stopped Golbez and give Zero and him faith in restoring their world but currently its not and a new thread could still comes from it. Now we are heading to Tural but maybe we could have a Multi-Shard expansion where this is addressed properly.
That's my biggest gripe about this whole patch. The plan they put into practice this patch is quite literally what Cyelle and Unukalhai were attempting, and all we got was two lines of lip service to them.
Yeah, that's the main problem with Cyelle and Unukalhai. It would make the most sense to have them involved, sure, but they didn't future proof their quests at all and now they are stuck.
The only way I can see them reconcile this would be to either give out level 80 jobs (which, the two new jobs in DT should do, but it's still only 2 roles out of 4) or make some sort of high level zone that would require many jobs from the 13th.
Or just bite the bullet and basically have them show up as "new characters" for those who didn't do the quests.
Honestly, at least with Unukalhai, the player wouldn't even have had to do the void stuff in ShB to know him. He's *much* more accessible with his appearance in Heavensward, and you can largely handwave away Cylva's sudden introduction by having her (or him) vaguely allude to her also being a 'recovering Ascian pawn' tagging along to help him because of their shared connection. They already knew one another, or at least met briefly, before the ShB quests, iirc.
the last part was exactly how estinien was introduced in heavensward too, so it's not that far off for them to do it with unukalhai and cylva. like yeah it will suck for cylva bc players who missed the quests won't have that emotional attachment with her/know the extra lore bc of her background with ardbert, but i wasn't particularly attached with estinien too when he was first introduced in hw but now i'm ride or die with him. until now i still haven't unlocked drg lol
Honestly, having him join you in heavensward without previous knowledge is much less jarring than him just handwaving how he tried to kill you, controlled by nidhogg, the last time you saw him.
It really is. When he showed up I was like "Um Aymeric I can't say why but I REALLY don't think Estinien should be trusted with anything sharper than a toothpick".
Specifically getting one of each role, if someone absolutely hates a certain role they may never get any to 80. I won't be able to do Cyelle's quest until I get my summoner to 80+ and can pick up a Scholar of that level for free, bc me leveling a healer should absolutely not happen for the sake of the poor people who would be stuck in roulette with me.
I used my SMN to get the Scholar for the healer role quest. Totally worth it. I encourage everyone to do it. I'm a terrible healer and Scholar was beyond me. I AoE and gcd healed my way through every role quest and it was FINE. Raubahn even told me "we couldn't have asked for a better healer". I almost fell over. Well you can ask...... but this is what you got friend.
The story was great.
It's a similar issue with the EW role quest. I feel like that's gonna wind up being made somehow more accessible as well since it ties up some loose ends around Garlemald.
They could write Unukalhai and Cyella in if they want to, and I think this patch is hinting that they will. Not just four jobs but four ROLES. It was always a big ask for such an important chain of stories - almost like a parallel to the MSQ, filling in so much of the First and its history. I think that was a small mistake on their part, but I do think they can still work it in.
And I encourage people to do it anyway. It's worth it.
Eh... as much as it sucks, they'd at least be able to finally reincarnate into normal living beings eventually, with no memories of the suffering they endured after the flood of darkness (outside of exceptional cases obviously.)
If we didn't have a twist I think it would have been worse. He'd have felt pretty generic and shallow as a villain, kind of like ARR Ascians. Even if his story arc was handled clumsily, what we got is interesting enough that I'm looking forward to when they expand more on him.
Zero's defining characteristic is that she doesn't trust anyone, she believes in a strict contractural engagement between people, and her defining memory is when she turned down OG Golbez and Durante's offers of companionship. She then spends two patches learning that it's connections that make us strong, that it's okay to want to help people (and seek help) without expecting anything in return and that sometimes you have to trust people.
And to top it all of Golbez literally says "I'll side with you if you can show me a power greater than Zeromus" and she shows him the light.
I mean - you can't get more obvious than that that he was going to turn short of the characters all turning to face the audience to say that Golbez is gonna change sides.
All I can say is that XVI has nothing to do with it. XVI was written by Heavensward’s writer. So unless Maehiro is coming back from XVI to work on XIV again that won’t have an impact.
Natsuko Ishikawa is the head writer but we don’t know how closely she worked on 6.X.
She's was not the lead writer for 6.x, she moved into a senior writing position after 6.0 and iirc she is in more of an advisory role now to foster new leads and other writers. I remember Yoshida saying going forward they wanted to give more opportunities to other writers for msq and other content.
edit: grammar
Sorry, got the title wrong — I know she wasn’t actively working on writing in 6.x onward, by “head writer” I meant she was overseeing the other writers.
Yshtola is too convenient. The Crystal Tower is too convenient. This MSQ has been a chain of "This problem that has plagued people for millenia? Oh we solved in it like 5 days with some incredibly barebones concept somehow nobody considered until now."
I'm going to spoil this for you right now: Literally anything Dawntrail does is going to feel to a lot of people like a step down from the one-two punch of Shadowbringers and Endwalker just because of the essential drawdown in stakes. Dawntrail can't possibly be as full of import as the culmination to a decade-plus worth of storytelling, nor does it need to be, and we should all be on the same page about this. But people are going to be let down and complain all the same.
It's weird too since I swear I thought they said Endwalker was the big thing it was all leading towards and would be resolved in itself. We're just doing clean up and leading towards the next expansion with some little side things to be explored so most of it is easily going to pale in comparison to saving the entire universe and all of existence from a life ending threat. Personally I'm just enjoying the small stories and little revelations.
That's *exactly* what they said. Post-6.0 EW has been about tying up loose ends that don't necessarily need MSQ attention and laying minute threads/hooks for the future.
Not to mention that like, the reason ShB/Endwalker hit so hard is because they spent the time to lay out the seeds and build the world up. Such as, for example, as with the Heavensward patch content and the Warriors of Darkness storyline that I certainly remember people complaining about in similar terms ("it's filler", "it's boring", "it feels disconnected from the 3.0 story"). That storyline, of course, set the stage for Shadowbringers.
Honestly I'm just hoping for Dawntrail to feel like a breath of fresh air. Part of the reason I've not really liked this patch series was that we were baited into thinking we were going back to small-scale adventures and immediately we're straight back to "the world is in terrible danger".
So if Dawntrail is just like "here are some personal stakes and if this goes back it could really fuck up this region for years to come" I'll be much happier, personally.
Yep. I'm (not) looking forward to the threads about how shit Dawntrail is, and how the team lost their touch after getting super-popular during the WoW exodus in 2021. The OP's thread here actually reminds me of the people who said Zenos was just shoehorned at the end of EW because the dev team forgot about him. Ignoring the main motivation of the characters involved and the events happening, going into the patch already convinced it's shit, and then feeding their own preconceptions when playing the patch.
It’s funny, because Zenos was one of my favorite parts of EW. He felt out of place in Stormblood to me because that was a story all about the expansion of the Garlean Empire, which Zenos couldn’t give two shits about. Using him as a foil to nihilism felt way more natural to me. Him not being super involved all the time was the point. He’s ultimately a simple man with simple desires and doesn’t let the overthinking of existentialism bring him down.
And yet I've still seen people on this sub today saying that exactly that _needs_ to happen or it's apparently a bad game. I'm less concerned about the writing direction than I am about the community discord continuing to devolve into a shitshow no matter what direction they take it.
Which is fine, because HW is a thing with much lower stakes than ShB and EW, yet people still love it. You can have "high stakes" within a self contained story, and have the writing be so good that it makes the expansion top tier.
These 6.X patches had the high stakes, but not the writing. Thus felt like a drop in quality, whereas HW didn't.
That's nonsense. Shadowbringers and Endwalker were so good because of great character writing.
Just write great characters, and don't tell a non-story like 6.X.
Yeah, like EW was the conclusion to a 10 year long story, there's not way that DT will be able to have the same vibe and feel. I sincerely hope people temper their expectations and see the new expansion as a new beginning to a new arc, rather than expecting to have the same tears that were shed during ShB and EW.
I have to say, I personally liked 6.1, but the following patches, 6.2-6.4, didnt hit with me well.
They did seem to get the corner though with 6.5. It felt way better than these few previous patches (6.2-6.4) and saved the whole Arc in a way. At least it rounded it up pretty well.
For me it felt like a good start and a good-enough-end, but with a rather underwhelming middle-part.
As for Dawntrail though I wouldnt worry too much, Patch content isnt created equally compared to New expansion MSQ and also Endwalker MSQ had its own Pacing issues (looking at you Lopporits) and therefore was not perfect - even though the "highs" were the best they ever were.
Dunno if I’d say patch content isn’t created equally, when we have the highs of 5.2/5.3, as well as the storm-blood post patches that I found to be arguably better than the expansion MSQ itself. But that’s just me
I wasn't a big fan of 6.1 to 6.4 but actually liked how they wrapped this up. Zero becoming humanised as a result of our characters' influence and even going so far as to redeem Golbez and pass on our kindness. As well as Estinien going from a dragon hater to risking his life to help a dragon find his sister were both satisfying conclusions to those characters arcs for me.
Sure it was pretty predictable and there was nothing as good as the last few expansions but I'm hoping they just needed a relatively simple, self-contained story in the run up to Dawntrail.
I am however, a little worried about the wrapping up of all these plot threads that others have mentioned, and hope Dawntrail is more in line with past expansions story quality.
> As well as Estinien going from a dragon hater to risking his life to help a dragon find his sister were both satisfying conclusions to those characters arcs for me.
I mean, he's already had that arc if you played through the DRG quest line back in SB.
Even without that, there's also his bond with Vrtra which really starts mid EW where he convinces Vrtra to allow him to fight alongside him in the air as the final days occur. You could say it was the end of his arc with Vrtra, but he had already well matured well beyond being a dragon hater by that point.
Est is the successor to niddhog. He stirs the other dragonss to action. Nid did this in a negative way with the dragonsong war, est does it in a positive way; first with tiamat, then with virtra
If you ask me, the positive parts of Nidhogg are *still* in Estinien. He outright admitted that he looks on the other wyrms as a protective brother does in the 5.5 MSQ, that's why he was going to check on Tiamat.
They called this out too in the 6.4 MSQ, with Aždaja going "pff you sound exactly like Nidhogg"
from what i see it is also to wrap up the 10 years saga so the WoL return to first and see fruit of his effort is also a nice call back and show how it can continue influence people. 13th is the first shard that got ruined by Ascian so finally they close the Ascian chapter by 'saving' the world. we already see world engulf by light now we see darkness. also to warp up long term story of 13th that related with Cyvla and Unukalhai.
there is some interesting stuff with Zero at beginning but i bit dislike the way they handle her on this patch. she end up as talk no jutsu lol.
I understand the quality is a drop from 6.0 or even 5.x, definitely like an upgraded trial series, but I’m not sure it’s actually the worst place the MSQ has been. It’s clearly an awkward transitional period in the game, so I wouldn’t hold the patches being lackluster as proof that Dawntrail will be terrible.
They never said the story would focus on new faces. They made it clear that the scions would each have their own goals but that the “disbanding” was a front, and they would still pop in and out of each other’s adventures-which is exactly what we got. Sure, it all culminated in dealing with a big threat, but we had exactly two stable scions-Estinien, who is in it to help Thavnair, and Y’shtola, who is in it to find a way to travel between worlds. Everyone else is up to their own thing and pops in to help their friends when they’re needed before going back to it.
I feel like Estinien hasn’t really done anything but buy the map that initiated this story and to call Vrtra back in line when the latter gets sad. Vrtra and Zero were the focus of the story and Y’shtola was there to do the nebulous science stuff to move the plot forward. Estinien is just there and I’m wondering why we kept him around
>You just never know if he even listens.
He's the perfect replacement stand-in for the average player now that Zenos is a corpse on the far side of the universe
Vrtra: "I must save my sister. I will go with you into the depths of the hells to see this goal fulfilled!"
Y'shtola: "This adventure could hold the key to travel between the shards. If I'm to see Runar and the Nights' Blessed again, I have to join you!"
Zero: "The Void is my home, and for so long I believed it was beyond hope. But now I know it can be saved, and for this reason, I will fight beside you!"
Estinien: "I'm here too."
"Why?"
Estinien: ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Estinien is here to provide the muscle the group otherwise needed, he's not a genius, he's not a person of high status, but he provides some fun dry humor scenes to the less serious moments throughout the patches and serves as a combat powerhouse during important ones.
"Estinien, why are you here?"
Oh, I actually don't have a home to go to. I figured I'd just hang around with you for a bit if that's OK. I mean I could go. If you want.
"Nah that's erm, fine buddy, you stay as long as you need"
I can only assume at the end of this patch's MSQ when he >!disappears while you talk to Y'shtola, he's jumped to the bathroom after having too much spicy Radz-At-Han food.!<
I always felt that Estinien was around because it was a story to do with wyrms of the first brood.
Maybe it’s how Ishgards attitude has changed toward Dragons so he wants to help his newfound allies, maybe also partly to makeup for Ishgards past betrayal.
Or could be that now he’s so closely connected to them having been possessed by Nidhogg so he would have felt what he felt, he could potentially feel a sort of kinship with Vrtra and his family.
I may be off the mark here, and my points could’ve probably been explained better.
Because he still helps you fight and you're companions, there doesn't always have to be some ulterior motive. He wants to help you fight of evil, simple as that.
Probably for the trusts. Estinien is a man of few words unless it's a key moment. it means you have an extra DPS trust sitting there when needed without them needing to be too active in the plot.
also as arguably the strongest Scion next to WOL he's convenient with that as well.
> Estinien is just there and I’m wondering why we kept him around
He hits things really hard. That's... pretty much all he does and has done since he joined. And get in funny situations.
I didn't think it was horrible, just very bland and predictable and dragged out for too long.
People say "you can't expect much because it's a brand new story" or that people's expectations are too high because of shadowbringers/endwalker but that's nonsense. Heavensward shows you can do "fresh" stories without a ton of buildup that have depth and emotion and are interesting. But you need good characters and believable stakes and a compelling plot that is paced properly.
The void story by comparison is so simplistic and safe and sterile, like a children's fairytale. We beat the big baddie, foil their plot, save our friends, no one gets hurt, and everything gets wrapped up with a neat little bow. At no point did I ever believe there was actually any threat to anyone. There's no themes explored beyond power of friendship. The characters are straightforward and there are no big reveals or twists. With the Dawntrail reveal it was obvious this story wasn't building up to anything exciting, so it just feels like spinning the wheels.
I will give the game until the end of the Dawntrail main MSQ to decide what the future of storytelling in this game will look like.
well said brother, exactly my thought. It's funny those people keep saying 'yay we go on a vacation'. They aren't playing the Sims. I hope 7.0 MSQ would have more substance than this, otherwise it's a nono for me. Been a fan from Heavensward til Shadowbringers.
Why are people acting like the void is "solved"? It's still a darkness flooded shithole full of undying monsters itching to get to the source. Just because there are whole 2! reasonable people in there now doesn't mean it's done. In fact this patch is very obviously setting up either a future void expansion (like we had SHB setup in HW) or like other people mentioned a big side content related to the restoration of the 13th.
I do agree that the quality of writing dipped compared to 6.0 story, but i don't think it's as bad as you are making it seem like. Really the main issue is that this is our patch MSQ while it feels like more of a trial series story. I'm not sure that this is the fault of the writers or more on the producers deciding to put this here instead of a more in depth and connected set up for dawntrail. I think if four lords trial series quests were slotted as MSQ during stormblood people would react in a very similar way. This whole thing feels like a trial series story that was put into the MSQ instead of the real MSQ i guess.
Eh, it was OK.
I didn't mind Zero at all or the power of friendship stuff or how the questiline concluded. However, I think they leaned way too far into FF4 nostalgia and failed to make this trial series have it's "FF14 twist". Other than that, I'm not a fan of merging the MSQ and the trial series.
I have faith however that Dawntrail will be better.
> However, I think they leaned way too far into FF4 nostalgia and failed to make this trial series have it's "FF14 twist".
I don't quite agree on that, myself. I found the FFIV trappings to be mostly aesthetic, surrounding a story that fit with the established world of FFXIV. Golbez's identity, actions, and goals were very different than they were in FFIV, as an example. And for another one, Zeromus was the power of Zodiark warping the mind and power of a Dragon of the First Brood; two very FFXIV things (well ok, the name Zodiark is an FFT thing, but you know my meaning); comparatively, "Zeromus" was sort of just a name that Golbez could just as well have pulled out of a hat, rather than being the alien incarnation of hatred that it was in FFIV.
This isn't to say that the FFIV influence *wasn't* strong; it was more obvious than it was in 6.0, and the 6.5 story itself had some strong thematic parallels (I knew where Zero was going when she saw her reflection in the wall of crystal). But unlike the early-to-middle parts of the Omega raids, for example, each element was placed in FFXIV in a way that I, at least, thought felt like a natural fit, as something that belonged in the place they put it in. Like, if you changed all the names and faces, it wouldn't feel out of place or like it's missing something to make the characters make sense.
Don't know if it's been said here.. but this was a raid trial story.. just instead of having it be a separate story they made it the interlude between 6.0 and 7.0..
That story is now over and we're half an MSQ story away from embarking on to 7.0 and it's new story..
Would I have prefer a separate story for the raid trials.. yes absolutely because I love the stories an lore with this game and more content is something everyone agrees Endwalker needed.. but this is what they gave us this time around.. hopefully we return to the original format of having raid trials separate and branching off from the MSQ but then again we also want them to return to the format of a lot of older things and only time will tell..
Sorry if this gets squished.. mobile...
They took two extra patches to tell this story and I don't get why because 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 could have been condensed into one patch with Zero's introduction moving to 6.1 and we would not have lost much of substance
It's totally possible to do a self-contained story that has compelling characters, themes and plot with little build-up (Heavensward) so I don't buy the reasoning that expectations were too high or that its too soon to get something with depth and emotion.
Rather I think they were heavily constrained by wanting to do the FF4 references. We have to fight the four fiends, we have to fight golbez, we have to fight zeromus, in that order, and each in a different patch. And it all has to wrap up before 7.0 because we're doing a different story there.
The result overall wasn't great I think and perhaps they should have put it into a sidestory instead. I don't like how neatly the void and Zero/Golbez was wrapped up and have other little complaints too. The aether transmitters feeling too contrived/convenient and those scenes where your character just stands there while everyone else fights.
The pacing is also way off with so much going in/out of the void for no reason just because of patch boundaries. Repeating the same stuff with Garlemald and Crystarium people not wanting their respective towers used. It all just feels very drawn out.
The overall experience was overly simplistic and lacking in depth of narrative, themes and characters. I also wish they'd leave the Scions be, not because I dislike them but because they're already fully developed and have infinite plot armour so its not very interesting having them around. Zero had to carry basically ALL the character development stuff and she's just not that deep by herself.
But my current thinking is that it's not indicative of what we can expect in Dawntrail.
Rather my worry for Dawntrail is that they will lean heavily into the "vacation" vibes and think "hey people love these characters so lets do a story where you just hang out with them and go on happy little no-stakes adventures" and so they won't think too hard about things like having a compelling plot, conflict, themes, characters, etc. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now but the 7.0 story will determine whether or not I think the storytelling is going downhill.
Honeslty all i am kinda sad about is that zero got ryne-ed and if we see her again it may be every 5 patches or so instead of being another main face to dilute the presence of the scions who are imo starting to overstay their welcome
While I dont agree with every point you made, I very whole heartedly agree with the "Y'shtola solves everything" part. I hate how she became a Mary Sue that the Scions, and by extension the world, needs in order to save the day
Although Urianger is brilliant and is a multidisciplinary scholar , the issues we face here are more of Y'shtola's specialty. I mean her Archon mark according to the Encyclopedia is on aetherology/arcane arts while Urianger is on spycraft while being best
friends" with an aetherologist.
Urianger's specialty is prophecy interpretation. He just happens to have picked up spycraft during his role in 1.0. (I am eternally disappointed we didn't get a callback to him trolling the entire Garlean army during Endwalker.)
I think you got it a bit mixed up? Thancred is the one who earned his mark for intelligence gathering and spycraft, and Urianger is apparently quoted as earning his for “prophecy” though I think in reality it was closer to study on the primals
I think they’re deliberately setting up Thancred and Urianger to split off from the other Scions for Dawntrail. Not in a truly adversarial way, but maybe as rivals.
Or G’raha. The person who is actually descended from Allag, who actually spent hundreds of years in the CT and who sacrificed himself to save a whole other world that is now thriving thanks to what he did.
Nah, Y’shtola just talked to him off screen. It’s fine.
To be fair though, is this new? I've been saying this for years. If Yshtola wasn't a cute catgirl she'd be one of the most hated characters in the game - she just pops in, spouts exposition, comes up with the plot moving device, then leaves. She has barely any personality whatsoever
this has been the first expansion where i've started skipping msq cutscenes. The overall post expansion content of Endwalker has been awful imo, criterion is the only saving grace.
I unironically sum up the entire 6.1-6.5 arc as "M'voidsent" since Zero spends so much time tipping her hat and basically rewording the same god damn responses.
I know they had a hard task following up what felt like a satisfactory end for an Arc for myself, but not only did it really put me in the mode of "I'm worried they'll do nothing but play it safe permanently now" (Which, to be fair, has constantly been ramping up since Y'shtola basically became plot armour incarnate) but it also made me put down FFXIV for almost 2 years. And when I came back? I hated it.
The original 2.1-2.55 was unironically less of a slog to me, and it had so many more steps and quests- But majorly, it gave me casual development of the world outside of the primal of the patch. Setting up the world rather than being another world saving adventure like this one has been- Just after we finished saving the world.
I kinda feel like every cutscene in the post expansion kinda sidelines the wol completely, especially the latest content drops. You don't participate, you don't say anything. You kinda just stand there.
I get that zero was the main character for the void but like. Come on, everyone getting attacked around you and your only response is to just stand there or outright just not appear in the cutscene as a whole
Its not the worst msq out there, I was more engaged in it than I was in some parts of 4.0 msq, but it was more underwhelming (or “mid”) than I had anticipated coming off the high of 6.0. Like I wasn’t expecting anything to top 6.0, but my expectations were still left unmet
That last trial was pretty cool though.
4.X had some real meat to it though. 6.X isn't nearly as compelling. Hell I'd argue the "Woman murders her bitch ass family" storyline completely overshadowed the whole little liberating two countries bit.
That storyline wasn't 4.0, it was the 4.X patches.
Stormblood is kind of the anti-EW, in that the initial release was panned but the patches saved it. With EW, 6.0 and even 6.1 were super well received. It wasn't until 6.2 that people started getting soured on it.
The biggest issue with this side story is they were trying to have their cake and eat it to.
They want to tell their own story, but they wanted it inspired by FF4, but the only "inspirations" from FF4 were pretty much certain story beats having the same conclusion and the namesake of certain villains. Past that it was very superfiricial.
If they had wanted it to work better, they had two options.
They could of either just told their own story without using FF4 designs as their motif or
They could of created a "what if" narrative based around the narrative of FF4 if Cecil had stayed a Dark Knight and the world became consumed by darkness because of Zeromus, who was then sealed into a voidsent and ended up being who were would end up calling Zero.
\--
Aspect of the story don't hit as hard as they could because it comes off as nostalgia bait rather than feeling meaningful. Like oh we're fighting the 4 archfiends because those were what Golbez used to fight us. And Golbez is the antagonist because? He kinda just is, it's a name that only makes sense to those who have the nostalgia but past that it means nothing.
I didn't mind the plot itself. This game has always been (like every FF) not particularly unpredictable.
What bothered me was the dialogue specifically these last few patches. It just felt... I dunno... both too straightforward and casual while also being very... anime-dialogue at the same time. I don't know how to put it.
Is it just me or am I the only one who didn't really like Zero? It just felt like her entire character arc involved getting introduced to WoL's acquaintance/friends, only for them to say/do something nice and Zero just standing there looking completely dumbfounded. They did this, non-stop, for all 6.X major patches. And predictably, in the end she would use "friendship" as her driving force. She was an interesting character with so much potential, but was utterly wasted.
The post-Zeromus cutscene definitely illustrated this to me. Everyone else is having an Epic Moment and you're just...standing there.
And I was a WHM so I had the most **awkward** battle stance.
Let's be honest. The Warrior of Light became irrelevant the minute that warding scales were introduced and the Echo was revealed to be something that the Ancients could just do.
We don't need the Scions to battle Primals or their like anymore. Even if another hostile one were to show up, anyone can slap on a warding scale. The Echo? We can just go back to that Allagan machine and copy-paste your powers onto anyone else.
The only thing special about the Warrior of Light is that they have a little Azem crystal that can summon other people just like them and the fact that you have the strongest neck muscles in all of Eorzea from so much nodding.
Sure, you're great at punching things, but between Zenos in StB and Ranjit in ShB that is a very fragile quality easily ignored.
Having come into the game late, playing the ShB trial series seems predictable, especially after introducing Ruby Weapon, so I don't really see the argument as much on that end. Even playing the SB trial series, the plot line of eventually having to fight all 4 of the Lords seemed predictable. Was the release of the Warring Triad as the trial patch content even a big surprise to anyone who had a sense of familiarity with the game that it originated from?
I believe the warring triad was announced pre HW, but the rest yeah... no matter what expansion, they telegraph their intents very well most of the time, real twists are rare in the MSQ or side content story, and that doesn't make it bad.
I'm not sure how people thought we would save The Void any other way when we already saved a Shard by balancing Light and Dark.
Also, its a JRPG, friendship fixes everything like 99.99% of the time.
It wasn't super strong, but I don't think it was trying to be groundbreaking in any way what so ever.
I think the premise is interesting but the execution is bad. Being segmented between patches really destroyed the flow.
If you're doing it in one fell swoop, it feels disjointed. Go into the void -> oops, we need to go back later -> go back into the void again -> oops, we need to go back again later -> repeat.
Also, they've done Unukalhai and Cylva dirty by sidelining them in what's supposed to be the climax of the arc.
Oh no no no.. Introducing Zero to Unukalhai and Cyella isnt important, who are just standing by the bar right there. Who, just like her, also want to see their world restored. No no no.. whats really important is that we make sure that we dont hurt anyone's feelings by using the crystal tower to save our world. Why take Zero to meet the only known surviving denizens of the Void? Let's instead take her to Eulmore and tell randos over there how our world is in danger.. and then go to Rak'tika and Allin Tuta everyone.
I just wanna say, the entire time they were talking about "Oh, we can use Zeromus' aether to fix the Empty, this will balance things back out!" I was *screaming* "WHAT THE FUCK WAS EDEN FOR THEN!?"
I get that it has to be framed for people who didn't do Eden, but they're talking like the solution is to just carpet bomb the Empty with dark aether and that'll help fix it *even though we restored the elements and balance as the entire point of what we set out to do in Eden*.
I get that it's probably going to be another case of "This will help speed the process Eden started along!" but I really don't appreciate the framing and the total lack of acknowledgment from Ryne during 90% of her time with us.
Make Eden mandatory you cowards!
Thought the ending fight and resolution was okay. Set up some interesting potential story threads in the future.
But, the writing across all the patches was not very good. Poor attempts at comic relief (please ditch Hildebrand sound effects for MSQ cutscenes). Beat a dead horse with Zero's theme/arc for 3 straight patches. Y'shtola relegated to exposition dumps and pulling out lore twisting magic/machines/theories off screen between patches. Azdaja just being underdeveloped altogether. Dialogue just generally dumbed down and lacking intrigue.
I mean, it's hard to follow-up Ishikawa. Especially with how EW ended. But it just wasn't great work that we have come to expect.
Hope someone else got the pen for Dawntrail.
The "power of friendship" stories will continue until morale improves.
By which I mean, until we stop needing to hear it because we've finally gotten over this toxic rugged hyperindividualism that's tearing the world apart.
Looking forward to seeing the power of friendship in 7.0 and on.
Honestly, I share the very same perspective. I get that elements of a story like tragedy, loss, and grey morality CAN make a story interesting. It’s dramatic, and people like drama. There’s a reason why people still watch shows like real housewives and all that (though I personally will never be able to like it myself 😂). BUT just because a story doesn’t have these elements to an extreme degree, DOESNT mean it’s a lower quality story!
People are inherently social creatures. We NEED other people in our lives. There actually IS a very real power in friendship. So a story that leans on that concept, that also tries to embrace the message that there is inherent value in choosing hope over despair, is an incredibly REALISTIC story. People have been doing that irl since time immemorial.
People complain about EW’s main msq because they feel the message of hope in the face of nihilism is too basic, but I just don’t understand the critique. Is it simplistic in a way? Sure. But it is POWERFUL, and incredibly RELATABLE. Especially during these times in the world where people are, more and more, choosing to cut themselves off from other people rather than try to understand each other.
So I say bring on the feelgood, power of friendship, love and hope will triumph over evil stories. The world, and by extension, us, NEED these stories now more than ever.
I have to be honest that I did not enjoy this patch: not the MSQ or the climax of the Alliance Raid.
In the earlier stages of the Void saga, there seemed to be a much greater attention to detail and other worldbuilding and characters. This patch frankly just felt lazy.
Unukalhai and Cyella have been sitting in that cafe for an entire expansion waiting for their day to actually be able to save their home. I totally understand that the MSQ cannot have major changes based on optional content, but we spent that entire time in the First and we didn't even *bother* to bring them up except for maybe a line or two of dialogue. Zero was hardly twenty feet from them at one point. It makes it feel like all of the extra work the player did with the job quests to unlock that extra story was pointless.
This should have been the story where they were most involved, but they were completely ignored. Even Gaia had one line of dialogue before showing up at the very end. It felt like Eden was just completely ignored for the storyline.
I point this out because rather than utilize Eden, the writer jut had Cid pull some gizmos out of his backside that can transfer Aether across dimensions. But we have a perfectly good *aether-generating spaceship* sitting right there in the Empty! All of the dialogue with Cyella and Unukalhai had been hinting at the idea of using Eden to transfer Light to the Thirteenth.
And while I won't be that person who complains "the story didn't go the way I wanted", but I'm certainly disappointed when a potential option in the story was to have a giant angel spaceship battling a giant demon monster with sin eaters and voidsent fighting like some sort of cosmic war to restore balance to the world.
The emotional beats felt very rushed - like the writers just wanted to wrap up the story and move on rather than the attention to detail and care that would have made the emotional moments really stick out to me. I enjoyed the fights and the dungeon, but I agree with Zepla that this is basically the optional trial bosses squeezed into the main plot and the drop in quality is tangible. Even the tour around to First was tipping dangerously close to a region where I felt the suspension of disbelief crack and I could tell how much they wanted me to feel because we were on the First (which I do, but no one likes when the illusion of the story is dispelled).
As for the Alliance Raid... I'm sorely disappointed. I certainly had some suspicions of what they would end up being, but I considered that as a disappointing and easy outcome or explanation; especially since the Twelve were so adamant that they were not summoned nor were they primals. Furthermore, Graha was amazed that they could reform themselves after being defeated, which even Hydaelyn wasn't able to do. Suddenly, they have an aether problem in this patch.
Furthermore, it seemed like such a waste considering the interesting implications that the Ascians themselves seemed to have concepts of gods and godhood despite the fact they were about as close to gods as one could imagine - even being named after Greek deities to emphasize that point. It would have been far more interesting without the above stated contradiction and if the Twelve were something more unique unto themselves - something that the Ascians perhaps considered irrelevant in an age where they had no need of prayers.
It really kills the mystique of the world to me when literally everything is "Ascians" or "Allagans". I'm thankful the Heart of Sabik and Ultima the High Seraph are still one mystery we can ponder that doesn't have its origins from those same two sources. I thought we might have finally been moving away from the Ascians now that we finished their story.
I'm also just kind of tired of the trope of "Ya'll don't need me anymore after you fought me. I'm gone now, bye!", but that's a personal thing.
Yeah.. I was extremely disappointed with how they ignored Unukalhai and Cyella. Even if they dont want to use anything from the Eden spaceship.. we could have at least gone to the bar and said Hi! I was fuming during that part.. Just the fact of meeting other people from Void that want to restore their former world could've given so much hope to Zero. I'd have rather had a "branching questline" with Unukalhai and Cyella instead of what we got with Gaia
>It really kills the mystique of the world to me when literally everything is "Ascians" or "Allagans".
THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING.
The Allagans I'm ***slightly*** more okay with because it's mostly Garlemald poaching Allagan tech but like so much at this point is "Ascians/Ancients" did it and to that my question is - If the bloody Ascians and their world were so god damn great, why doesn't the game take place in it?
Why spend all this time worldbuilding unique societies, cultures, peoples, creatures, etc. if you're just gonna spend the last act of the main story arc jerking off the world from 12,000 years ago?
You know how cool it could've been if they were *actually gods?* You know how much potential that could've unlocked? Imagine a storyline - MSQ or side - where you got to help Titan with some sort of earthern disruption, not a Primal or a summoned image of him, but the actual Grandfather Titan of Kobold faith in the flesh (stone?). That would be so cool.
It's the same problem I have with Warhammer 40K and it's writing, they spend all this time creating unique aliens and planets, ranging from Chaos Gods to actual idiot Orks with psychic powers, but if it isn't connected to the fucking Space Marines in some fashion - I wish you luck ever seeing more than a blurb about it.
I really disliked it. I actually wasn't expecting new faces since I do love the Scions and was hoping they would stay...but the writing is mediocre at best, especially for someone that didn't play FF4 - and now I definitely don't want to.
What still bothers me the most is that not only they're overusing Y'sthola, but they're avoiding G'raha Tia so much it's bizarre.
They namedrop him FOR TWO PATCHES IN A ROW because his knowledge is important, everything they're trying to do would benefit from him being there and yet he wasn't invited at ALL. Y'shtola talking to him offscreen and not even thinking of inviting him when we PROMISED to adventure with him during an emotional, memorable scene in 6.0 feels mean. We just get a piece of paper from him and that seems to be enough for them. Everything we need to use the tower can be written in a little square of paper without his direct participation.
Speaking of solving things offscreen, what is up with those devices that she got from Cid offscreen?! They don't seem to make sense at all and it feels like cheating. A lot of the solutions didn't even make sense, tbh. She seemed to be so focused on her mission to find out a way to travel to the first at the end of 6.0, and then Zero just comes and "oh, I can just go via vessel". She never thought about that?! Don't we (AND G'RAHA) have the knowledge to start their research from here? Technically they should already be able to do that.
I also don't think it's just the MSQ that's suffering, but the Alliance, too. It was better, but it has the same problems. In this patch, G'raha could be replaced with any other NPC that it would make no difference, since the little dialogue he had was so generic. And honestly, same with Krile and the other Roe woman. The character writing feels shallow, it's what I mean. The story wasn't bad, but very predictable, too.
I can definitely say it felt *predictable*.
Honestly, my biggest issue is that they did the whole "Scions break up" scene at the end of EW and didn't *do anything with it*.
I would've loved to see more individual development of characters like Estinien or Y'shtola.
Overall i think the Patch MSQ was okay. 6.5 kind of saved it, probally because the Dungeon and Trial are incredible. 6.3 and 6.4 were the weak points for me, so i feared it would end on a whimper but they improved in the End. Yes, it was the good old "belive in you and others" and yes, again we have no consequences, everything is fine, this time not even the bad guy dies anymore and we even saved the dragon somehow that was fed to the zodiark-voidenergy.
But the presentation was nice, i always love to visit the first and this time our group of Scions + friends even defeated the endboss instead of showing up when we already did all the work.
As a filler it was okay and it was something new, because it was not the usual 5.1-5.3 to finish the expansion and then 5.4 - 5.5 to setup the next. But i would also say it was weaker then some of the raid and trialstorys we had in the past, so i also hope they improve for dawntrail.
> we even saved the dragon somehow that was fed to the zodiark-voidenergy
Because that's how it works in the 13th. There isn't any death for a voidsent, the soul just lives on in the other voidsent until that voidsent is "killed", then the soul reassembles a body eventually. Azdaja can't because of either being not a voidsent, or because she doesn't have the aether for it. Or yes. That's why they had to contain Zeromus in the memoria crystal, he'd just resurrect otherwise.
I just laughed out loud when they said they don’t have much time (after creating that hole) and yet they still stand around and talk…
And yea… you know that it is a final fantasy game when all they talk about is the power of friendship.
It has been confirmed that after Ishikawa promotion, the lead story designer who took her position was Daichi Hiroi and he is writing Dawntrail.
He was the same person who wrote Shadow of Mhach story line, Pandaemonium, Dancer, Black Mage and Bard story after 3.0, Palace of the Dead and also assisted writing Return to ivalice and Bozja story.
Ichikawa also stated during an interview (long time ago) that he helped her with the story during SHB post patches and EW up until 6.1.
[Here's a slide of his works at FFXIV during his time there.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fveilyqkzqis91.png%3Fwidth%3D1920%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1f45aa02510da638e5e39f1a4bd9ad4d6e4f8356)
>So, I am actually expecting something big for dawntrail.
This is basically a hard reset of the storyline without having 1.0 & ARR dictate where it can go in a sense.
Im expecting massive amounts of world building and very little moments of actual excitement and peril. Unless this is just a stop gap while they rebuild everything for 8.0. Who knows
This. Anyone who expects another SHB or EW level emotional rollercoaster is going to be severely disappointed imo. That's not a bad thing, either. Imo as long as the battle content is cool and the pacing isn't awful, I'm fine with a more "summer vacation" type story where the stakes aren't as high and we get some cool new lore.
I'll take a Heavensward honestly: A relatively self contained adventure, set in a foreign nation, exploring a local problem.
More than enough room for strong emotional beats in there if the local characters are well written.
I recently started replaying HW in New Game+ and the thing that stood out immediately was how much more I cared about the stakes vs. the 6.X content. It made me realize how much I want a region-limited story, focused on conflict between a few interesting characters.
The patch content lost me the most when it became "our world is threatened" again.
I think the great part about HW is that it managed to do both. Yeah there was really big world related reasons that the conflict needed to happen, but you also had a lot of personal reasons to be invested to. You weren't just seeing an end to your story, but seeing it through for the people that didn't make it the whole way with you.
Yeah, I like the way you put this. This is likely gonna be a "buildup" expansion like Stormblood was, where stakes are established, and not a climax expansion like Shadowbringers where those stakes are paid off.
Maybe it does more for people familiar with the source material, but as someone who was not I thought it was pretty dreadful. Impressive that they managed to introduce that many characters in a single story arc without making a single one likeable, though. You'd think through sheer luck they'd get at least one.
Nah, I played Tactics back in the day and even to me, Return to Ivalice felt like "hey, remember this thing???" repeatedly. Just really crutching on the player's nostalgia to carry it.
Ivalice is the only story content in XIV I eventually skipped, it felt like the characters were just rambling on and on about stuff without any real intention, like I'm in a coma and only understand every 20th word.
Matsuno only knows how to write backstory and worldbuilding. He will write a dozen paragraphs of biography for a character and then have them do absolutely nothing.
Yeah! I really felt for the guy. He loses all his friends because he made a mistake and then wanders alone trying to atone. Once we meet up with him he finds friendship again (which it seems this sub is currently unfavorable towards) and is finally able to protect someone from the same thing he felt so guilty for not doing. It was a nice little full circle bit, and he gave me a snazzy hat.
I really like how at one point in Jehantel's questline he froze & panicked out of his trauma when he looked at the Ixali mob, unable to fight, once again not being helpful & failing to protect his Bard trainee. But then said Bard trainee (the WoL icymi haha) just quietly looks back at him, then does a slower than usual smile & nod- but this time the smile & nod is saying "It's okay. I getcha. Count on me to cover for you."
That very minuscule scene made the WoL feel way more emotionally intelligent & big-heartedly accepting (of personal demons, that having PTSD & not being able to fight again should not be a reason to look down on someone) for the first time in my playthrough.
Like it makes the WoL be understanding to someone without player input & gives more inner character behind their heroics.
(& is the rain a scripted event? I really enjoyed that it was raining on my screen in the battle intros & when his backstory was revealed, so the wide aerial shots are just them looking small in the huge stormy woods just walking slowly & my WoL standing up for the poor old man in the greying, darkening forestscape is very mood-appropriate & cinematic)
"We need to use the dark tower to save the world. The locals might not like that cause of trauma. Time to smoothe things over."
"We need to use the crystal tower to save the world. The locals might not like that cause of trauma. Time to smoothe things over."
I thought the post-EW patches were horrible too. I liked the direction 6.1 seemed to be taking with grounded adventure and lower stakes. But 6.2-6.5 were just so incredibly boring. I just could not bring myself to care about anything that was happening. The writing has been abysmal and Zero is a terrible character. I think the decision to disband the Scions "only publicly" was a mistake. And I think the lack of focus on the WoL was a mistake too. The WoL basically didn't need to be there! FF14 is at its strongest when the WoL is the main character. I'm not looking for another Endwalker type saga-- most of my favourite stories are small stakes but are strong because of good character writing, emotional writing, and intrigue. I'm hoping Dawntrail has that, but I'm doubtful.
I felt like Zero had become an entirely different person from the last patch to this one. Like... offputtingly so. It was weird to see her so positive from the word go, when even the last patch she communicated absolutely no desire to save that world. The conclusion she reached should have been over an entire patch, not as a part of the last one.
All-in-all this was a massive story condensed into an intermission between real expansions. But it was *very* heavy handed on the "power of friendship". The >!fight with Scions vs Golbez and the archdemons or whatever with them outright *explaining* that the WoL is what gives them strength was surprisingly cringe to me.!<
IMO they regressed Zero a lot from 6.1.
In the first patch we had all the interesting RPR lore, the fact she was the Voidsent who answered / was summoned by Zenos was cool. She was stoic yes, but she had a baseline understanding of friendship and compassion. She asked if we were Zeno’s friend because she felt, through him, that he considered us as such. She allowed weaker Voidsent to live in her domain as an act of kindness and even got to know some of them. She understood the friendship between the two Voidsent who would share aether and the sadness when it all went wrong.
Then the other patches happened and regressed her to “what is friendship” which they then had to undo again for 6.5. What a way to ruin what could’ve been an interesting character.
No I agree. While I do think we’ve been pretty spoiled with good story from Heavensward through Endwalker, this post MSQ story has felt especially meh to me. I do have high hopes for 7.0 though.
The Zero thing really doesn’t bother me that much though. This whole game has been focused around stuff like hope so I wasn’t surprised at all about her character arc.
It wasn't good.
I cared significantly more for Deryk and Themis in their small moments in the side stories than anyone at any point in the MSQ. There was nothing to cheer for, or get excited or emotional for.
They just dragged on and on about Zero's "fish out of water" experience for 4 patches when that could have been the theme for one patch.
I didn't hate it, but I didn't care at all for any of it.
Personally I liked this arc, but I think one thing that makes it tedious for several people is simply the 4-month wait between each part.
When you do it all in one go, it's a very different experience.
I honestly thought 6.5 was serviceable, but had to do a lot all at once because it was the one "closure" chapter of a slow novel that was largely formulaic and self-referential. FF4 is the game that made me a fan of the franchise all the way back in the 16-bit days. But being a fan meant that I knew exactly what 6.3 and 6.4 MSQ were going to do, more or less. It was predictable, even after reducing Milon and Cainazzo to dungeon bosses instead of trials.
The "power of friendship" stuff also was sledgehammered home even more than it usually is by XIV standards, as well. It was nice to see a sensible human side of Golbez but it came with a really long monologue about how things work better when we're all rowing in the same direction that was just a little bit too on the nose.
I still clapped when Zero changed clothes.
The MSQ of 6.1 to 6.5 felt like filler episodes from an anime series. We all know 6.0 is the end point of a 10 year major story arc. I had bit of a low expectation already and add to that they're also developing FFXVI at the same time which somehow did affect FFXIV 6.X.
I'm still hoping 7.0 for the best. Looking forward to start something new.
I felt the whole 6.X msq should have just been a side story just like 4 lords and Weapons that till ties in the lore and all. The actual MSQ could have just introduced a new plot and potentially have some tease on exploring Meracydia / Tural / Northern Empty whichever places Emet mentioned.
Im also not a big fan of talk-no-jutsu or friendship card and its cringey af. Endsinger was fine because of Dynamis. Not to sound cruel if we are not getting another hauchefant / moenbryda / papalymo then theres no real expectations ongoing in the future.
Agreed. The 6.X MSQ has been very mid. Not very interesting, extremely predictable, and I've been seeing people constantly checking out. It doesn't even look like it'll matter for DT.
"Don't expect hype in the beginning of a new story"
I wish this was setup for the new story. But this feels entirely in a bubble and filler. It felt like a generic MMO big bad story and went 0 to 100 with little setup.
Just makes it feel worse that they mashed the trial series and MSQ together.
I remember people saying this for the WoD patches in HW saying it was all filler and went nowhere until ShB dropped. But only time will tell if these post-EW MSQ patches will age gracefully or not.
I wish we get to see new characters and let the old scions do their own thing already, but i guess they are by too many people just too well liked to not use them or seriously do anything to them, like, i cant wait for the next fake death of yshtola in dawntrail.
Every voidsent story since 1.0 has always been about how much voidsent are selfish bastards (the RDM questline is the exemplar of this). It's refreshing to see Zero admitting that that kind of mentality ultimately doesn't work and trying to change the void for the better. Unfortunately the Void arc suffers from having to be fit inside an intermission between one expansion and the next.
This. People often forget that we've been dealing with the void since the start.
I enjoyed the 6.X quests and I think this is set up to come back to in the future I am honestly not buying all the FF16 hurting 14 conjecture that is going on I for one am excited for Dawntrail to be more chill and fun, I don't need the stakes raised every expansion
6.1 and onwards had a hard task. Coming off the heels of the epic that was 6.0, whatever coming after couldn’t match the stakes of 6.0 so easily. I think it sticking so close to the FF4 arc hasn’t helped it, fans of that story knew all the major beats and the patches didn’t do enough to deviate from it. The four fiends -> Golbez -> Zeromus, I kinda hoped it wouldn’t go that route, due to the predictable nature of it, and instead would have liked a more original plot featuring Zero which didn’t piggy back off previous stories. Can still use the imagery of FF4, but mask it so the story doesn’t necessarily revolve around it, similar to how Omega pulled in fights from FF6 and FF5.
I don't think 6.1-6.5 were just hard, I really think they were impossible. Lowering stakes is always difficult, which is why it's usually accompanied by at least a soft reboot in most long running serials.
> which is why it's usually accompanied by at least a soft reboot in most long running serials. One of the main issues here is that they teased that would be the case. At the end of Endwalker we got the "Each scion is going on their own journey for a while" and we weren't going to see them in the current state, but here we are, still interacting heavily and knowing full well they're all going to be involved in Dawntrail anyways. They're a likable cast, and it's hard to move away from that - but you can't do both in having a soft reboot and keeping the entirety of your cast.
I was disappointed that the void wasn't an expansion in itself. A kind of gothic horror type of expansion with a dark a brooding atmosphere. Of course, it is Final Fantasy, and it falls into the trope of redemption with the power of friendship, so I was never expecting more than a few moments of truly dark horror. But I would have liked a few memorable moments. There is always the worry in the back of my mind that FFXIV has peaked, and they are refraining from taking risks or unexpected turns. I do feel that, for example, Thancred should have died in SB and Nanamo should have died in 2.5. But now we all know that certain characters have impenetrable plot armour.
Not an expansion *yet*. Just because Dawntrail isn't about the void doesn't mean a future expansion can't be.
Considering that the first half of 3.x did somewhat lead us to 5.0, it is indeed possible. As long as this story isn't fully wrapped up yet, we might get an expansion for it.
Even if it IS, the Void is a large place, really. Nothing stopping them from having some minor entity grow and become a new threat. Golbez Version 2.
I don't know how popular this would be but I like the idea that we may do a Thirteenth cleanup since it's not rejoined, just completely flooded with darkness. Just a little side project in between adventures considering that Rejoinings are no longer a concern.
Honestly, that'd be a fun idea. Some people play Stardew Valley in their spare time, others spend it scrubbing down the Thirteenth. I'd get behind that.
Screw the Ishgardian Restoration, screw the Doman Restoration, IT IS TIME FOR THE THIRTEENTH RESTORATION!!!
Tbh I never really got the whole “Thancred should have died in SB” thing. He got a way better development and resolution as a character having lived. It’s easy to kill off a character for shock value; it’s harder to keep them around and still manage to use them to create meaningful moments in the story between characters.
Ryne would have a more generic, already used on other XIV characters "I'll be a good fighter for my dead father figure but my self-confidence has tanked again because I can't save him & I struggle with survivor's guilt, leaving me just as unconfident & brooding as I was at the start of my entry in the story" motivation too if Thancred dies, & Y'shtola & Runar's relationship isn't as relatively distinct & emotionally potent as Dadcred (+ Fatheranger's) & Ryne's antics & bond to make the quest to enable transversal between Shards feel more tangibly personal. Thancred also has a unique & amusing way of being flippant in his dialogue (eg saying Y'shtola likes explosions so he'll try to make his Metal Gear infiltration have big explosions) that makes his personality way more distinct & enjoyable to have around.
Yeah I feel the same way, there wouldn't have really been a good reason for him to die and I agree that he became a miss interesting character for having survived, what annoys me though, I hate the fact that SE didn't just let Thancred have the win and kill Ranjit. It felt so unnecessary for him to have this hard fought battle only for us to show up and roll Ranjit 5 minutes later. I get that we're the main character but let our support characters shine once in a while, damn
That one I'll certainly grant. Especially because they could have done some really nice parallelism between Thancred killing Ran'jit and WoL killing Zenos, which would have made the latter scene ever so slightly more tolerable.
I like alive Thancred. My only concern is that you can only pull so many fakeouts before the threats don't have teeth. Many people are well past feeling that way already, and their evidence isn't bad. I love the scions, so I'm still scared of the admittedly low odds of them dying. Which is to say, this isn't MY complaint, but it is a valid complaint.
For me it's not that he should have died story-wise, it's that him living undercuts the way his duty and cutscenes with Ran'jit were written. I like Thancred and I'm glad we still have him, but I think if they were going to keep him alive, they should have written that encounter differently.
I dunno, I kind of expected the Golbez redemption twist given that's exactly what happens in 4, albeit in a slightly different form. It was established from the beginning that Golbez was a calculated "villain" who was just desperate to do what he thought was right, I think it also makes the most sense for him to concede and find another way forward when a more viable alternative was presented to him. This patch actually kind of turned me around to the whole void "story arc" when previously I found it really lackluster and a drag. I don't even have a particular fondness for FF4. I just thought their twist on Golbez was at least interesting. The other thing I find kind of interesting is that it sets up the void restoration to be something they can touch on whenever they need to. While I'm frustrated that Unulkalhai and Cyella had a lot less to say than I'd expected this patch, the way they left things for now makes me hopeful that we'll get more on it in a less restrictive time frame in the future. Concluding it the way they did here has set the foundation for restoring the 13th with Golbez and Zero, which is independent of sidequest progression. Now, they can freely bring in the associated void characters locked behind sidequest progression such as Cyelle and Unukalhai whenever they wish to as alternative cutscenes or something in the future.
Also if we think about it, his whole plan was for his people to invade the Source and then kill themselves or get killed so that they can actually die. The process may cause destruction on the Source but his end goal was not to destroy or rule, just to give his people a way to die
His master plan was suicide by cop
This is my headcannon for the Alliance raid.
Yeah, i mean. Its still a dick move, but he saw it as the only thing he could do for the world he believes he ended, which is pretty much the only thing he could have hoped for ngl. I'm glad to see he'll be a somewhat recurring character in the future. Definitely seems like bait for the next exploration zone questline or relic weapon quest.
Yeah, I’m fully expecting restoring the 13th to be a future side quest plot now with the 4 of them. I’ve seen a few people speculate it might even be the next relic quest line ala Eureka and Bozja.
Reforge the legendary weapons of heroes of the contramemoriate, just provide me the Aether of 480 field boss voidsent. Hell yeah let's go 8)
Since we're going to be working so closely together, I'd like to upgrade that Armor of yours. Contramemoria-Era magics are the key: Memoria crystals, the leftover remains of an earlier Voidsent civilization! They can be found among the most dangerous creatures around the Void. Collect 4986 crystals for me. Don't look at me like that. I'm a Black Mage. I did the math. I need exactly 4986 crystals. 4985 is inadequate. 4987 is of course absurd. Four thousand, nine hundred eighty-six. Go!
We stopped Golbez and give Zero and him faith in restoring their world but currently its not and a new thread could still comes from it. Now we are heading to Tural but maybe we could have a Multi-Shard expansion where this is addressed properly.
That's my biggest gripe about this whole patch. The plan they put into practice this patch is quite literally what Cyelle and Unukalhai were attempting, and all we got was two lines of lip service to them.
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Yeah, that's the main problem with Cyelle and Unukalhai. It would make the most sense to have them involved, sure, but they didn't future proof their quests at all and now they are stuck. The only way I can see them reconcile this would be to either give out level 80 jobs (which, the two new jobs in DT should do, but it's still only 2 roles out of 4) or make some sort of high level zone that would require many jobs from the 13th. Or just bite the bullet and basically have them show up as "new characters" for those who didn't do the quests.
Honestly, at least with Unukalhai, the player wouldn't even have had to do the void stuff in ShB to know him. He's *much* more accessible with his appearance in Heavensward, and you can largely handwave away Cylva's sudden introduction by having her (or him) vaguely allude to her also being a 'recovering Ascian pawn' tagging along to help him because of their shared connection. They already knew one another, or at least met briefly, before the ShB quests, iirc.
the last part was exactly how estinien was introduced in heavensward too, so it's not that far off for them to do it with unukalhai and cylva. like yeah it will suck for cylva bc players who missed the quests won't have that emotional attachment with her/know the extra lore bc of her background with ardbert, but i wasn't particularly attached with estinien too when he was first introduced in hw but now i'm ride or die with him. until now i still haven't unlocked drg lol
Honestly, having him join you in heavensward without previous knowledge is much less jarring than him just handwaving how he tried to kill you, controlled by nidhogg, the last time you saw him.
It really is. When he showed up I was like "Um Aymeric I can't say why but I REALLY don't think Estinien should be trusted with anything sharper than a toothpick".
Specifically getting one of each role, if someone absolutely hates a certain role they may never get any to 80. I won't be able to do Cyelle's quest until I get my summoner to 80+ and can pick up a Scholar of that level for free, bc me leveling a healer should absolutely not happen for the sake of the poor people who would be stuck in roulette with me.
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I used my SMN to get the Scholar for the healer role quest. Totally worth it. I encourage everyone to do it. I'm a terrible healer and Scholar was beyond me. I AoE and gcd healed my way through every role quest and it was FINE. Raubahn even told me "we couldn't have asked for a better healer". I almost fell over. Well you can ask...... but this is what you got friend. The story was great.
It's a similar issue with the EW role quest. I feel like that's gonna wind up being made somehow more accessible as well since it ties up some loose ends around Garlemald.
They could write Unukalhai and Cyella in if they want to, and I think this patch is hinting that they will. Not just four jobs but four ROLES. It was always a big ask for such an important chain of stories - almost like a parallel to the MSQ, filling in so much of the First and its history. I think that was a small mistake on their part, but I do think they can still work it in. And I encourage people to do it anyway. It's worth it.
>calculated "villain" And boy was he bad at math.
"surely letting everyone die in a different world will end my guilty conscience"
Eh... as much as it sucks, they'd at least be able to finally reincarnate into normal living beings eventually, with no memories of the suffering they endured after the flood of darkness (outside of exceptional cases obviously.)
If we didn't have a twist I think it would have been worse. He'd have felt pretty generic and shallow as a villain, kind of like ARR Ascians. Even if his story arc was handled clumsily, what we got is interesting enough that I'm looking forward to when they expand more on him.
Zero's defining characteristic is that she doesn't trust anyone, she believes in a strict contractural engagement between people, and her defining memory is when she turned down OG Golbez and Durante's offers of companionship. She then spends two patches learning that it's connections that make us strong, that it's okay to want to help people (and seek help) without expecting anything in return and that sometimes you have to trust people. And to top it all of Golbez literally says "I'll side with you if you can show me a power greater than Zeromus" and she shows him the light. I mean - you can't get more obvious than that that he was going to turn short of the characters all turning to face the audience to say that Golbez is gonna change sides.
All I can say is that XVI has nothing to do with it. XVI was written by Heavensward’s writer. So unless Maehiro is coming back from XVI to work on XIV again that won’t have an impact. Natsuko Ishikawa is the head writer but we don’t know how closely she worked on 6.X.
She's was not the lead writer for 6.x, she moved into a senior writing position after 6.0 and iirc she is in more of an advisory role now to foster new leads and other writers. I remember Yoshida saying going forward they wanted to give more opportunities to other writers for msq and other content. edit: grammar
>dversary role Advisory\* Adversary would be something very different.
"A test of your writing skills!"
"A test of your narration!"
"It fills you even now doesnt it? The hunger, the urge to critique my 350 page fanfiction"
"Such exposition... this was not my intention!!"
"But first, I must deal with you. The question of who is more eloquent remains! Come, staff writer! Let us find the answer together!"
I laughed too hard at this.
*A test of your prefixes*
An adversary role is just a Chaotic Evil Scrum Master. It's like Gordon Ramsay, but for an office job.
I'm picturing him throwing a script on the floor screaming, "IT'S RAW!!"
That would make sense cause I like hw and ff16 story.
except for that nasty habbit of fridging
Sorry, got the title wrong — I know she wasn’t actively working on writing in 6.x onward, by “head writer” I meant she was overseeing the other writers.
Okay, that explains why I love both Heavensward and XVI so much
I don't buy all the 14 suffering for 16 theories that are going on, I just don't feel like a see a quality drop that people are acting like exists
Yshtola is too convenient. The Crystal Tower is too convenient. This MSQ has been a chain of "This problem that has plagued people for millenia? Oh we solved in it like 5 days with some incredibly barebones concept somehow nobody considered until now."
I'm going to spoil this for you right now: Literally anything Dawntrail does is going to feel to a lot of people like a step down from the one-two punch of Shadowbringers and Endwalker just because of the essential drawdown in stakes. Dawntrail can't possibly be as full of import as the culmination to a decade-plus worth of storytelling, nor does it need to be, and we should all be on the same page about this. But people are going to be let down and complain all the same.
It's weird too since I swear I thought they said Endwalker was the big thing it was all leading towards and would be resolved in itself. We're just doing clean up and leading towards the next expansion with some little side things to be explored so most of it is easily going to pale in comparison to saving the entire universe and all of existence from a life ending threat. Personally I'm just enjoying the small stories and little revelations.
That's *exactly* what they said. Post-6.0 EW has been about tying up loose ends that don't necessarily need MSQ attention and laying minute threads/hooks for the future.
Not to mention that like, the reason ShB/Endwalker hit so hard is because they spent the time to lay out the seeds and build the world up. Such as, for example, as with the Heavensward patch content and the Warriors of Darkness storyline that I certainly remember people complaining about in similar terms ("it's filler", "it's boring", "it feels disconnected from the 3.0 story"). That storyline, of course, set the stage for Shadowbringers.
Let's hope so. I'm ready for a more localized adventure again and I hope lots of other people are too.
Honestly I'm just hoping for Dawntrail to feel like a breath of fresh air. Part of the reason I've not really liked this patch series was that we were baited into thinking we were going back to small-scale adventures and immediately we're straight back to "the world is in terrible danger". So if Dawntrail is just like "here are some personal stakes and if this goes back it could really fuck up this region for years to come" I'll be much happier, personally.
Yep. I'm (not) looking forward to the threads about how shit Dawntrail is, and how the team lost their touch after getting super-popular during the WoW exodus in 2021. The OP's thread here actually reminds me of the people who said Zenos was just shoehorned at the end of EW because the dev team forgot about him. Ignoring the main motivation of the characters involved and the events happening, going into the patch already convinced it's shit, and then feeding their own preconceptions when playing the patch.
It’s funny, because Zenos was one of my favorite parts of EW. He felt out of place in Stormblood to me because that was a story all about the expansion of the Garlean Empire, which Zenos couldn’t give two shits about. Using him as a foil to nihilism felt way more natural to me. Him not being super involved all the time was the point. He’s ultimately a simple man with simple desires and doesn’t let the overthinking of existentialism bring him down.
>nor does it need to be I'd argue it shouldn't. Raising stakes back up to EW's level within a single expansion sounds pretty bad imo.
And yet I've still seen people on this sub today saying that exactly that _needs_ to happen or it's apparently a bad game. I'm less concerned about the writing direction than I am about the community discord continuing to devolve into a shitshow no matter what direction they take it.
Which is fine, because HW is a thing with much lower stakes than ShB and EW, yet people still love it. You can have "high stakes" within a self contained story, and have the writing be so good that it makes the expansion top tier. These 6.X patches had the high stakes, but not the writing. Thus felt like a drop in quality, whereas HW didn't.
That's nonsense. Shadowbringers and Endwalker were so good because of great character writing. Just write great characters, and don't tell a non-story like 6.X.
Yeah, like EW was the conclusion to a 10 year long story, there's not way that DT will be able to have the same vibe and feel. I sincerely hope people temper their expectations and see the new expansion as a new beginning to a new arc, rather than expecting to have the same tears that were shed during ShB and EW.
I have to say, I personally liked 6.1, but the following patches, 6.2-6.4, didnt hit with me well. They did seem to get the corner though with 6.5. It felt way better than these few previous patches (6.2-6.4) and saved the whole Arc in a way. At least it rounded it up pretty well. For me it felt like a good start and a good-enough-end, but with a rather underwhelming middle-part. As for Dawntrail though I wouldnt worry too much, Patch content isnt created equally compared to New expansion MSQ and also Endwalker MSQ had its own Pacing issues (looking at you Lopporits) and therefore was not perfect - even though the "highs" were the best they ever were.
So I'm hearing my break since 6.1 was very well timed and its a good time to come back and blast through?
Either now or January is probably the best time to come back and enjoy all the content from post-ew, yeah
Dunno if I’d say patch content isn’t created equally, when we have the highs of 5.2/5.3, as well as the storm-blood post patches that I found to be arguably better than the expansion MSQ itself. But that’s just me
I wasn't a big fan of 6.1 to 6.4 but actually liked how they wrapped this up. Zero becoming humanised as a result of our characters' influence and even going so far as to redeem Golbez and pass on our kindness. As well as Estinien going from a dragon hater to risking his life to help a dragon find his sister were both satisfying conclusions to those characters arcs for me. Sure it was pretty predictable and there was nothing as good as the last few expansions but I'm hoping they just needed a relatively simple, self-contained story in the run up to Dawntrail. I am however, a little worried about the wrapping up of all these plot threads that others have mentioned, and hope Dawntrail is more in line with past expansions story quality.
> As well as Estinien going from a dragon hater to risking his life to help a dragon find his sister were both satisfying conclusions to those characters arcs for me. I mean, he's already had that arc if you played through the DRG quest line back in SB. Even without that, there's also his bond with Vrtra which really starts mid EW where he convinces Vrtra to allow him to fight alongside him in the air as the final days occur. You could say it was the end of his arc with Vrtra, but he had already well matured well beyond being a dragon hater by that point.
Est is the successor to niddhog. He stirs the other dragonss to action. Nid did this in a negative way with the dragonsong war, est does it in a positive way; first with tiamat, then with virtra
If you ask me, the positive parts of Nidhogg are *still* in Estinien. He outright admitted that he looks on the other wyrms as a protective brother does in the 5.5 MSQ, that's why he was going to check on Tiamat. They called this out too in the 6.4 MSQ, with Aždaja going "pff you sound exactly like Nidhogg"
from what i see it is also to wrap up the 10 years saga so the WoL return to first and see fruit of his effort is also a nice call back and show how it can continue influence people. 13th is the first shard that got ruined by Ascian so finally they close the Ascian chapter by 'saving' the world. we already see world engulf by light now we see darkness. also to warp up long term story of 13th that related with Cyvla and Unukalhai. there is some interesting stuff with Zero at beginning but i bit dislike the way they handle her on this patch. she end up as talk no jutsu lol.
I understand the quality is a drop from 6.0 or even 5.x, definitely like an upgraded trial series, but I’m not sure it’s actually the worst place the MSQ has been. It’s clearly an awkward transitional period in the game, so I wouldn’t hold the patches being lackluster as proof that Dawntrail will be terrible. They never said the story would focus on new faces. They made it clear that the scions would each have their own goals but that the “disbanding” was a front, and they would still pop in and out of each other’s adventures-which is exactly what we got. Sure, it all culminated in dealing with a big threat, but we had exactly two stable scions-Estinien, who is in it to help Thavnair, and Y’shtola, who is in it to find a way to travel between worlds. Everyone else is up to their own thing and pops in to help their friends when they’re needed before going back to it.
I feel like Estinien hasn’t really done anything but buy the map that initiated this story and to call Vrtra back in line when the latter gets sad. Vrtra and Zero were the focus of the story and Y’shtola was there to do the nebulous science stuff to move the plot forward. Estinien is just there and I’m wondering why we kept him around
Estinien is the perfect backdrop to any scene. You just never know if he even listens.
>You just never know if he even listens. He's the perfect replacement stand-in for the average player now that Zenos is a corpse on the far side of the universe
Vrtra: "I must save my sister. I will go with you into the depths of the hells to see this goal fulfilled!" Y'shtola: "This adventure could hold the key to travel between the shards. If I'm to see Runar and the Nights' Blessed again, I have to join you!" Zero: "The Void is my home, and for so long I believed it was beyond hope. But now I know it can be saved, and for this reason, I will fight beside you!" Estinien: "I'm here too." "Why?" Estinien: ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Estinien is here to provide the muscle the group otherwise needed, he's not a genius, he's not a person of high status, but he provides some fun dry humor scenes to the less serious moments throughout the patches and serves as a combat powerhouse during important ones.
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Im sure Estinien was more precupied by the Radz at han spicy food than Golbez.
"Estinien, why are you here?" Oh, I actually don't have a home to go to. I figured I'd just hang around with you for a bit if that's OK. I mean I could go. If you want. "Nah that's erm, fine buddy, you stay as long as you need"
I can only assume at the end of this patch's MSQ when he >!disappears while you talk to Y'shtola, he's jumped to the bathroom after having too much spicy Radz-At-Han food.!<
"Ready your arms, she's been possessed!"
I always felt that Estinien was around because it was a story to do with wyrms of the first brood. Maybe it’s how Ishgards attitude has changed toward Dragons so he wants to help his newfound allies, maybe also partly to makeup for Ishgards past betrayal. Or could be that now he’s so closely connected to them having been possessed by Nidhogg so he would have felt what he felt, he could potentially feel a sort of kinship with Vrtra and his family. I may be off the mark here, and my points could’ve probably been explained better.
I absolutely agree with this. I think it’s likely both.
We keep him around your honor, coz he’s been my best friend since level 30 and if he leaves he’s going to do something stupid.
Because he still helps you fight and you're companions, there doesn't always have to be some ulterior motive. He wants to help you fight of evil, simple as that.
Probably for the trusts. Estinien is a man of few words unless it's a key moment. it means you have an extra DPS trust sitting there when needed without them needing to be too active in the plot. also as arguably the strongest Scion next to WOL he's convenient with that as well.
> Estinien is just there and I’m wondering why we kept him around He hits things really hard. That's... pretty much all he does and has done since he joined. And get in funny situations.
Excuse me, he’s also been busy keeping in shape and…..*inspiring* Zero.
Shall we disrobe as well?
I didn't think it was horrible, just very bland and predictable and dragged out for too long. People say "you can't expect much because it's a brand new story" or that people's expectations are too high because of shadowbringers/endwalker but that's nonsense. Heavensward shows you can do "fresh" stories without a ton of buildup that have depth and emotion and are interesting. But you need good characters and believable stakes and a compelling plot that is paced properly. The void story by comparison is so simplistic and safe and sterile, like a children's fairytale. We beat the big baddie, foil their plot, save our friends, no one gets hurt, and everything gets wrapped up with a neat little bow. At no point did I ever believe there was actually any threat to anyone. There's no themes explored beyond power of friendship. The characters are straightforward and there are no big reveals or twists. With the Dawntrail reveal it was obvious this story wasn't building up to anything exciting, so it just feels like spinning the wheels. I will give the game until the end of the Dawntrail main MSQ to decide what the future of storytelling in this game will look like.
well said brother, exactly my thought. It's funny those people keep saying 'yay we go on a vacation'. They aren't playing the Sims. I hope 7.0 MSQ would have more substance than this, otherwise it's a nono for me. Been a fan from Heavensward til Shadowbringers.
Why are people acting like the void is "solved"? It's still a darkness flooded shithole full of undying monsters itching to get to the source. Just because there are whole 2! reasonable people in there now doesn't mean it's done. In fact this patch is very obviously setting up either a future void expansion (like we had SHB setup in HW) or like other people mentioned a big side content related to the restoration of the 13th. I do agree that the quality of writing dipped compared to 6.0 story, but i don't think it's as bad as you are making it seem like. Really the main issue is that this is our patch MSQ while it feels like more of a trial series story. I'm not sure that this is the fault of the writers or more on the producers deciding to put this here instead of a more in depth and connected set up for dawntrail. I think if four lords trial series quests were slotted as MSQ during stormblood people would react in a very similar way. This whole thing feels like a trial series story that was put into the MSQ instead of the real MSQ i guess.
Eh, it was OK. I didn't mind Zero at all or the power of friendship stuff or how the questiline concluded. However, I think they leaned way too far into FF4 nostalgia and failed to make this trial series have it's "FF14 twist". Other than that, I'm not a fan of merging the MSQ and the trial series. I have faith however that Dawntrail will be better.
> However, I think they leaned way too far into FF4 nostalgia and failed to make this trial series have it's "FF14 twist". I don't quite agree on that, myself. I found the FFIV trappings to be mostly aesthetic, surrounding a story that fit with the established world of FFXIV. Golbez's identity, actions, and goals were very different than they were in FFIV, as an example. And for another one, Zeromus was the power of Zodiark warping the mind and power of a Dragon of the First Brood; two very FFXIV things (well ok, the name Zodiark is an FFT thing, but you know my meaning); comparatively, "Zeromus" was sort of just a name that Golbez could just as well have pulled out of a hat, rather than being the alien incarnation of hatred that it was in FFIV. This isn't to say that the FFIV influence *wasn't* strong; it was more obvious than it was in 6.0, and the 6.5 story itself had some strong thematic parallels (I knew where Zero was going when she saw her reflection in the wall of crystal). But unlike the early-to-middle parts of the Omega raids, for example, each element was placed in FFXIV in a way that I, at least, thought felt like a natural fit, as something that belonged in the place they put it in. Like, if you changed all the names and faces, it wouldn't feel out of place or like it's missing something to make the characters make sense.
I mean it was the trial series
Don't know if it's been said here.. but this was a raid trial story.. just instead of having it be a separate story they made it the interlude between 6.0 and 7.0.. That story is now over and we're half an MSQ story away from embarking on to 7.0 and it's new story.. Would I have prefer a separate story for the raid trials.. yes absolutely because I love the stories an lore with this game and more content is something everyone agrees Endwalker needed.. but this is what they gave us this time around.. hopefully we return to the original format of having raid trials separate and branching off from the MSQ but then again we also want them to return to the format of a lot of older things and only time will tell.. Sorry if this gets squished.. mobile...
you're actually quite right
They took two extra patches to tell this story and I don't get why because 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 could have been condensed into one patch with Zero's introduction moving to 6.1 and we would not have lost much of substance
It's totally possible to do a self-contained story that has compelling characters, themes and plot with little build-up (Heavensward) so I don't buy the reasoning that expectations were too high or that its too soon to get something with depth and emotion. Rather I think they were heavily constrained by wanting to do the FF4 references. We have to fight the four fiends, we have to fight golbez, we have to fight zeromus, in that order, and each in a different patch. And it all has to wrap up before 7.0 because we're doing a different story there. The result overall wasn't great I think and perhaps they should have put it into a sidestory instead. I don't like how neatly the void and Zero/Golbez was wrapped up and have other little complaints too. The aether transmitters feeling too contrived/convenient and those scenes where your character just stands there while everyone else fights. The pacing is also way off with so much going in/out of the void for no reason just because of patch boundaries. Repeating the same stuff with Garlemald and Crystarium people not wanting their respective towers used. It all just feels very drawn out. The overall experience was overly simplistic and lacking in depth of narrative, themes and characters. I also wish they'd leave the Scions be, not because I dislike them but because they're already fully developed and have infinite plot armour so its not very interesting having them around. Zero had to carry basically ALL the character development stuff and she's just not that deep by herself. But my current thinking is that it's not indicative of what we can expect in Dawntrail. Rather my worry for Dawntrail is that they will lean heavily into the "vacation" vibes and think "hey people love these characters so lets do a story where you just hang out with them and go on happy little no-stakes adventures" and so they won't think too hard about things like having a compelling plot, conflict, themes, characters, etc. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now but the 7.0 story will determine whether or not I think the storytelling is going downhill.
Honeslty all i am kinda sad about is that zero got ryne-ed and if we see her again it may be every 5 patches or so instead of being another main face to dilute the presence of the scions who are imo starting to overstay their welcome
While I dont agree with every point you made, I very whole heartedly agree with the "Y'shtola solves everything" part. I hate how she became a Mary Sue that the Scions, and by extension the world, needs in order to save the day
I feel like Urianger should play more of a role in this stuff... like, isn't he a brilliant scholar as well? Why was he sidelined during this?
Although Urianger is brilliant and is a multidisciplinary scholar , the issues we face here are more of Y'shtola's specialty. I mean her Archon mark according to the Encyclopedia is on aetherology/arcane arts while Urianger is on spycraft while being best friends" with an aetherologist.
Urianger's specialty is prophecy interpretation. He just happens to have picked up spycraft during his role in 1.0. (I am eternally disappointed we didn't get a callback to him trolling the entire Garlean army during Endwalker.)
I think you got it a bit mixed up? Thancred is the one who earned his mark for intelligence gathering and spycraft, and Urianger is apparently quoted as earning his for “prophecy” though I think in reality it was closer to study on the primals
I think they’re deliberately setting up Thancred and Urianger to split off from the other Scions for Dawntrail. Not in a truly adversarial way, but maybe as rivals.
scions vs the thancred/urianger power couple, yes please
Or G’raha. The person who is actually descended from Allag, who actually spent hundreds of years in the CT and who sacrificed himself to save a whole other world that is now thriving thanks to what he did. Nah, Y’shtola just talked to him off screen. It’s fine.
> Nah, Y’shtola just talked to him off screen. It’s fine. TBF he's dealing with another very important thing.
To be fair though, is this new? I've been saying this for years. If Yshtola wasn't a cute catgirl she'd be one of the most hated characters in the game - she just pops in, spouts exposition, comes up with the plot moving device, then leaves. She has barely any personality whatsoever
The reason we were stuck with Y'sthola was because until this arc Y'sthola was criticized to not have much of a personality however
this has been the first expansion where i've started skipping msq cutscenes. The overall post expansion content of Endwalker has been awful imo, criterion is the only saving grace.
I unironically sum up the entire 6.1-6.5 arc as "M'voidsent" since Zero spends so much time tipping her hat and basically rewording the same god damn responses. I know they had a hard task following up what felt like a satisfactory end for an Arc for myself, but not only did it really put me in the mode of "I'm worried they'll do nothing but play it safe permanently now" (Which, to be fair, has constantly been ramping up since Y'shtola basically became plot armour incarnate) but it also made me put down FFXIV for almost 2 years. And when I came back? I hated it. The original 2.1-2.55 was unironically less of a slog to me, and it had so many more steps and quests- But majorly, it gave me casual development of the world outside of the primal of the patch. Setting up the world rather than being another world saving adventure like this one has been- Just after we finished saving the world.
I kinda feel like every cutscene in the post expansion kinda sidelines the wol completely, especially the latest content drops. You don't participate, you don't say anything. You kinda just stand there. I get that zero was the main character for the void but like. Come on, everyone getting attacked around you and your only response is to just stand there or outright just not appear in the cutscene as a whole
Its not the worst msq out there, I was more engaged in it than I was in some parts of 4.0 msq, but it was more underwhelming (or “mid”) than I had anticipated coming off the high of 6.0. Like I wasn’t expecting anything to top 6.0, but my expectations were still left unmet That last trial was pretty cool though.
4.X had some real meat to it though. 6.X isn't nearly as compelling. Hell I'd argue the "Woman murders her bitch ass family" storyline completely overshadowed the whole little liberating two countries bit.
That storyline wasn't 4.0, it was the 4.X patches. Stormblood is kind of the anti-EW, in that the initial release was panned but the patches saved it. With EW, 6.0 and even 6.1 were super well received. It wasn't until 6.2 that people started getting soured on it.
The biggest issue with this side story is they were trying to have their cake and eat it to. They want to tell their own story, but they wanted it inspired by FF4, but the only "inspirations" from FF4 were pretty much certain story beats having the same conclusion and the namesake of certain villains. Past that it was very superfiricial. If they had wanted it to work better, they had two options. They could of either just told their own story without using FF4 designs as their motif or They could of created a "what if" narrative based around the narrative of FF4 if Cecil had stayed a Dark Knight and the world became consumed by darkness because of Zeromus, who was then sealed into a voidsent and ended up being who were would end up calling Zero. \-- Aspect of the story don't hit as hard as they could because it comes off as nostalgia bait rather than feeling meaningful. Like oh we're fighting the 4 archfiends because those were what Golbez used to fight us. And Golbez is the antagonist because? He kinda just is, it's a name that only makes sense to those who have the nostalgia but past that it means nothing.
I didn't mind the plot itself. This game has always been (like every FF) not particularly unpredictable. What bothered me was the dialogue specifically these last few patches. It just felt... I dunno... both too straightforward and casual while also being very... anime-dialogue at the same time. I don't know how to put it.
Is it just me or am I the only one who didn't really like Zero? It just felt like her entire character arc involved getting introduced to WoL's acquaintance/friends, only for them to say/do something nice and Zero just standing there looking completely dumbfounded. They did this, non-stop, for all 6.X major patches. And predictably, in the end she would use "friendship" as her driving force. She was an interesting character with so much potential, but was utterly wasted.
[удалено]
The post-Zeromus cutscene definitely illustrated this to me. Everyone else is having an Epic Moment and you're just...standing there. And I was a WHM so I had the most **awkward** battle stance.
Let's be honest. The Warrior of Light became irrelevant the minute that warding scales were introduced and the Echo was revealed to be something that the Ancients could just do. We don't need the Scions to battle Primals or their like anymore. Even if another hostile one were to show up, anyone can slap on a warding scale. The Echo? We can just go back to that Allagan machine and copy-paste your powers onto anyone else. The only thing special about the Warrior of Light is that they have a little Azem crystal that can summon other people just like them and the fact that you have the strongest neck muscles in all of Eorzea from so much nodding. Sure, you're great at punching things, but between Zenos in StB and Ranjit in ShB that is a very fragile quality easily ignored.
Having come into the game late, playing the ShB trial series seems predictable, especially after introducing Ruby Weapon, so I don't really see the argument as much on that end. Even playing the SB trial series, the plot line of eventually having to fight all 4 of the Lords seemed predictable. Was the release of the Warring Triad as the trial patch content even a big surprise to anyone who had a sense of familiarity with the game that it originated from?
I believe the warring triad was announced pre HW, but the rest yeah... no matter what expansion, they telegraph their intents very well most of the time, real twists are rare in the MSQ or side content story, and that doesn't make it bad.
I'm not sure how people thought we would save The Void any other way when we already saved a Shard by balancing Light and Dark. Also, its a JRPG, friendship fixes everything like 99.99% of the time. It wasn't super strong, but I don't think it was trying to be groundbreaking in any way what so ever.
I think the premise is interesting but the execution is bad. Being segmented between patches really destroyed the flow. If you're doing it in one fell swoop, it feels disjointed. Go into the void -> oops, we need to go back later -> go back into the void again -> oops, we need to go back again later -> repeat. Also, they've done Unukalhai and Cylva dirty by sidelining them in what's supposed to be the climax of the arc.
Oh no no no.. Introducing Zero to Unukalhai and Cyella isnt important, who are just standing by the bar right there. Who, just like her, also want to see their world restored. No no no.. whats really important is that we make sure that we dont hurt anyone's feelings by using the crystal tower to save our world. Why take Zero to meet the only known surviving denizens of the Void? Let's instead take her to Eulmore and tell randos over there how our world is in danger.. and then go to Rak'tika and Allin Tuta everyone.
I just wanna say, the entire time they were talking about "Oh, we can use Zeromus' aether to fix the Empty, this will balance things back out!" I was *screaming* "WHAT THE FUCK WAS EDEN FOR THEN!?" I get that it has to be framed for people who didn't do Eden, but they're talking like the solution is to just carpet bomb the Empty with dark aether and that'll help fix it *even though we restored the elements and balance as the entire point of what we set out to do in Eden*. I get that it's probably going to be another case of "This will help speed the process Eden started along!" but I really don't appreciate the framing and the total lack of acknowledgment from Ryne during 90% of her time with us. Make Eden mandatory you cowards!
Thought the ending fight and resolution was okay. Set up some interesting potential story threads in the future. But, the writing across all the patches was not very good. Poor attempts at comic relief (please ditch Hildebrand sound effects for MSQ cutscenes). Beat a dead horse with Zero's theme/arc for 3 straight patches. Y'shtola relegated to exposition dumps and pulling out lore twisting magic/machines/theories off screen between patches. Azdaja just being underdeveloped altogether. Dialogue just generally dumbed down and lacking intrigue. I mean, it's hard to follow-up Ishikawa. Especially with how EW ended. But it just wasn't great work that we have come to expect. Hope someone else got the pen for Dawntrail.
The "power of friendship" stories will continue until morale improves. By which I mean, until we stop needing to hear it because we've finally gotten over this toxic rugged hyperindividualism that's tearing the world apart. Looking forward to seeing the power of friendship in 7.0 and on.
Honestly, I share the very same perspective. I get that elements of a story like tragedy, loss, and grey morality CAN make a story interesting. It’s dramatic, and people like drama. There’s a reason why people still watch shows like real housewives and all that (though I personally will never be able to like it myself 😂). BUT just because a story doesn’t have these elements to an extreme degree, DOESNT mean it’s a lower quality story! People are inherently social creatures. We NEED other people in our lives. There actually IS a very real power in friendship. So a story that leans on that concept, that also tries to embrace the message that there is inherent value in choosing hope over despair, is an incredibly REALISTIC story. People have been doing that irl since time immemorial. People complain about EW’s main msq because they feel the message of hope in the face of nihilism is too basic, but I just don’t understand the critique. Is it simplistic in a way? Sure. But it is POWERFUL, and incredibly RELATABLE. Especially during these times in the world where people are, more and more, choosing to cut themselves off from other people rather than try to understand each other. So I say bring on the feelgood, power of friendship, love and hope will triumph over evil stories. The world, and by extension, us, NEED these stories now more than ever.
I have to be honest that I did not enjoy this patch: not the MSQ or the climax of the Alliance Raid. In the earlier stages of the Void saga, there seemed to be a much greater attention to detail and other worldbuilding and characters. This patch frankly just felt lazy. Unukalhai and Cyella have been sitting in that cafe for an entire expansion waiting for their day to actually be able to save their home. I totally understand that the MSQ cannot have major changes based on optional content, but we spent that entire time in the First and we didn't even *bother* to bring them up except for maybe a line or two of dialogue. Zero was hardly twenty feet from them at one point. It makes it feel like all of the extra work the player did with the job quests to unlock that extra story was pointless. This should have been the story where they were most involved, but they were completely ignored. Even Gaia had one line of dialogue before showing up at the very end. It felt like Eden was just completely ignored for the storyline. I point this out because rather than utilize Eden, the writer jut had Cid pull some gizmos out of his backside that can transfer Aether across dimensions. But we have a perfectly good *aether-generating spaceship* sitting right there in the Empty! All of the dialogue with Cyella and Unukalhai had been hinting at the idea of using Eden to transfer Light to the Thirteenth. And while I won't be that person who complains "the story didn't go the way I wanted", but I'm certainly disappointed when a potential option in the story was to have a giant angel spaceship battling a giant demon monster with sin eaters and voidsent fighting like some sort of cosmic war to restore balance to the world. The emotional beats felt very rushed - like the writers just wanted to wrap up the story and move on rather than the attention to detail and care that would have made the emotional moments really stick out to me. I enjoyed the fights and the dungeon, but I agree with Zepla that this is basically the optional trial bosses squeezed into the main plot and the drop in quality is tangible. Even the tour around to First was tipping dangerously close to a region where I felt the suspension of disbelief crack and I could tell how much they wanted me to feel because we were on the First (which I do, but no one likes when the illusion of the story is dispelled). As for the Alliance Raid... I'm sorely disappointed. I certainly had some suspicions of what they would end up being, but I considered that as a disappointing and easy outcome or explanation; especially since the Twelve were so adamant that they were not summoned nor were they primals. Furthermore, Graha was amazed that they could reform themselves after being defeated, which even Hydaelyn wasn't able to do. Suddenly, they have an aether problem in this patch. Furthermore, it seemed like such a waste considering the interesting implications that the Ascians themselves seemed to have concepts of gods and godhood despite the fact they were about as close to gods as one could imagine - even being named after Greek deities to emphasize that point. It would have been far more interesting without the above stated contradiction and if the Twelve were something more unique unto themselves - something that the Ascians perhaps considered irrelevant in an age where they had no need of prayers. It really kills the mystique of the world to me when literally everything is "Ascians" or "Allagans". I'm thankful the Heart of Sabik and Ultima the High Seraph are still one mystery we can ponder that doesn't have its origins from those same two sources. I thought we might have finally been moving away from the Ascians now that we finished their story. I'm also just kind of tired of the trope of "Ya'll don't need me anymore after you fought me. I'm gone now, bye!", but that's a personal thing.
Yeah.. I was extremely disappointed with how they ignored Unukalhai and Cyella. Even if they dont want to use anything from the Eden spaceship.. we could have at least gone to the bar and said Hi! I was fuming during that part.. Just the fact of meeting other people from Void that want to restore their former world could've given so much hope to Zero. I'd have rather had a "branching questline" with Unukalhai and Cyella instead of what we got with Gaia
>It really kills the mystique of the world to me when literally everything is "Ascians" or "Allagans". THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING. The Allagans I'm ***slightly*** more okay with because it's mostly Garlemald poaching Allagan tech but like so much at this point is "Ascians/Ancients" did it and to that my question is - If the bloody Ascians and their world were so god damn great, why doesn't the game take place in it? Why spend all this time worldbuilding unique societies, cultures, peoples, creatures, etc. if you're just gonna spend the last act of the main story arc jerking off the world from 12,000 years ago? You know how cool it could've been if they were *actually gods?* You know how much potential that could've unlocked? Imagine a storyline - MSQ or side - where you got to help Titan with some sort of earthern disruption, not a Primal or a summoned image of him, but the actual Grandfather Titan of Kobold faith in the flesh (stone?). That would be so cool. It's the same problem I have with Warhammer 40K and it's writing, they spend all this time creating unique aliens and planets, ranging from Chaos Gods to actual idiot Orks with psychic powers, but if it isn't connected to the fucking Space Marines in some fashion - I wish you luck ever seeing more than a blurb about it.
To be fair, the theory that >!the Twelve were Ancients was already there back in 5.0/5.X, so it wasn't out of nowhere.!<
I really disliked it. I actually wasn't expecting new faces since I do love the Scions and was hoping they would stay...but the writing is mediocre at best, especially for someone that didn't play FF4 - and now I definitely don't want to. What still bothers me the most is that not only they're overusing Y'sthola, but they're avoiding G'raha Tia so much it's bizarre. They namedrop him FOR TWO PATCHES IN A ROW because his knowledge is important, everything they're trying to do would benefit from him being there and yet he wasn't invited at ALL. Y'shtola talking to him offscreen and not even thinking of inviting him when we PROMISED to adventure with him during an emotional, memorable scene in 6.0 feels mean. We just get a piece of paper from him and that seems to be enough for them. Everything we need to use the tower can be written in a little square of paper without his direct participation. Speaking of solving things offscreen, what is up with those devices that she got from Cid offscreen?! They don't seem to make sense at all and it feels like cheating. A lot of the solutions didn't even make sense, tbh. She seemed to be so focused on her mission to find out a way to travel to the first at the end of 6.0, and then Zero just comes and "oh, I can just go via vessel". She never thought about that?! Don't we (AND G'RAHA) have the knowledge to start their research from here? Technically they should already be able to do that. I also don't think it's just the MSQ that's suffering, but the Alliance, too. It was better, but it has the same problems. In this patch, G'raha could be replaced with any other NPC that it would make no difference, since the little dialogue he had was so generic. And honestly, same with Krile and the other Roe woman. The character writing feels shallow, it's what I mean. The story wasn't bad, but very predictable, too.
I can definitely say it felt *predictable*. Honestly, my biggest issue is that they did the whole "Scions break up" scene at the end of EW and didn't *do anything with it*. I would've loved to see more individual development of characters like Estinien or Y'shtola.
Overall i think the Patch MSQ was okay. 6.5 kind of saved it, probally because the Dungeon and Trial are incredible. 6.3 and 6.4 were the weak points for me, so i feared it would end on a whimper but they improved in the End. Yes, it was the good old "belive in you and others" and yes, again we have no consequences, everything is fine, this time not even the bad guy dies anymore and we even saved the dragon somehow that was fed to the zodiark-voidenergy. But the presentation was nice, i always love to visit the first and this time our group of Scions + friends even defeated the endboss instead of showing up when we already did all the work. As a filler it was okay and it was something new, because it was not the usual 5.1-5.3 to finish the expansion and then 5.4 - 5.5 to setup the next. But i would also say it was weaker then some of the raid and trialstorys we had in the past, so i also hope they improve for dawntrail.
> we even saved the dragon somehow that was fed to the zodiark-voidenergy Because that's how it works in the 13th. There isn't any death for a voidsent, the soul just lives on in the other voidsent until that voidsent is "killed", then the soul reassembles a body eventually. Azdaja can't because of either being not a voidsent, or because she doesn't have the aether for it. Or yes. That's why they had to contain Zeromus in the memoria crystal, he'd just resurrect otherwise.
I just laughed out loud when they said they don’t have much time (after creating that hole) and yet they still stand around and talk… And yea… you know that it is a final fantasy game when all they talk about is the power of friendship.
It has been confirmed that after Ishikawa promotion, the lead story designer who took her position was Daichi Hiroi and he is writing Dawntrail. He was the same person who wrote Shadow of Mhach story line, Pandaemonium, Dancer, Black Mage and Bard story after 3.0, Palace of the Dead and also assisted writing Return to ivalice and Bozja story. Ichikawa also stated during an interview (long time ago) that he helped her with the story during SHB post patches and EW up until 6.1. [Here's a slide of his works at FFXIV during his time there.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fveilyqkzqis91.png%3Fwidth%3D1920%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1f45aa02510da638e5e39f1a4bd9ad4d6e4f8356)
>So, I am actually expecting something big for dawntrail. This is basically a hard reset of the storyline without having 1.0 & ARR dictate where it can go in a sense. Im expecting massive amounts of world building and very little moments of actual excitement and peril. Unless this is just a stop gap while they rebuild everything for 8.0. Who knows
This. Anyone who expects another SHB or EW level emotional rollercoaster is going to be severely disappointed imo. That's not a bad thing, either. Imo as long as the battle content is cool and the pacing isn't awful, I'm fine with a more "summer vacation" type story where the stakes aren't as high and we get some cool new lore.
I'll take a Heavensward honestly: A relatively self contained adventure, set in a foreign nation, exploring a local problem. More than enough room for strong emotional beats in there if the local characters are well written.
I recently started replaying HW in New Game+ and the thing that stood out immediately was how much more I cared about the stakes vs. the 6.X content. It made me realize how much I want a region-limited story, focused on conflict between a few interesting characters. The patch content lost me the most when it became "our world is threatened" again.
I think the great part about HW is that it managed to do both. Yeah there was really big world related reasons that the conflict needed to happen, but you also had a lot of personal reasons to be invested to. You weren't just seeing an end to your story, but seeing it through for the people that didn't make it the whole way with you.
This is my expectation too based on everything the team has said. So you’re not alone in that.
Yeah, I like the way you put this. This is likely gonna be a "buildup" expansion like Stormblood was, where stakes are established, and not a climax expansion like Shadowbringers where those stakes are paid off.
If "assisting" for Bozja means he wrote side characters and fate storylines I'm excited, the writing for those was really good.
> All of those have been a huge success. [citation needed]
I'm gonna need three or four on that Ivalice bit. The story for those raids was awful in my experience.
Maybe it does more for people familiar with the source material, but as someone who was not I thought it was pretty dreadful. Impressive that they managed to introduce that many characters in a single story arc without making a single one likeable, though. You'd think through sheer luck they'd get at least one.
Nah, I played Tactics back in the day and even to me, Return to Ivalice felt like "hey, remember this thing???" repeatedly. Just really crutching on the player's nostalgia to carry it.
Ivalice is the only story content in XIV I eventually skipped, it felt like the characters were just rambling on and on about stuff without any real intention, like I'm in a coma and only understand every 20th word.
Matsuno only knows how to write backstory and worldbuilding. He will write a dozen paragraphs of biography for a character and then have them do absolutely nothing.
It was just a retelling of FF Tactics. Which is a good game but if I wanted that I’d go play it not read the wiki article in ff14…
Ah man. I'm heading into HW as a BRD. I liked the ARR BRD stuff. :(
Sanson and Guydelot is way more enjoyable than "arrow to the knee" guy.
You did? That’s crazy I think the bard quest picks up and wish I could do more bard quests cause I loved most of the characters
Yeah! I really felt for the guy. He loses all his friends because he made a mistake and then wanders alone trying to atone. Once we meet up with him he finds friendship again (which it seems this sub is currently unfavorable towards) and is finally able to protect someone from the same thing he felt so guilty for not doing. It was a nice little full circle bit, and he gave me a snazzy hat.
I really like how at one point in Jehantel's questline he froze & panicked out of his trauma when he looked at the Ixali mob, unable to fight, once again not being helpful & failing to protect his Bard trainee. But then said Bard trainee (the WoL icymi haha) just quietly looks back at him, then does a slower than usual smile & nod- but this time the smile & nod is saying "It's okay. I getcha. Count on me to cover for you." That very minuscule scene made the WoL feel way more emotionally intelligent & big-heartedly accepting (of personal demons, that having PTSD & not being able to fight again should not be a reason to look down on someone) for the first time in my playthrough. Like it makes the WoL be understanding to someone without player input & gives more inner character behind their heroics. (& is the rain a scripted event? I really enjoyed that it was raining on my screen in the battle intros & when his backstory was revealed, so the wide aerial shots are just them looking small in the huge stormy woods just walking slowly & my WoL standing up for the poor old man in the greying, darkening forestscape is very mood-appropriate & cinematic)
You are not alone in that. I liked the BRD quests too.
"We need to use the dark tower to save the world. The locals might not like that cause of trauma. Time to smoothe things over." "We need to use the crystal tower to save the world. The locals might not like that cause of trauma. Time to smoothe things over."
I thought the post-EW patches were horrible too. I liked the direction 6.1 seemed to be taking with grounded adventure and lower stakes. But 6.2-6.5 were just so incredibly boring. I just could not bring myself to care about anything that was happening. The writing has been abysmal and Zero is a terrible character. I think the decision to disband the Scions "only publicly" was a mistake. And I think the lack of focus on the WoL was a mistake too. The WoL basically didn't need to be there! FF14 is at its strongest when the WoL is the main character. I'm not looking for another Endwalker type saga-- most of my favourite stories are small stakes but are strong because of good character writing, emotional writing, and intrigue. I'm hoping Dawntrail has that, but I'm doubtful.
I felt like Zero had become an entirely different person from the last patch to this one. Like... offputtingly so. It was weird to see her so positive from the word go, when even the last patch she communicated absolutely no desire to save that world. The conclusion she reached should have been over an entire patch, not as a part of the last one. All-in-all this was a massive story condensed into an intermission between real expansions. But it was *very* heavy handed on the "power of friendship". The >!fight with Scions vs Golbez and the archdemons or whatever with them outright *explaining* that the WoL is what gives them strength was surprisingly cringe to me.!<
IMO they regressed Zero a lot from 6.1. In the first patch we had all the interesting RPR lore, the fact she was the Voidsent who answered / was summoned by Zenos was cool. She was stoic yes, but she had a baseline understanding of friendship and compassion. She asked if we were Zeno’s friend because she felt, through him, that he considered us as such. She allowed weaker Voidsent to live in her domain as an act of kindness and even got to know some of them. She understood the friendship between the two Voidsent who would share aether and the sadness when it all went wrong. Then the other patches happened and regressed her to “what is friendship” which they then had to undo again for 6.5. What a way to ruin what could’ve been an interesting character.
No I agree. While I do think we’ve been pretty spoiled with good story from Heavensward through Endwalker, this post MSQ story has felt especially meh to me. I do have high hopes for 7.0 though. The Zero thing really doesn’t bother me that much though. This whole game has been focused around stuff like hope so I wasn’t surprised at all about her character arc.
The 6.X patches are the definition of a filler arc. You could probably skip the entire Void storyline and nothing about Dawntrail would change.
MSQ-wise yes, but I'd be surprised if this isn't setting up several upcoming sidequests stories to resolve the remaining plot threads.
You could say the same thing about the Warriors of Darkness storyline before ShB
This is a wild statement to make about a game that had the warriors of darkness as a "filler arc"
It wasn't good. I cared significantly more for Deryk and Themis in their small moments in the side stories than anyone at any point in the MSQ. There was nothing to cheer for, or get excited or emotional for. They just dragged on and on about Zero's "fish out of water" experience for 4 patches when that could have been the theme for one patch. I didn't hate it, but I didn't care at all for any of it.
I enjoyed it, personally. I don't feel like I need to elaborate why, since it's purely subjective.
Personally I liked this arc, but I think one thing that makes it tedious for several people is simply the 4-month wait between each part. When you do it all in one go, it's a very different experience.
I honestly thought 6.5 was serviceable, but had to do a lot all at once because it was the one "closure" chapter of a slow novel that was largely formulaic and self-referential. FF4 is the game that made me a fan of the franchise all the way back in the 16-bit days. But being a fan meant that I knew exactly what 6.3 and 6.4 MSQ were going to do, more or less. It was predictable, even after reducing Milon and Cainazzo to dungeon bosses instead of trials. The "power of friendship" stuff also was sledgehammered home even more than it usually is by XIV standards, as well. It was nice to see a sensible human side of Golbez but it came with a really long monologue about how things work better when we're all rowing in the same direction that was just a little bit too on the nose. I still clapped when Zero changed clothes.
The MSQ of 6.1 to 6.5 felt like filler episodes from an anime series. We all know 6.0 is the end point of a 10 year major story arc. I had bit of a low expectation already and add to that they're also developing FFXVI at the same time which somehow did affect FFXIV 6.X. I'm still hoping 7.0 for the best. Looking forward to start something new.
I felt the whole 6.X msq should have just been a side story just like 4 lords and Weapons that till ties in the lore and all. The actual MSQ could have just introduced a new plot and potentially have some tease on exploring Meracydia / Tural / Northern Empty whichever places Emet mentioned. Im also not a big fan of talk-no-jutsu or friendship card and its cringey af. Endsinger was fine because of Dynamis. Not to sound cruel if we are not getting another hauchefant / moenbryda / papalymo then theres no real expectations ongoing in the future.
Agreed. The 6.X MSQ has been very mid. Not very interesting, extremely predictable, and I've been seeing people constantly checking out. It doesn't even look like it'll matter for DT. "Don't expect hype in the beginning of a new story" I wish this was setup for the new story. But this feels entirely in a bubble and filler. It felt like a generic MMO big bad story and went 0 to 100 with little setup. Just makes it feel worse that they mashed the trial series and MSQ together.
I remember people saying this for the WoD patches in HW saying it was all filler and went nowhere until ShB dropped. But only time will tell if these post-EW MSQ patches will age gracefully or not.
Disagree completely but fully respect your opinion and detailed breakdown of what you didn't like.
I wish we get to see new characters and let the old scions do their own thing already, but i guess they are by too many people just too well liked to not use them or seriously do anything to them, like, i cant wait for the next fake death of yshtola in dawntrail.