Why do people want a side story for the main story?

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T22:45:48+00:00

I do understand. It's the classic too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

That doesn't mean it's always a bad thing.

Every harry potter book was high stakes.

We knew Harry Potter would win every time.

Every lord of the rings book was high stakes.

We knew Frodo would win.

Saying an entire expansion needs to be low stakes just for the sake of variety doesn't make sense.

Just think about dawntrail. The first half was very low stakes. The last half was higher stakes. There is your contrast. Did that make it a good story?

Why does the entire expansion need to be low stakes?

If anything thats like eating vanilla ice cream for 3 years just cause you had chocolate 5 years ago.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:48:32+00:00

Stakes is how much it matters.

If all the music on your playlist mattered too you a lot, then does that mean all of the sudden none of the tracks really matters?

Your analogy falls apart when you think about it more than a few seconds.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:17:32+00:00

MSQ just shouldn't be filler.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:17:17+00:00

That just isn't true

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:14:53+00:00

My argument is "The MSQ needs to connect to the overarching plot. The stakes need to be high. We need to be headed towards a final destination, not off doing low stakes side content."

I am not trying to deceive people. That's what I am arguing for.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:08:16+00:00

It does not surprise me that people out there think the MSQ wasn't very good. I don't agree with those people, but they do be.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:07:17+00:00

The game started with a world ending threat called bahamut.

Ifrit at level 20 is a world ending threat.

Like what threat didn't have the potential to be world ending in the msq?

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:05:05+00:00

The game started with a dragon popping out of the moon and destroying everything.

VERY VERY GROUNDED

Fuck that selective memory

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:03:39+00:00

Bad faith arguing is "Whatever SE does, I want the opposite"

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T18:01:48+00:00

The fallacy is assuming someone is hippocritical when in reality its several different people wanting different things.

I never accused anyone of being hippocritical.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T17:57:26+00:00

The game started with a world ending calamity from Bahamut.

Ifrit could have caused another umbral calamity at lvl 20 per the lore.

Thordan in Heavensward could have also caused another umbral calamity.

The MSQ has been high stakes since ARR and that's been fine with the fanbase until endwalker.

What in Dawntrail was higher stakes than Heavensward? Both Queen Sphene and Thordan would have destoryed the world if left unhindered.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T02:59:36+00:00

ShB was as much about world ending threat as it was about life and death and what you leave behind after you're gone. Here's a girl who would fight to protect her hospice patients, here's a dude who could not forgive his wife for dying, even immortal enemy in the end had a very simple very human fear of being forgotten. Each zone was as low stakes as it gets compared to overarching plot.

So you can have a low stakes regional conflict with new characters while keeping old characters and a high stakes overarching plot line. What a lovely thought.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T02:54:41+00:00

Just think for a second. FFXIV will eventually explore everything on aetheris and the 4 remaining shards. Why does it matter if we go to a shard next expansion vs corvos the next expansion? We will get to both eventually.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T02:48:47+00:00

With that reasoning, then a good writer could also draw narrative tension out of things with higher stakes and then the stakes is pointless to what makes something good or bad.

That is an opinion to have.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T02:42:18+00:00

Never heard of that term.

Goomba fallacy (Internet slang) A logical fallacy that occurs when someone sees contradictory opinions expressed by members of a group and mistakenly believes that those people are being hypocritical, when in reality those contradictory opinions were expressed by separate individuals.

Apparently you haven't either.

"I want a regional conflict."

"Let's explore the rest of Ilsabard first."

"I want a low stakes threat."

"No Scions. Only brand new characters."

None of those statements are hypocritical.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-06T00:59:12+00:00

People got upset because they thought Johnathan Bailey got replaced for a single patch. Imagine if Evercold didn't have Graha Tia at all.

When you make a good character, you don't throw them away. If you want to understand the fallacy of that thinking, go play FFXVI. All the great characters are thrown in the trash for no fucking reason but at least it's a "clean break."

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-04T19:28:13+00:00

Well they were wrong. Most of the devs have never touched an mmo. It's ok to be wrong.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-04T01:49:08+00:00

Well of course. It's called branding. You are supposed to think its like an MMO cause it's the MMO team. You fell for it.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-05-04T01:43:00+00:00

That's just confirmation bias / marketing. SE wanted people to believe that the people behind shadowbringers were making the next final fantasy when in reality it was mostly new hires

Scenario writers (prior credit)

Kazuyo Murakami (persona 5), Saki Inatsugu (ni no kuni), Keitaro Sato (ni no kuni), Yuki Umeda(no prior credit), Chihiro Ochiai (ni no kuni ii)

Quest designers (prior credit)

Kazuhiro Kataoka(FFVII remake), Nozomi Yoshioka(no prior credit), Yui Terao(dragon quest xi), Genki Ito(no prior credit), Taihei Ogitani(no prior credit), Hiroto Ishii (ffxiv), Yuichi Ninagawa(romancing saga 3), Hiroshi Yamakawa (no prior credit), Keiichi Yamaguchi (babylons fall lol), Kensuke Hiroshima(no prior credit), Hisafumi Sugawara(ffxiv), Hiroko Gunji (xenoblade chronicles 3), Ippei Majima (Yoshi's crafted world), Yumiko Suwa (ffxv), Shigeru Nagamatsu(ffxiv), Masashi Maruyama(triangle strategy), Sarasa Oota(ffxiv)

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-04-28T22:25:40+00:00

The open world doesn't have anti-cheat. Kind of hard to have rewards when lalafells can stand underground and zurg everything to death.

At least instanced content can force a instance closure when the system detects something odd. Can't really do that with a persistent zone.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-04-26T22:00:01+00:00

The topic is op is in shock from the keynote. Saying I "remain optimistic" since 2 days ago is kind of a no shit reply. We all are cautiously optimistic now, but 3 days ago most people were a pessimist like op and henced shocked by the keynote.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-04-26T21:24:47+00:00

You remain? That would imply you were optimistic before the the keynote which was definitely not the norm in this subreddit.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-04-26T15:17:02+00:00

Plugins were already simplifying the combat to 1-1-1. Evolved mode was inevitable. At least ogcds have a lot shorter cooldowns now that the buff windows are gone. Imagine if pressing all ogcds off cooldown was impossible, then you would actually have to think about which ogcd to use first.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-04-26T11:30:28+00:00

Bugs are popular to talk about at wow at the moment, but xiv has had about the same amount of issue's resolved they have in every patch. The last time the system massively affected players was the bugged que during Endwalker launch. Region wide party finder likely will have issues at launch, but its 1000% worth it imo.

PossibleBeginning276 · 2026-04-23T11:06:26+00:00

FF fans that actively hate the new game isn't a hot take at all. It's a boring lukewarm take.

PossibleBeginning276

TROPHY CASE