some random thoughts on Square Enix's approach to story telling, or maybe more like story progression? in FFXIV. Especially as it pertains to new players, and the business and attracting new players.
I saw a post about a poor new player, who had brought a skip to SHB (because that was 'the good part') and disappointed because they did not understand what was going on. And as most people point out - yes this is how ffxiv works. You need the whole story to get the impact, and yes we can have a discussion of why the fandom dumps on ARR or HW or STB and yes it sucks, and these parts are in fact overall - good!
However, as someone who picked up the game a few years ago (late 2022) and it took me until this April to finish Endwalker (almost 3 years!) there are some interesting design choice in this sort of story telling.
yes, I am a slow gamer, but I'm not the only one out there with a life and family and demanding job - or other hobbies and other games. FFXIV can become an allconsuming endeavor, and especially there is an immense pressure to finish the MSQ - intentional or not, it's hard to "participate" in fandom when you're behind.
In addition, most traditional mmo gameplay revolves around the endgame. Not just raiding, but also taking part in various content such as the sanctuary island, relics, bonus areas, and also crafting the latest gear everyone wants. But really - the thing a MMO does that is not typically in other games is the raiding.
Now, SE has made the point to NOT race new people to the endgame - even if in the community you feel that pressure. Level and story skips can be brought, but they're extras and not something pushed on new players. Compare to WoW - which I haven't played in years and years to be fair - often included free level boosts when you return or join the game. Even if I'm not sure what goes on in the story today, it makes sense. The world changes, gets broken and unbroken, and the character changes and moves forward - even when I played. And they make it so a new player jumps into the world 'now' not 'then' - the quests I did in 2005 may not exist anymore.
Square Enix has taken a very different approach. The story they want to tell, depends on the story that came before. The Warrior of Light is not the Warrior of Light, unless they go through what they do. There is no point - at least until Endwalker - where you can "jump in" and join the story in the way it's written. I think this is a interesting choice, because it does mean that story can feel grander and more personal at the same time (the scions are important since they've been around so long), but I think from a business perspective it truly has come to point where I'm wondering if this no longer makes sense, and hampers the game.
When a new player joins, they are asked to go through 10 years of content - otherwise the story is just not impactful. The truth is for me, if the crafting system had not been so unique and fun to me, I'd have quit. Or perhaps if I wasn't trying to make and keep a fun friend group who all played (though that fell apart anyways - another story) I'd have quit. If I was only there for the story, there are many other games with better stories, that doesn't require me to use 2+ years to get to the conclusion. But, there are many of the mmo parts of ffxiv that are pretty well done, even for someone who is not a raider.
I think however, it's too much to ask new players to do. And as the expansions keep coming, it will get harder and harder for ffxiv and SE to attract new players. There will always be a dropoff in old players, retaining current players will not be enough.
I think ffxiv is too afraid to change the world (and the characters - but character development or lack thereof is a different topic). Why can we still go to Elpis? To Ultima Thule (which only exist because Thancred's will, but he came back). One of the reasons SHB is so good is that it actually dares to change the environment! But again, it's on a per-player basis. There's not a change that applies to all players. The world is not moving forward. The twins are perpetually stuck on a chocobo wagon.
with that all said, I think Dawntrail was missed opportunity for a soft reset. Endwalker was the end of the story. Even the patch storyline was it's own little arch, and frankly more related to shadowbringers imho.
I am currently at the end of Dawntrail, and I admit I love it. It's really fun, it's back half is paced well, and the story keeps moving to new places.
I LIKE that the wol is more of a bystander, this is not the wol's story. This is Wuk Lamat's story. And I thin it works really really well - but I almost wish they'd gone harder. It could have made a great entry into the game for new players, if they'd dared. Just offer a story and level skip to 90 with the expansion.
and maybe, maybe we could have a changed world - other than an instance in HW and Doman - why is there still garlean military machines in Ala Mhigo? why is the Dravinians attacking in Coerthas?
It's time for the world to change; to bring in new players. To jostle up the old ones (do you really want to be a game where all people do is log in to go to parties and play dress up?)
where someone buys a story skip to a more or less arbitrary point in the game and is utterly confused? and all people do is to say. Sorry bud. That's not how it works. Go back and spend 2 years then you can play with us.
Most of the magic taught in the Circles is woefully inefficient if not blatantly inaccurate. Students are trained to use big, wasteful movements, loud chanting, and casting techniques that glow and use as much mana as possible. Artificial limitations are everywhere like ‘spirit bolts have a 20-yard range limit,’ ‘Ice is inefficient against armoured opponents,’ and ‘lightning can’t be cast indoors’ which is all bullshit, but since magic is tied to belief, in the hands of a Mage who believes spirit bolts fizzle out after 20 yards, they will do exactly that.
Even discounting the magic, the Circles are very strange places. Insular communities populated by people under constant observation who never see the sun. None of them has any family, the only children are strangers brought in from other circles and treated like tiny adults. The population is always small and will shrink at random and they all pretend not to know why. Every Circle develops its own, utterly incomprehensible-to-strangers culture just to cope. Telling magical ritual apart from bizarre personal activities is harder than you’d think and new transfer Templars tend to be jumpy until they learn what’s deemed normal here and what’s not.
The Chantries attached to the circles are also weird as the void. They’re disconnected from the rest of Thedas and attended solely by Templars and mages, and tend to develop splinter theologies just to deal with the internal pressures bubbling in the congregation. Half of then would get excommunicated if any Chantry higher-ups ever bothered to check on them. Getting sent to serve a Circle Chantry is a death sentence for an ambitious Chantry Sister’s career.
The magic of hedge mages tends to be significantly stranger than circle trained mages, simply due to the freedom to experiment and develop their own techniques and limitations. As magic is impossibly vast and framed by point of view, the self-taught are often capable of feats that the learned old masters will swear are impossible. There are multiple ways to cast almost everything, but only one method is ever chantry approved.
Given the nature of the fade and the sheer amount of pain and fear pervading the Circles, they are, without exception, haunted as fuck. The Kirkwall Gallows is by far the worst. The old harrowing room is now used a storage room where only tranquil go because the disembodied whispers are so loud. The tranquil don’t seem to mind. There’s another room where anyone who enters will immediately walk back out again with no idea why they wanted to enter in the first place. Getting sent to go in and retrieve a long lost bottle of whiskey is a hazing ritual among the younger Templars. If you press your ear to the walls in the cellar you will always hear muffled screaming in the next room. There is no next room.
Vivienne is absurdly powerful for a Circle mage. Her knight commander has been trying to trip her up for years, convinced she was too strong, she couldn’t possibly be using the correct techniques, only to repeatedly be confronted with the fact that she’s following every rule to the letter. She’s just Like That. She was wily enough that none of his accusations stuck before she could gain the protection of more important people, and she walked out of the Circle to go live in a noble’s manor with scowling Templars trying to burn holes in the back of her head. It was the proudest day of her life.
Solas’ techniques are so utterly removed from everything the modern mages do that they can’t recognise what he’s casting until they see the result. Even the simplest things are incomprehensible to them, and, unusually for a hedge mage, incredibly wasteful of mana. His skill progression in Inquisition is learning how to do things he could already do without using the entirety of his now meagre reserves and knocking himself out. The first time he met Cassandra he miscast a low-level shield and passed out from the blowback. It convinced her that he was well-learned in theory but of little actual ability which is why she trusted him so readily.
we have to control ADHD medication because it's additive!!
me, discovering kiddo has not taken his meds this morning. Rushing to school with it, because I know he says how unfocused he feels without it - and he has a testing thing today
kid, insisting that he did take it, regardless of me seeing the pill of the day not taken: did not take his meds
me, double checking when I come home from the number of pills: pretty sure he didn't take it
but. We have to control his medication and you can only have a 3 days overlap on a 30 days prescription!
in the age of AIs and scraping and binge watching and ever-growing pressure to become a content creator, an influencer, an "how-many-followers-do-you-have"; I think I'm going to have to make a choice.
and my choice, my promise to myself is this; I will find unbridled joy in creation. I will love the things I make, because I made them. I will not worry about the time, or the efficiency, or whether I create enough. I will create out of love. I will find joy in what my friends, my acquaintances, strangers across the world are creating. On their own time; freely given out of love.
In the end I'm going to choose not to let it get to me, not to let it matter, how the world cycles and churns a grinds.
so with me being away the whole summer, the real question is if I will come back and be missing my perfect girl (tm) and dying to play through endwalker and dawntrail (aka NEW THINGS TO CRAFT) or if I will be yanked out of MMO madness and never return OR if there will be enough dreadwolf promotional content for me to miss my perfect asshole elf bf (tm) to only want to think about dragon age again
have not been able to get the image of Meryta wearing nothing but Tansui's haori sitting on his bed with a smirk out of my head since I thought about it
I do not want to use mods and I ALSO don't want to build a whole room/area as I envision
maybe it is really time to learn to draw, it would probably be fun and also something great for all sort of things not just one fandom
sees a poll about art process I don't understand half the steps
OR maybe not learn to draw LMAO artists you are all so magical
