Had fun with the Trial and final tier of Pandæmonium! As far as story stuff goes though... well, spoilers under the cut. I'm doing my best to be polite, but I won't pretend there isn't a good bit of frustration and disappointment.
Pandæmonium's story was okay! As always, I'm a little weary about how overly clean FFXIV's writing tends to be sometimes. Nothing's allowed to be left ambiguous or unfinished, unless it pertains to the relationship status of an NPC. Villains often end up troubled, had good intentions all along, were under the influence of something, etc. Any potentially shitty NPC gets to turn around and/or be forgiven if they're not killed off! It's all gotta be tied in a neat little bow!
I'm not saying these can't be done well, but it's done so regularly in this game! I am grasping the devs by the shoulders and assuring them that it's ok to sometimes just have a shitty, evil guy! We're here to support women's wrongs! You can leave some stuff to be ambiguous and let the players fill in the blanks however they desire! Honestly I liked it better when we didn't know what the Ancients looked like.
(Unfortunately, I do understand that this is likely a symptom of this being a long ongoing MMO where the story is not handled by one single writer. Game development is hell, things sometimes get trimmed or changed to meet deadlines or avoid issues. I'm sure they have some kind of protocol where they need as clean a slate as possible before moving on so no one trips over something major, but likeee... you know?? You know???)
That said, all in all, it was an ok raid story for me!
The MSQ, though.
Throughout the entirety of this, I was just thinking, "Man, I'm glad FF16 is done. I'm sure the devs being pulled between that and updating old content isn't doing FF14 any favors." It feels like we've been extremely in filler town, the plot this time around just kept dragging its feet. The Garleans continue to be written unsympathetically! We've gotta baby Zero about the power of friendship! We still have not resolved the goings-on with the Fiends and Vrtra's sister!
Like, surely we're... going to the Thirteenth next expansion? That'll be our thing?? They put in little threads of someone seeking out the scions, I guess?? But 6.5 is going to have to do some monstrously heavy lifting to lead us onto the next big story, however this pans out.
It's a shame, because I really enjoy how the cutscenes have been steadily punched up with nicer animations, subtle expressions, etc. (The sweat tech, lmao.) But... it just felt like a waste on this slow, ambling continuation of how things have been.
