What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

What could they even throw at us with our current power level that could be remotely threatening?

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WoL isn't bulletproof. You can point a gun at them from behind and they'd have to stick their hands up. You could drug/poison them, have them escape traps in temples, threaten to drop them over a pit of spikes.

We beat the Endsinger because of the nature of Ultima Thule as a place where thoughts and emotions can become reality. They're not going to be tanking extinction events left and right at home.

Heck, you can threaten WoL but not threatening them directly but by threatening something they're trying to protect. People, a place, something needed to unlock something. There's plenty of ways to ratchet up stakes even if they're tough enough to handle almost anyone 1v1.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

WoL isn't bulletproof. You can point a gun at them from behind and they'd have to stick their hands up. You could drug/poison them, have them escape traps in temples, threaten to drop them over a pit of spikes.

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That will surely happen. I mean it's not like characters, say the Exarch or Ryne can get shot and survive easily. The writing already told us that we are stupid for caring for consequences.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

We beat the Endsinger because of the nature of Ultima Thule as a place where thoughts and emotions can become reality. They're not going to be tanking extinction events left and right at home.

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Don't worry they will come up with a new Deus-Ex-Machina for the next "god"!

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

Heck, you can threaten WoL but not threatening them directly but by threatening something they're trying to protect. People, a place, something needed to unlock something. There's plenty of ways to ratchet up stakes even if they're tough enough to handle almost anyone 1v1.

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We can travel through space and time and have access to a place that can create life and matter out of emotions. Ultima Thule to bring back the deceased? Since we are so powerful who will dare to cross us? How will they threaten us? Even back when the Garleans took Minfillia in she was fine for several quests. Just chillin' with the enemy. Capturing a friend will just be a vacation for them.

I'm personally in the camp of the WoL somehow getting depowered and being more of an adventurer. Bozja and Zadnor was probably the only content where I felt invested. Just a guy doing what he can and personally I'd love it if the story felt more... grounded.

Actually thinking on it, I was never a fan of being the one to solve every problem that ever existed, I feel like there's just no stakes... everything works itself out eventually. I want there to be losses, big ones. I want to just do adventurer stuff, I don't always want to be the main character capable if fixing every crisis.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

Heck, you can threaten WoL but not threatening them directly but by threatening something they're trying to protect. People, a place, something needed to unlock something. There's plenty of ways to ratchet up stakes even if they're tough enough to handle almost anyone 1v1.

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Are they? I mean, most of the WoL's fights involved being part of a team - usually Adventurers or the Scions. Rarely did they face a foe 1v1 - and one, (in)famous example of when they did was Zenos in 'In Crimson It Began' - and he kicked our ass!

And I certainly got the impression that the WoL wouldn't have beaten the Endsinger 1 on 1 if it had come to that.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Zenos in 'In Crimson It Began' - and he kicked our ass!

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We kicked his ass now though. With our "new" dynamis powers!

Also i don't see why we won't have WoL from the crystal again. If in the future we have to fight alone the writers better make a good explanation as to why. We can summon those crystal WoL, we have a ton of friends and dynamis on our side. Will we ever truly fight alone again? Add the fact that the story is about friendship and i don't think we will have a serious, not a training, fight alone. To dig the hole deeper: if a new antagonist is somehow stronger than us then please explain why we have been told to be the bestest in everything since pretty much the beginning. We also have crystal mommy super powers. Why and how should anyone even be stronger?

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Are they? I mean, most of the WoL's fights involved being part of a team - usually Adventurers or the Scions. Rarely did they face a foe 1v1 - and one, (in)famous example of when they did was Zenos in 'In Crimson It Began' - and he kicked our ass!

And I certainly got the impression that the WoL wouldn't have beaten the Endsinger 1 on 1 if it had come to that.

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Agreed. I don't really get why people go on with takes like what you responded to. We even have a macguffin summon item explicitly to prevent doing things alone ever again.

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Originally Posted by BRVV

We kicked his ass now though. With our "new" dynamis powers!

Also i don't see why we won't have WoL from the crystal again. If in the future we have to fight alone the writers better make a good explanation as to why. We can summon those crystal WoL, we have a ton of friends and dynamis on our side.

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We don't always have dynamis power as strong as it was in Ultima Thule. That was a special place with it's own laws of reality which even Zenos was bound by. We're not going to have that level of dynamis strength unless we go into another area filled with/composed of the stuff.

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Originally Posted by BRVV

We kicked his ass now though. With our "new" dynamis powers!

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Oh honey, we kicked his ass in Ala Mhigo without them, AND kicked his ass while he was possessing Shinryu.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Oh honey, we kicked his ass in Ala Mhigo without them, AND kicked his ass while he was possessing Shinryu.

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Well at least we lost twice before! With NPCs dieing and us winning in the end because... we leveled up enough. Screw strategy!

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Are they? I mean, most of the WoL's fights involved being part of a team - usually Adventurers or the Scions. Rarely did they face a foe 1v1 - and one, (in)famous example of when they did was Zenos in 'In Crimson It Began' - and he kicked our ass!

And I certainly got the impression that the WoL wouldn't have beaten the Endsinger 1 on 1 if it had come to that.

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Well, yeah. I did say almost anyone. And they're happy to fight alongside others and call-in backup if needed. It just means that WoL isn't invincible and is willing to rely on others to help them. Which only supports my point that "There's no stakes after we beat the Endsinger" is just silly.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

"There's no stakes after we beat the Endsinger" is just silly.

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Ever heard of vertical progression? Guess you will be thrilled to fight a random bandit after we defeated the devil, god mommy and entropy.

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Originally Posted by BRVV

Ever heard of vertical progression? Guess you will be thrilled to fight a random bandit after we defeated the devil, god mommy and entropy.

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I mean, WoL will be fighting random bandits every now and then because that's their job as an adventurer. And if they're careless they can be stabbed from behind. They've been caught off guard before and have suffered for it (see Fandaniel's kidnapping or being unable to save Ahewann because they were too busy fighting other Terminus Beasts).

Look at Aymeric. He survived a battle with one of Hraesvelgr's strongest children but nearly got done-in by a random civilian with a knife.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

I mean, WoL will be fighting random bandits every now and then because that's their job as an adventurer. And if they're careless they can be stabbed from behind. They've been caught off guard before and have suffered for it (see Fandaniel's kidnapping or being unable to save Ahewann because they were too busy fighting other Terminus Beasts).

Look at Aymeric. He survived a battle with one of Hraesvelgr's strongest children but nearly got done-in by a random civilian with a knife.

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Its basically how like Goku who's basically god level in terms of power, but can be easily hurt if he gets caught off guard such as when some bandit shot him and he bled, and the one time when Krillin threw a small pebble at his head while he was sleeping and it hurt him.

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Originally Posted by Millybonk

• The mighty Zodiark, which has been build up as this mighty(evil) entity over several expansions, turns out to be nothing but filler trash for the first Endwalker trial
• The true cause of the Final Days is a pet-project from an ancient which goes mad after observing countless dead world and possibly causing the death of several world by projecting negative emotions unto them, and is thus dead-set on bringing despair to every world, upon which said ancient goes mad and is now letting her run her course to test humanity if they can withstand/fight despair
• Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

Really?
This is the best SQ could do in terms of story after ShB?

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Naw bruh the real story just beginning just hop on twitter and read the dumpster fire. There :D Hermes knew what he was doing was saving us from ourselves XD just look at the ff14 forums and the negativity. I think Endwalker did good in its story telling...maybe we should've sided with meteion and emit selch on this on.

I'm not even bothering with the MSQ anymore.

Pandaemonium

Guys, I think I hate it.

Am I more tired than I thought, or was that as big a mess as it felt like it was?

I really hope that

Zeromus

goes to town and eats all of the 13th, and we have to fight a planet sized Voidsent in 6.5

Also, yes, Lunaxia, the Pandy raids were as much of a mess as you felt. One giant mess of tomfoolery.

Ah! Reassuring. Thank you. Truth be told, I've been pretty exhausted by a series of IRL events recently and the ending was such a... Well, That Happened moment, that I struggled to believe it was actually as bad as it was.

My expectations were low, truly. I just had a feeling somehow. But somewhere between the Puella Magi Magical Goth Fairy and "aliens did it" I felt my sanity called into question.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I really hope that

Zeromus

goes to town and eats all of the 13th, and we have to fight a planet sized Voidsent in 6.5

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I hope Zeromus eat the entirety of Hydaelyn at this point, because I think it's the only way I could hope to reconcile myself with any part of the story whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

Ah! Reassuring. Thank you. Truth be told, I've been pretty exhausted by a series of IRL events recently and the ending was such a... Well, That Happened moment, that I struggled to believe it was actually as bad as it was.

My expectations were low, truly. I just had a feeling somehow. But somewhere between the Puella Magi Magical Goth Fairy and "aliens did it" I felt my sanity called into question.



I hope Zeromus eat the entirety of Hydaelyn at this point, because I think it's the only way I could hope to reconcile myself with any part of the story whatsoever.

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You have such weird standards if you think just erasing everything somehow makes the writing good. Its such a pre-teen edgelord comment to make

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

You have such weird standards if you think just erasing everything somehow makes the writing good. Its such a pre-teen edgelord comment to make

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It's also what is commonly referred to as a joke.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

It's also what is commonly referred to as a joke.

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Probably shouldnt quit their day job if thats the material theyre going with

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Probably shouldnt quit their day job if thats the material theyre going with

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It's not quite up to the standards of ripping story material straight from other games or using ancient space rocks as a Chekhov's gun to bludgeon character development to death, but I'm trying my best.

My sole thought at the end of Pandaemonium was "Am I supposed to feel good about any of this?".

I already had a bad feeling once the first tier was confirmed to be in the past, and while the story was interesting, I had a nagging hunch there was no way anyone was getting a happy ending, but hoped I'd at least be able to end it with a clean conscience by telling the truth to Themis and company instead of just acting to maintain history's twisted course; especially because the law of causality dictates that we literally can't change the future and fate would either conspire to keep things the same, or we'd spawn an alternate universe while our own timeline remains unchanged.

Themis opts for willful ignorance so he could continue to feel good about us despite having even more reason to hate us after knowing of our involvement in the past and Ericthonios consigns himself to a lonely solitude in Pandaemonium until the day he died in the Sundering out of duty to his people and no amount of praise and comforting words from them is going to keep me feeling like my WoL was a terrible person for not telling them anything to try to spare them from cruel fate.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

It's also what is commonly referred to as a joke.

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You say that, but remember certain posters here will make comments like that and 100% mean it. They're also the reason why criticism on the game/story isn't taken seriously a lot.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

It's also what is commonly referred to as a joke.

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https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca88...5foQMdLX5Q6mTQ

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

My sole thought at the end of Pandaemonium was "Am I supposed to feel good about any of this?".

I already had a bad feeling once the first tier was confirmed to be in the past, and while the story was interesting, I had a nagging hunch there was no way anyone was getting a happy ending, but hoped I'd at least be able to end it with a clean conscience by telling the truth to Themis and company instead of just acting to maintain history's twisted course; especially because the law of causality dictates that we literally can't change the future and fate would either conspire to keep things the same, or we'd spawn an alternate universe while our own timeline remains unchanged.

Themis opts for willful ignorance so he could continue to feel good about us despite having even more reason to hate us after knowing of our involvement in the past and Ericthonios consigns himself to a lonely solitude in Pandaemonium until the day he died in the Sundering out of duty to his people and no amount of praise and comforting words from them is going to keep me feeling like my WoL was a terrible person for not telling them anything to try to spare them from cruel fate.

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I felt it heading the same way (Pandaemonium spoiler)

When we were sent to the past again near the end I wrote in the private instance /say the entire history of what would happen to them and asked Elidibus to promise to save everyone.

Silly and sentimental perhaps, but the RP value for me at least meant that my WoL is still my WoL, she wouldn't have let it all come to pass without trying to warn of the final days and Venat killing everyone they loved.

Split timelines are possible in the story, I'd rather headcannon that a better future may yet be possible for them even if I never see it in the game.

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Originally Posted by Minnel

Yeah, I think they really did Zodiark dirty. He was this epic evil-god figure, until EW hit and he became a muppet.

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I wanted to meet Zodiark so much since Shadowbringers.............
Not only did they do Zodiark dirty....... I wasn't even done fuming and being disappointed how his ark ended and they threw Leporitto in our faces as if it all was a joke.
Unfortunately as somebody who LOVES FFXIV story more than anything in the world of stories......... THAT hit me harder than ANYTHING the story threw at us before....
And sadly that resulted me into disliking the moon allies......... and I still dislike them. Surely they are cute.... But they were introduced when I wasn't emotionally ready for it.
That's what made me--regardless how it ended--dislike Endwalker more than any expansion this game released. My favourite was Stormblood. (ARR is not an expansion, we don't talk about 1.0!)

And then made it emo.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

My sole thought at the end of Pandaemonium was "Am I supposed to feel good about any of this?".

I already had a bad feeling once the first tier was confirmed to be in the past, and while the story was interesting, I had a nagging hunch there was no way anyone was getting a happy ending, but hoped I'd at least be able to end it with a clean conscience by telling the truth to Themis and company instead of just acting to maintain history's twisted course; especially because the law of causality dictates that we literally can't change the future and fate would either conspire to keep things the same, or we'd spawn an alternate universe while our own timeline remains unchanged.

Themis opts for willful ignorance so he could continue to feel good about us despite having even more reason to hate us after knowing of our involvement in the past and Ericthonios consigns himself to a lonely solitude in Pandaemonium until the day he died in the Sundering out of duty to his people and no amount of praise and comforting words from them is going to keep me feeling like my WoL was a terrible person for not telling them anything to try to spare them from cruel fate.

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These points were the only points about the raid I didn't like. There is enough wiggle room for me to at least pretend that there was an offshoot from the stupid time loop where things ended differently. I will continue to believe that something changed whether I'm told otherwise or not because with all the meddling we did in the past, things not ending differently somewhere seem entirely unlikely.

Over all I was generally okay with the raid story. It was just...okay. I feel elements in the raid were handled much better than in Endwalker itself including lore elements. There feels less shoehorning and less subverting expectations just to do it. There were two things I really appreciated with it though:

The first being when Laha asked if they managed to deal with despair and there was no dialogue option and his response being "it's a complicated answer". This is the best that could have been done. It is a complicated answer because I feel they did "whether through despair" but a certain someone thought it wasn't good enough. Not everyone is going to react to tragedy or stress the same way. Endwalker stating there's a "correct" way to react to tragedy completely completely undermines people with depression, anxiety, past trauma, etc. and I did not appreciate that. the raids I feel handles it a bit better by giving no dialogue option to pick from, just "it's complicated".

the other point is that Elidibus's soul did not burn up with him opening a time portal as people suspected. I'm happy about that, though his last times are weird and and wanting to know what they were outside of English. It seems like there may be a continuation, or a warning for the future.

I'm half asleep, but I wanted to get my thoughts out before I forgot or felt like not bothering anymore. I'm actually reading the forums from home for a change and not pre-typing this up at work.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

My expectations were low, truly. I just had a feeling somehow. But somewhere between the Puella Magi Magical Goth Fairy and "aliens did it" I felt my sanity called into question.

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I think the heart came from a meteor or "falling star" since they mentioned it came from another star.

This text limit needs to be increased, tired of having to edit everything I post.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

You say that, but remember certain posters here will make comments like that and 100% mean it. They're also the reason why criticism on the game/story isn't taken seriously a lot.

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I have not seen a single person on this forum who cares about the story and doesn't criticize it.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

What could they even throw at us with our current power level that could be remotely threatening?

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- Pincer movement force WoL to commit to one front and sacrifice the other
- Natural Disasters
- Sickness, Pestilence
- Societal Collapse
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Assassination during sleep or meal
- Betrayal

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

What could they even throw at us with our current power level that could be remotely threatening?

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6.4 MSQ

Apparently Zeromus counts despite being made from a singular shard of Zodiark and an exhausted dragon when we trounced the actual Zodiark functioning at a little above half his full strength.

It's kind of made me expect that the writers just don't care about power scaling anymore and will simply continue to have us being as strong/competant as is actually needed for narrative tension despite that taking much, much more suspension of disbelief post-EW.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

I have not seen a single person on this forum who cares about the story and doesn't criticize it.

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Now you have. I loved all of it, the final scenes with Lahabrea were perfect.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

6.4 MSQ

Apparently Zeromus counts despite being made from a singular shard of Zodiark and an exhausted dragon when we trounced the actual Zodiark functioning at a little above half his full strength.

It's kind of made me expect that the writers just don't care about power scaling anymore and will simply continue to have us being as strong/competant as is actually needed for narrative tension despite that taking much, much more suspension of disbelief post-EW.

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Correction.

An exhausted dragon who just got the other half of her missing power back and was transformed into a really powerful Voidsent.

did all the zodiark trancers leave after their discord was exposed?

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Correction.

An exhausted dragon who just got the other half of her missing power back and was transformed into a really powerful Voidsent.

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That was subsequently beaten and exhausted after our fight with Golbez. Not like we haven't found Dragon enemies before with Nidhogg and Shinryu and even if they had 1/13 of Zodiarcs power infused into them, we already beat at 7/13 fused version of Zodiarc and I doubt a single Dragon of the 1st Brood would be able to make up the power gap between 1/13 and 7/13.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

That was subsequently beaten and exhausted after our fight with Golbez. Not like we haven't found Dragon enemies before with Nidhogg and Shinryu and even if they had 1/13 of Zodiarcs power infused into them, we already beat at 7/13 fused version of Zodiarc and I doubt a single Dragon of the 1st Brood would be able to make up the power gap between 1/13 and 7/13.

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We don't know how many Voidsent Golbez has been feeding Zeromus, if any. Keep in mind that Dragon Eyes are ridiculously powerful, as we saw with Nidhogg (where we needed our own eye from Hraesvelgr to be on equal ground) and Shinryu (having been a primal made of hatred AND the eyes).

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

That was subsequently beaten and exhausted after our fight with Golbez. Not like we haven't found Dragon enemies before with Nidhogg and Shinryu and even if they had 1/13 of Zodiarcs power infused into them, we already beat at 7/13 fused version of Zodiarc and I doubt a single Dragon of the 1st Brood would be able to make up the power gap between 1/13 and 7/13.

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It's not just a matter of power scaling but also location. We literally cannot kill it in the 13th because it won't stay dead. We've also never seen how a being of that power is effected by the rebirth nature of the 13th either. It could be more or less unstable so we really don't know what will or won't happen to whatever entities are inside in, notably the dragon. Reasons why Y'shtola is plotting to fight it on another shard where we can both kill it and better control for what happens to the dragon afterwards.

Edit: Also the warding scales will likely give out if it's fought in the 13th. Hard to fight both the area itself and the primal voidsent.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

6.4 MSQ

Apparently Zeromus counts despite being made from a singular shard of Zodiark and an exhausted dragon when we trounced the actual Zodiark functioning at a little above half his full strength.

It's kind of made me expect that the writers just don't care about power scaling anymore and will simply continue to have us being as strong/competant as is actually needed for narrative tension despite that taking much, much more suspension of disbelief post-EW.

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Zeromus actually does have the potential to be quite a big threat.

It's a super powerful Voidsent now, gaining form from feasting on Azdaja (Who received an eye that's been absorbing aether from The Source since last patch). If the scriptwriters don't just have us deal with it exactly as it is now, but instead have us deal with Zeromus after it has feasted on all other Voidsent in the 13th, then it could definitely be a Source ending threat.

Also keep in mind we trounced partially Rejoined Zodiark that was being controlled by Fandaniel. Fandaniel who snuffed out a lot of the souls within Zodiark, and further reduced his power. Who also wanted to lose. Who also basically gave up the fight after we'd weakened Zodiark enough that he could drive his hand into his core and snuff him the rest of the way out.

Hello, gentle lurker! Do you want to discuss your story criticisms in a safe place, or uncover a massive conspiracy of a shadowy cabal that you will manufacture almost entirely from the ground up (because we are, in fact, boring) and spice up with slurs and baseless accusations to post on an imageboard and obsess over for months?

Come one, come all! Yes, this is the Dreadbeast Discord link. For real! GASP. Ready your screenshots you will only be able to make incriminating with copious amounts of real person fic and EXPOSE us! And don't forget the rape and murder threats!

(How peculiar, by the way, that people who have largely fallen out of love with the game would, in fact, not subscribe and participate in these forums that require active gametime between content drops. Surely this means the bad guys have been beaten back!)

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

I'm not even bothering with the MSQ anymore.

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{Same}

I only resolved myself to run enough of it so I could unlock the Zodiark codex entry and pick apart its FR and EN localisations for every little single tiny detail. As one does! Naturally!

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

I hope Zeromus eat the entirety of Hydaelyn at this point, because I think it's the only way I could hope to reconcile myself with any part of the story whatsoever.

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{Same}

(Don't worry, I do not ACTUALLY mean this! I am not one of the people that live rent free in some persons' minds even after they've gone and unsubbed and moved on to greener pastures!)


I've posted most of my opinion of Pandaemonium over there in what we shall refer to as the lore forum. I suppose I can't say I hated it. It was truly the most whelming, and one of the Ancient storylines of all time. I did well to persuade myself this could only ever end in the worst way ever (Elidibus fully sucking up to Venat's actions): I successfully managed to lower my expectations so that, in the end, I could only be relieved that that didn't happen.

To be fair, nothing really happened at all, other than getting to see Athena in all her glory (though it is somewhat mitigated by the possibility that the auracite influenced her to act in a way she might have refrained herself from otherwise) and retconning what precious little we knew of the Heart of Sabik being connected to Zodiark. I've accepted that this story was never going to be fixed in any significant way. I do find it amusing, however, that it tries incredibly hard to dodge The Question. Even your WoL acts like a complete, unredeemable coward when Erich asks them what happens. Fantastic. It even has Themis not even being Past or Present Elidibus, but a weird artificial mishmash of both that should satisfy precisely no one but the usual crowd of fans that scream and cry and sob over every story this game throws at them.

It is so incredibly non-committal I cannot commit myself to having any sort of strong feelings toward it.

It is unfortunate because I had absolutely loved the previous tier. But it had to be like this, because it is, in the end, a raid storyline. Much like I thought Eden and the reveal of Gaia was a perfect set-up for 6.0 that never even was on anyone's mind on the dev team.

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Originally Posted by ElenaRedoran

did all the zodiark trancers leave after their discord was exposed?

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No, just most of us unsubbed after the unmitigated disaster SE made of the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by ElenaRedoran

did all the zodiark trancers leave after their discord was exposed?

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Can't get that lucky.
They are still all over seething and patting each other on the back agreeing with their friends' posts as usual.