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

I'm genuinely surprised that there's not already a thread to pre-complain about the story in DT.

Even if the shards are inclined to "naturally" rejoin over time, it'll probably be on such an enormous time scale that the game will never actually have to deal with it. Even ignoring that the game's handling of the passage of time in general is.....sketchy.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

Hydaelyn's death leading to "natural" rejoinings is a logical deduction given what Y'shtola says about the 'pull' the Source has on the Reflections. But the story dances around confirming that, and the rest of the conversation is instead focused on opening a voidgate on the Moon and Y'shtola's desire to eventually travel to the other Reflections, particularly the First.

So it's a potential plot hook, albeit one that might never get used.

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My takeaway from that dialogue is:

1.) The severe elemental imbalance on a specific shard is what causes a rejoining to occur.

2.) The "pull" of the source is what leads a shard experiencing such an imbalance to merge with the Source rather than merge with another shard.

From that, I'm not seeing anything that says a natural tendency to rejoin. A strong elemental imbalance on a particular shard is still needed for it to happen. I'm reading Hydaelyn's purpose as increasing the severity of that imbalance needed, so without her, an imbalance wouldn't have to be as severe to promote a rejoining...but we also don't have the Ascians running around actively trying to cause those imbalances, either. Status quo of the shards remaining as they are becomes the logical outcome.

Heh, the spouse calls Endwalker: Escort Walker because of all of them. A few would have been fine but it was way overdone.

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Originally Posted by Merrnryn

Heh, the spouse calls Endwalker: Escort Walker because of all of them. A few would have been fine but it was way overdone.

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It was the same thing with the spyglass/dart mechanic they made for SB that got shoved into a lot of the MSQ. They seem to make a new mechanic for the expansion and then throw it in all over the place to justify the cost in making it.

shocking this thread has lasted this long without being closed

but anywho to add my own thoughts to the many:

i was excited to see the conclusion to everything it was a very long time in coming and i hope going forward the developers and story writers can get even more creative now that all the loose ends have been tied more or less. (except for ascians/convocation sadly we still have 5 of em at large potentially if they haven't gone rogue by now like fandaniel did.)

people are mad about the scions not permanently disappearing or dying but honestly i saw them coming back a mile away they've done this in several of their games already
but its nice send off (at least i wish it were but sadly dawntrail begs to difer)

that said i was disappointed how the handled the Garleans this was our one chance to see their society an what it was like to lead them up to being so fanatic and willing to challenge the whole world but instead what we got is a bunch of extensional crisis people on the verge of fracturing at the seams because their empire was a tool of the ascians an their emperor turned into a primal.
and why on Earth was Gaius absent!? like seriously he was such a prominent figure and the whole cause and reason for wanting to inact change among the garlean society the writers excuse for not including him in my opinion was extremely weak he would've been a great voice to add to leading his people to a better path and convincing the other legions to join his cause yet nope can't do that he was "framed" allegedly for killing the emperor when there were several who could personally vouch that it was ZENOS' doing and therefore an active coup perpetrated by the crown prince and not the legions.

and onto the subject that everyone loaths so much about Venat and her reasoning for destroying her entire race rather than saving it
listen, she was give the full score of events that lead up to "our" and by extension her future and she decided to trust in us because she always has why wouldn't she? she handed to us her former job on the convocation and that job entails us protecting the people and making sure they are heard as well as safe guarding the world's future. and she also trusted that her future self had a plan in case things went horribly wrong an she was absolutely right
hydaelyn created plans to preserve the future at all costs an worked with the sharlayans to make sure it went smoothly an she created a massive eikon of her friends in the form of the twelve with their purpose being to slap zodiark back into place if he ever broke out and if need be take his place.
and lastly she took the meteion threat seriously as well as her reports about the other stars did ya'll even watch or read that cutscene??? meteion accurately described a race of people very much like the ancients who knew neither strife, pain, or wanted for anything but they found the absence of life's struggles to be too boring and too predictable an it made their lives seem so trivial so they decided what was the point in living forever if it had lost its luster? an so they summoned a being to end their seemingly unimportant lives and this resonated with Venat's soul she could see her people in the reflection of those from a distant star and didn't wish to repeat their mistake.
sure it wasn't her only option no she could've told the convocation hermes did a major f up an that they needed to prepare for meteion's assault but this would then have made our timeline not exist or would forever alter it which she just couldn't bring herself to do if you were in that position it would be hard for you to make a choice as well could you sacrifice all the lives of a future just to save your own present? i doubt you could carry such a weight on your shoulders knowing you murdered an entire timeline for selfish self preservation thats not even a guaranteed safety net but potentially a downward spiral cause even if they had stopped meteion well a certain someone's wife was plotting something equally worse.

Venat should of just gutted Hermes like she gutted the Shark Monster. Would of solved so many problems.

Especially given everyone idolized her. The whole "no one would believe me" was bullshit. Just as much as the Kairos Memory Wipe copout.

The deaths of so many Worlds primarily happened because the Meteia caused them by amplifying Herme's death-seeking emotions.

So if anything it's Herme's misuse of Dynamis(which they made up in EW) that caused the problem to begin with. All in his search for answers that were plainly obvious by a very jaded battle hungry warlord named Zenos Galvus.

If anything you see the Convocation is flawed when it comes to killing one of their own and chooses cowardice and complacency as opposed to taking action.

Hermes created his own Lavos monster and ultimately was the Author of his race's own extinction. Co-signed and published by Venat all while Emet-Selch was tossed out the window.

But I'm sure we will find some great revelation in Dawntrail when it is revealed to us that there actually were planets teeming with life or some other people escaped the Final Days through other means.

I look forward to your "I hate Dawntrail" thread

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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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I'll address the last one, because I think you're making a gross simplification here: Venat is an Unsundered Ancient, and a powerful one at that. She has an interest in dynamis but isn't capable of wielding it in meaningful fashion. The Sundering was a way to create entities that could.

Why?

Well remember what Emet Selch said in Shadowbringers. How he asked how sundered man would react to the REAL end of the world, truly the end of the world and not just a fake one like the Calamities. There's a different perspective there. Part of the point of the Sundering was to make suffering commonplace. To make loss commonplace. So when the Final Days *did* come about, it didn't just completely fold society like a pretzel.

That's something that's shown, but not explicitly stated in EW Main. The Final Days *broke* The Ancients. They were willing to make sacrifice after self destructive sacrifice to bring back their ideal world rather than push forward and make something new from the ashes. A progressive society had become a regressive one nigh overnight. This is anathema for an Ancient.

I'll address Zodiark too, tbh, because that's a fair point. I would have much preferred a story where the end of main was the start of the Final Days, and post was Thavnair 2 to Ultima Thule. I think that would have been more satisfying and given the void arc a more dedicated plotline down the road. I'm not sure how they zone all that out, though.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Venat should of just gutted Hermes like she gutted the Shark Monster. Would of solved so many problems.

Especially given everyone idolized her. The whole "no one would believe me" was bullshit. Just as much as the Kairos Memory Wipe copout.

The deaths of so many Worlds primarily happened because the Meteia caused them by amplifying Herme's death-seeking emotions.

So if anything it's Herme's misuse of Dynamis(which they made up in EW) that caused the problem to begin with. All in his search for answers that were plainly obvious by a very jaded battle hungry warlord named Zenos Galvus.

If anything you see the Convocation is flawed when it comes to killing one of their own and chooses cowardice and complacency as opposed to taking action.

Hermes created his own Lavos monster and ultimately was the Author of his race's own extinction. Co-signed and published by Venat all while Emet-Selch was tossed out the window.

But I'm sure we will find some great revelation in Dawntrail when it is revealed to us that there actually were planets teeming with life or some other people escaped the Final Days through other means.

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First of all, Venat didn't 'gut' the shark she knocked it out. You see stars over its head when she defeats it so it's clearly still alive.

Second, the whole time we're in Elpis we're trying to find out what was the cause of the final days. It would be wildly out of character for Venat and Emet to jump to conclusions and just murder Hermes based on your words alone without proof of him doing anythign wrong.

When Hermes DOES reach his snapping point and actually does something wrong, we go to stop him, but unable to. And after the dungeon there would be little point to killing Hermes because things are already set in motion and according to Elidibus in the present day, Hermes contributions are critical for getting as far as the ancients did in grappling with the crisis.

There was no point in the story where 'gutting Hermes' would be in character and a feasible solution to anything.

In fact, given all but one of the Meteia were already launched and the one left behind was struggling (and failing) to not get corrupted via their group think, even if we just walked up and murdered Hermes the moment we arrived in Elpis, it would already be too late to stop what was coming.

(Sorry for double post can't find edit post option on mobile)

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

This is not true.

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You're confused. Chains of Promathia and Rise of the Zilart are separate stories in their entirety until the very end. They have associated lore and a tied together ending, but the "tied together" ending is more or less just having RoTZ done as a Prerequisite check so that Apocalypse Nigh's battlefield can be accessed (so that the Archduke and his brother are dead and can come out of the crystal line to fight you). You can do all of Chains of Promathia before Rise of the Zilart, and their storylines intersect in no discernable fashion outside of Apocalypse Nigh. They were also written by completely different writing teams.

When I say uplift the weaker story, I mean give players a reason to finish it completely. A very common thing that happened with FFXI storylines is that players disregarded them entirely even when current, because they offered few rewards. RoTZ had the oddity that the big reward from it comes from an optional 18 man version of Zilart Mission 14 -Ark Angels. The battlefield's name is Divine Might, and you receive one of five unique earrings if you do the 18 man fight against all 5 Ark Angels at once. At this point, most players stop, since you have full access to Tu'lia (Sky), and don't get any rewards from ZM15 or 16.

Then along came Chains of Promathia. At the very end of Chains of Promathia, you get a quest called Storms of Fate where you fight Bahamut in an 18 man fight that probably never really needed a full compliment of 18, but why not bring more muscle than you need? You gotta fight him, because he asserts that the Keeper of the Apocalypse could still manifest. Anyway, after that, your progress is halted until you beat RoTZ.

All that RoTZ supplies is the bad guys to fight and the damsel to be saved(returned from death). Narratively, all of this, "tie together" is from CoP, not RoTZ. And in some ways it doesn't even make sense, because the Zilart Princes are back and teamed up with no animosity towards one another, even though Eald'narche killed Kam'lanaut. (And for that matter, the Shadowlord comes back with no animosity towards either of them, in spite of his soul being trapped in Dynamis).

It would have been very easy for them, and made more sense even, to just have us fight another version of Promathia. Instead, they opted to gate this quest's access behind completing RoTZ. It's barely a tie together at all, relying entirely on CoP's narrative with the RoTZ cast merely showing up with no prior association or interaction with the CoP cast. Edit: And I forgot to mention that this fight has a reward earring similar to the ZM14 ones as the carrot on a stick.

It's like you didn't pay attention to it at all. Or maybe watched a Let's Play and read the cliff notes.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

You're confused.

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It's been well over a decade since I played but from what I remember:

CoP continued building on the same whole thing RotZ was on. As mentioned, they can be done separately and you can do Promyvion at level 30 or so from what I remember (also remember having to do that 40 times) but CoP is still built on top of the stories that came before it and is a part of the main story of the setting. You travel to Taznavia from the original opening (or at least see it from a distance and go to the shelter), the musical motifs are from the main song of FFXI (Distant Worlds) that is also present in some past vanilla FFXI cutscene music, Zilart and Kuluu characters are present in both, we travel to the Zilart capital referenced in RotZ, and eventually deal with the cosmic struggle and ancients and long-ago history of the game's setting.

The characters came and went unlike the Scions, but you had the Kuluu Nag'Molada and the Zilart woman with the scouter device whose name I forgot in early CoP quests despite the whole thing about their races being told in the previous expansion. Also pretty sure the Zilart priestess of Altana was in both as well. Yeah, they can be done out of order and I personally played them partially out of order because I was slow at leveling in the game and despite starting the game a few months after NA PS2 release, I hadn't made it to Sky by the time CoP came out and I wanted to get to Taznavia ASAP. But they were very clearly meant to be done sequentially since CoP built off of RotZ more than other expansions built off any other expansions and the story would be stronger had you done them in order. And again, I was there and I remember nothing at all about RotZ being a "weaker expansion" that required to be "uplifted" by CoP.

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Originally Posted by ShadowyZero

sure it wasn't her only option no she could've told the convocation hermes did a major f up an that they needed to prepare for meteion's assault but this would then have made our timeline not exist or would forever alter it which she just couldn't bring herself to do if you were in that position it would be hard for you to make a choice as well could you sacrifice all the lives of a future just to save your own present? i doubt you could carry such a weight on your shoulders knowing you murdered an entire timeline for selfish self preservation thats not even a guaranteed safety net but potentially a downward spiral cause even if they had stopped meteion well a certain someone's wife was plotting something equally worse.

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I highly recommend the Video Essay from Youtuber Echoes of Etheirys and their video "Venat: Why She Failed (Full Series)" as it explains extremely elegantly why the Elpis plotline was the weakest part of Endwalkers and directly refutes all of your arguments.

I liked Endwalker :o

What exactly are the problems? XD

The Ancients - clearing up some lingering misconceptions

EoE's final Endwalker was bad video, I think? Kinda sad, but hey, time for Yawntrail in a couple days.

Been a pleasure arguing in circles with all of you o/

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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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Well hey, the devs spent a lot of money developing the world in Elpis, the devroom. But some of the ancient developers didn't have their ideas implemented or their creatures were not approved and so were trashed. The developer Hermes couldn't stand treating their creations so flippantly. And then the players didn't even like the 1.0 game. He looked to other games and saw many which also failed and flopped.
The devs split over the 1.0 world, those who wanted to maintain it and couldn't accept its failure, and our lord and savior Venat-p who made the ultimate sacrifice to bring about a realm reborn. Many of the original devs were purged, but some of those who remained still harbored feelings of resentment and a desire to bring back 1.0- the Ascians.

Also yeah if you thought the primals were anything more than a pile of aether, hydaelin and zodiark and even the 12 were also just a pile of aether but with a person as a dumpster.

This thread aged well :D