Endwalker was "meh" (for reasons other than technical issues)

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Endwalker is plagued with the same problem as Stormblood; trying to tie up too many storylines in too little time and trying to do too many things at the same time.

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Too little time? This is the largest expansion in MMO history in terms of cutscenes and length. Hell if anything I thought they over did it on the size.

I don't like Dynamis, everything else is ok. But introduction of dynamis conception looks like crude decision. Like if screenwriter suddenly realised that ancient ascians were too powerful for every confrontation, so he quickly come up with new type of hidden energy totally uncotrollable by ascians.

But despite this I like Endwalker in general, i had good part laugh, imbued with power moments, was surprised and even shed couple of tears.

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Originally Posted by Vukimukinukiduki

I don't like Dynamis, everything else is ok. But introduction of dynamis conception looks like crude decision. Like if screenwriter suddenly realised that ancient ascians were too powerful for every confrontation, so he quickly come up with new type of hidden energy totally uncotrollable by ascians.

But despite this I like Endwalker in general, i had good part laugh, imbued with power moments, was surprised and even shed couple of tears.

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It doesn't seem crude to me, but that's because we've seen things prior in the game that it suddenly explains. Limit Breaks for one, another being emotions powering Dark Knights. It's also somewhat of a real life phenomenon, where people are temporarily able to do things that shouldn't be possible, like lifting a heavy tractor to help somebody get out from underneath it despite never having the strength to do it before. All they've really done with the introduction of Dynamis is give a name to a phenomenon...which also fit kinda brilliantly for how it would be the downfall of the Ancients, they didn't exactly have heavy emotions like people normally do, like they were stifled.

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Originally Posted by Vukimukinukiduki

I don't like Dynamis, everything else is ok. But introduction of dynamis conception looks like crude decision. Like if screenwriter suddenly realised that ancient ascians were too powerful for every confrontation, so he quickly come up with new type of hidden energy totally uncotrollable by ascians.

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The concept of thoughts, emotions and feelings shaping reality has been a thing since the 1.0 era. Primals, for example. They do kinda just gloss over it with the earliest ones, but by the time we get to Ramuh and Enkidu, and ESPECIALLY with Shiva, the concept is pretty well-established. It's just that it has always been some background thing, but it has been there. Dynamis just takes it to a much greater extreme.

re: Dumb Dialogue

Pentagon has used humanitarian groups to spy on countries before.

We as Scions, have spied, infiltrated, and killed thousands of people throughout our playthrough. Guys, we're not that nice... Garlemald was right in not trusting us. If this had been any time prior to destroying towers, we would have wiped them out. How many times have you ran that LV 50 story mission? Have you cried over the hundred of thousands of Garlean citizens you murder daily in this crazy deathloop? No, none of you, so stop pretending to be compassionate.

Endwalker was good but it stopped short of being great. The apocalypse should have been happening all over Eorzea. Our Kings from other nations should have been fighting them, citizens should have been transformed, cities should have been in ruins. This should have been happening prior to receiving parts to rebuild the ship and kept going after we left for space. Seeing nations in ruins, meteorites showering in every zone would have turned any nay sayer to a yeh sayer, as Endwalker being the best expansion.

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Originally Posted by Thoosa

Now IMO I feel the story really becomes stupid - we end up going back in time (zzz) to Elpis which was an amazing zone but then we find out that Hermes creates a bunch of terminators who want to destroy the world because people must not be allowed to feel negative emotions and life as to be pure pleasure at all costs or it’s worthless living. I could handle the moon stuff, I could handle the monsters, but this was ridiculous.

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I understood Hermes when he thought life shouldn't be curated but left to a natural process. Even when he let Meteion go I was still on his side thinking, well maybe he wants to let his "daughters" live. But then Meteion went kind of bonkers saying all life is just suffering and it should end. I look towards Hermes thinking, "It's time to turn off the crazy and let her go... back to the aether." Nope he went full on koolaid and joined her.

The only reasonable explanation I could think of to make this story good, is that while the Ancient excelled in nearly everything, they simply haven't developed any form of psychiatric help. Hermes suffered from Major Depression.

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Originally Posted by Ririta

That's fine if you say it's a taste thing and if you don't like those super popular villains and I agree that different people like different things, but you did claim that the "generic doomsday villain" is a thing in every Final Fantasy which is not true at all.

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Someone didn't play FFI, FFIII, FFIV or FFIX did they?

I would love to see anyone defending the search of 8 researchers in a big ass yellow search area quest, hahaha.

That's when it truly struck me about how it can feel like they force us to do things not because they're the must fun thing to do, or the most effective way to tell the story, but simply just to pad things out and stretch the expansion time beyond what is truly necessary.

Also did anyone truly feel anything/impacted at all when they "killed" the Scions one by one in the last area? I honestly didn't feel anything because I am 100000% sure they would bring them back anyway in the end, hahaha, so the impact is greatly diminished by that; the "deaths" felt very meaningless despite all the theatrics and grandeur.

It’s funny, when you mean Hermes, he comes over a basically a nice guy who cares about his creations and you see he can’t bear to kill off the bad creations that run around killing things, and it pains him to terminate them. So then he decides “screw this, I can’t handle this responsibility, the world deserves to burn” instead of “screw this, I can’t handle this responsibility, im going to get another job”. Feels like they shoe-horned him in at the end because they didn’t have enough story to get to 90? We also know at this point that there’s no way they will let the world burn, because then we can’t go back to the other zones and do any endgame, so for me it was kinda eh.

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Originally Posted by Thoosa

It’s funny, when you mean Hermes, he comes over a basically a nice guy who cares about his creations and you see he can’t bear to kill off the bad creations that run around killing things, and it pains him to terminate them. So then he decides “screw this, I can’t handle this responsibility, the world deserves to burn” instead of “screw this, I can’t handle this responsibility, im going to get another job”. Feels like they shoe-horned him in at the end because they didn’t have enough story to get to 90? We also know at this point that there’s no way they will let the world burn, because then we can’t go back to the other zones and do any endgame, so for me it was kinda eh.

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Out of all the characters in EW, I am confident in saying that I actually hate Hermes the most. Can't stand stuck up characters like him who is so convinced about his self-righteousness that he is blinded to other things, a blindedness that in the end killed so many and almost destroyed everything.

Kinda annoyed that they included him on the nice art at the end, hahah.

Honestly, I thought everything up till Zodiark was near enough perfect.

The 2nd half is good, and jam packed with cool stuff, but I don't think it flows anywhere near as well. It also has the most scenes that I would tweak.

Ultima Thule and the Dead Ends are awesome enough to carry it for me though. I do wish I could change the zone music back to the muffled lyric-less version of the song though, the song is good and all, but I can already tell that having that dude non stop belting that track out is going to get real old real fast.

One thing I found kinda odd, is that after stepping into the final dungeon till the end of the trial, it's near identical in style to Shadowbringer.

1: The dungeon is a history tour, narrated by the villain. (Final days / doomed civilizations)
2: At the end of the dungeon, the villain starts picking off the Scions with spells in a cutscene.
3: Someone comes to the WoL's aid (G'raha / Shinryu)
4: Trial is against a wall boss (Hades did have a non-wall boss phase) with some similar attack patterns (middle/sides)
5: A fade to black after the ultimate attack and a power-up after that, going into a simple final phase.

I dunno wtf it is with this forum, it's so negative lol.

I genuinely don't believe that most people here talking about the story even pay attention to it or they even skipped it.
I am biased cuz MNK but especially with characters like Lyse and how people unironically think that she didn't grow as a character and people don't even understand or remember stuff that was explained ( like how Flow works ) and then hate on events in the story based on not understanding.
Even tho it's literally spelled out multiple times.

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Originally Posted by Kisshu

One thing I found kinda odd, is that after stepping into the final dungeon till the end of the trial, it's near identical in style to Shadowbringer.

1: The dungeon is a history tour, narrated by the villain. (Final days / doomed civilizations)
2: At the end of the dungeon, the villain starts picking off the Scions with spells in a cutscene.
3: Someone comes to the WoL's aid (G'raha / Shinryu)
4: Trial is against a wall boss (Hades did have a non-wall boss phase) with some similar attack patterns (middle/sides)
5: A fade to black after the ultimate attack and a power-up after that, going into a simple final phase.

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I mean, I can't fault SE for copying the structure of one of their most beloved expansions. I can't say I'd want them to do this every expansion, but Square's MO has always been to double down on what players respond to positively.

They likely went so hard on zone music this time because of La Hee, for example.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Too little time? This is the largest expansion in MMO history in terms of cutscenes and length. Hell if anything I thought they over did it on the size.

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Because everything was all pushed into one patch. So the pacing was off like it was in SB.
Some things probably needed some more time to be fleshed out and not tied up in one patch
instead they should did it all within this expansions lifetime.
I said it before in another topic, but they made this same mistake in SB and they did it again here.

I may have missed the part about how Yshtola, Urianger and tanchred got to the moon? They did use the teleport thing right?
If so instead of making Ragnarok why couldnt people escape to the moon via teleporter thing we used to get to the moon???

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Originally Posted by Johaandr

I may have missed the part about how Yshtola, Urianger and tanchred got to the moon? They did use the teleport thing right?
If so instead of making Ragnarok why couldnt people escape to the moon via teleporter thing we used to get to the moon???

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Supposedly it was the first plan, but then it was avoided so refugees didn't see Garlemald's destruction as they would be distressed and maybe turn.

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Originally Posted by Johaandr

I may have missed the part about how Yshtola, Urianger and tanchred got to the moon? They did use the teleport thing right?
If so instead of making Ragnarok why couldnt people escape to the moon via teleporter thing we used to get to the moon???

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That's exactly why we had to save all those Thavnarians in Garlemald, they attempted to take the teleporter there but all the destruction and despair caused them to get assaulted by blasphemies.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Huge Amounts of Pointless Time Sinks
Endwalker introduced a lot of mechanics that were completely pointless and did nothing to further the story but instead just dragged out the number of hours of "gameplay" in this expansion. These include the "guide this NPC around" quests, "stalk this NPC" quests, and "follow this NPC" quests. I realize that iterations of these mechanics have been present in quests in past expansions, but it felt like there were numerous of these quests in every single zone in Endwalker. Normally, you could just mount up and run over to the next spot, or even use the aetheryte. However, in Endwalker, you now have to stick with a slow NPC and walk/run across the map on foot as part of the MSQ. I think the best example of this is when you're body-swapped in Garlemald and, at the end of that quest, you literally have to crawl across part of the map before you finally trigger the cutscene. "Gameplay" like this was tedious, unnecessary, and not "fun" whatsoever (mainly because it was so easy that it was almost impossible to fail any of these quests). It didn't feel like I was playing a game, but rather doing a chore. I'm not sure why SE decided to suddenly add a bunch of crappy mechanics like this.

Endwalker also saw an increase of the Eulmore-type areas (e.g., the Garlean subway camp and Radz-at-Han) where you're annoyingly prevented from attuning to the aetheryte. This made a little bit of sense with the Garlean subway camp from a story perspective, but not Radz-at-Han, where you almost immediately come into the good graces of the folks in charge.

SE has also added new "achievements" like mounts and fashion pieces that effectively require you to do 4,000+ FATEs each. How about instead of creating rewards that incentivize people to do hundreds of hours of mind-numbingly boring content (which is what FATE grinding is), SE actually comes up with some fun, new content?

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This entire section is extremely blatant. This isn't a Korean MMO, achievements with thousands of requirement shouldn't exist here.

I feel the same way about the S rank mount. It's insane.

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Originally Posted by Johaandr

I may have missed the part about how Yshtola, Urianger and tanchred got to the moon? They did use the teleport thing right?
If so instead of making Ragnarok why couldnt people escape to the moon via teleporter thing we used to get to the moon???

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They tried but the final days reached garlemald around the same time and people started to turn or die by the Blasphemies so Fourchenault and the others moved back to Sharlayan for the original plan

I haven't and wasn't able to finish the MSQ to the end. But all I care in an MMO is a group play, not a killer storyline. In that sense, I appreciate OP on taking the issue to the public. I had similar feeling when playing MSQs as well. This could end up much more shallower than expected with so much of 'expectable' outcomes. Well, what can I say.. I've been watching too many Anime series and spoiled too much with so called 'epic' storylines.

But then again, since it's an MMO, if there are some moments of awesomeness, then it'll be ok for me and I've already met Loprrits which is literally an endgame in terms of storyline. Also, MMO is all about group play, you can't be completely free of spoiler when you watch raid strategy videos.. which is why I'm not really weighing too much on MMO's storyline.

So, EW having medicore MSQ isn't so much of a dealbreaker for me.. but the queue......

i respect your opinion however i loved every second of endwalker so respectfully i disagree but to each there own

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Originally Posted by LaughingBanana

I would love to see anyone defending the search of 8 researchers in a big ass yellow search area quest, hahaha.

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Why does everybody have issues with that easy quest? Do people not check every path?

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Endwalker is plagued with the same problem as Stormblood; trying to tie up too many storylines in too little time and trying to do too many things at the same time.

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Stormblood's problem was that it introduced a bunch of storylines that went no where and weren't interesting the slightest. Everyone always praises the Doma parts cus it starts and wraps up a contained story. 61-64 and then 68-70 is completely pointless, the Ala Mhigans easily being the most pathetic city state we've ever had the opportunity to communicate with.

As for EW, it's all fine, apart from one glaring issue. The level 88 filler is a Stormblood-tier blemish on an otherwise well-paced scenario. Seriously, whoever designed Labirynthos part 2 needs to take a second look at what they consider good. Awfully paced, zero reason to be doing what we're doing, ONE voiced cutscene that means anything, and the worst part, Torn from the Heavens on a god damn 30 second loop for 2 levels because it stays even when you finish the 89 trial. Why? Wouldn't be surprised if they patch it.

Though i agree some of the quests felt tedious i couldnt disagree with you more on the story itself. Maybe its all on how you look at it and to be honest i probably emerged too much of myself i to it. Im not a highly emotional person but found myself pretty misty eyed every other cutscene. The garleans mistrust i understood because well we knew why we were there but they only had our word for all they knew, they even said as much, that we caused what was happening. And well again even some of the tedious quests like the body swap one for me added to the story and added to me as the player to say omg i have to hurry back to save my friends. Again i guess its all how you want to approach the story i guess.

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Originally Posted by Accursed_Immortal

I understood Hermes when he thought life shouldn't be curated but left to a natural process. Even when he let Meteion go I was still on his side thinking, well maybe he wants to let his "daughters" live. But then Meteion went kind of bonkers saying all life is just suffering and it should end. I look towards Hermes thinking, "It's time to turn off the crazy and let her go... back to the aether." Nope he went full on koolaid and joined her.

The only reasonable explanation I could think of to make this story good, is that while the Ancient excelled in nearly everything, they simply haven't developed any form of psychiatric help. Hermes suffered from Major Depression.

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And its not like he is much better than the other Ancients. He still creates other beings he just hates having to kill them. I can understand his position, but at the same time you do have creatures that would bring so much harm to other creatures that they kinda have to be killed.

Also he is completely fine to create Meteion and her sisters for his own sake. He sents them out to find answers too. Not knowing what dangers might await them...and at the same time he should have noticed that they were not up to the task...Meteion suffering like that just because he is angry or sad...did it never come to him that other planets would not be such a "paradise"?

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

I dunno wtf it is with this forum, it's so negative lol.

I genuinely don't believe that most people here talking about the story even pay attention to it or they even skipped it.
I am biased cuz MNK but especially with characters like Lyse and how people unironically think that she didn't grow as a character and people don't even understand or remember stuff that was explained ( like how Flow works ) and then hate on events in the story based on not understanding.
Even tho it's literally spelled out multiple times.

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And I honestly cant believe that there are some posters here saying that someone does not understand the story or even skipped it just because they dont like or may have problems with some parts. Stories are subjective. Just look at stuff like the Twilight books or movies.

So in the end he still creates, does side projects that he does not register at the office and is ready to let every living being on the star including his beloved creatures die to the final days just so that Meteion can have her answer...

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

This here is what really stuck out as I played through the expansion. Even in comparison to previous expansions, there were way more stupid quest mechanics that served no other purpose than making things take as long as possible to inflate the play time...like that one awful quest in Labyrinthos that wanted you to help 8 people, but you ended up needing to talk to like 20 because most of the quest markers didn't count towards the quest with half the 8 being in really awkward to find locations. Seriously guys, we're going to play your game...we've already proven that...you don't have to go out of your way to have zero respect for our time.

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To add: The series of hunting for Meteion when she's running away... & running away again... & running away AGAIN.

Like, I didn't even know she was going to turn evil at that point, & I already wanted to put an arrow in her face. So at least that wish got fulfilled in the end. :D

But, yeah. Next time maybe just auto-boot us & force us to go through queue again instead? That'd actually be a less frustrating waste of player time. :/

I like the story for what it is, as in tying up all the loose ends and bringing it all together finally. But so far the story has been the only redeeming factor for me. And I get it, we are all free to disagree or agree, this is just my take and I do not want to anyone to feel like : NO YOU HAVE TO AGREE. I just wanted to vent my feelings about this expansion thus far.

I will ignore the queues, that just happens.

What I cannot ignore are the other things. The dungeons and Trials i've seen so far are just a big scoop of MAH, they are not outright bad, but they are also not even good, like what an amazing letdown with all the bosses till lvl 89 dungeon.

The quest design really was getting on my nerves. Oh, here take those quests that have you run exactly to half points between aetheryte's so you cannot teleport to them.

I hate the Escort mechanic, its given to quests where it does not really make any sense, but its not given to quest where it does.

The zones are lackluster again, the only one I find remotely nice is Elpis the rest is again vast fields with some stuff dotted over the place, like seriously SE, if you compare any zone to the original AAR zones, they just feel "empty" without much of elevation changes and detail.[Compare the South Shroud to lets say Labyrinthos. (if you gonna make "field" zone, make it at least feel vast and amazing like you did with Azim steppe)]

The armor design is the biggest disappointment I had, I get it, making new armors is hard, but outright copying older sets is just lazy, AT LEAST you could add things to them and alter them, but no we just get a straight copy pasta (again)

Minor complaints here and there to an overall wonderful experience for me personally. The only thing I will say was the pacing of the second half of Labyrinthos was very weirdly done. I know they like to do some areas with a part one and two, but that one felt off to me a little. On the flip side the Thavnair second half felt wonderfully paced in connection to the story.

I've seen this being ranked as the most popular xpac, but I'd definitely put ShB before it.

- ShB pulled me in from the beginning. The end of the 1st dungeon brought a huge accomplishment to the storyline, one which was also a major reveal when you reflected on the promotional materials & images - OH, so THAT'S what that big V of night sky is about! OMG, & we just DID that! Huge impact 1 level into the story progression.

- EW didn't really pick up for me until midway through. The entire 1st half felt like 'we really need to wrap up some unfinished business before we get to the good stuff'. Then that was largely laid aside for a major turn in the plot direction (not unconnected, just big shift). Mystery in Sharlayan? Yeah, laying that aside... those towers we've been dealing with for awhile now? Yeah, hold up, we need to deal w/ Garlemald... oh but wait, let's go to the moon... no, back to Thavnair for some First-style monster transformations... hold up, the past is where we need to go.... I mean, to say it was 'all over the place' is an understatement: we literally go from a pre-Sundered past to the edge of the universe! Our journey & story in the First just felt like a much tighter plot to me.

- The emotional hits for me had these same pacing issues in each, meaning I didn't feel as connected to what was going on in a big sense in the EW story until much later. Also, some of the little things meant to have impact felt too manipulative to me, largely because they were rushed. In ShB we meet NPCs & have a bit of time to come to care about what happens to them; here it was 'ok - meet NPC', then 'emotional connection moment' 2-3 quests later. Um, ok, I mean I care in a general sense? But not as deeply.

- EW ending felt like a big punch with the Endsinger battle & then an afterthought with the Zenos fight. Why do that? It weakened the entire xpac IMO.

- The Zenos fight also annoyed the <redacted> out of me, to the point I almost logged off midway through & left it for later. Not the difficulty, just the dragged out 'will this ever END?!' of it. Again, having this as my near-final taste of the xpac only weakened the overall experience for me.

(continued)


Overall, I think it would've been stronger if they had made it into 2 xpacs, one for each half. With more time, the impacts of the major story elements in the first half could've been brought forth better.

Additionally, the stronger (to me) second half could've done even better - especially the quick string of hits right before the end as the Scions sacrifice themselves one by one. Yes, ok, that happened, no time to dwell, on to the next one? Um, no, this is BIG STUFF, how about we make each death really COUNT! Have those come a half level or even full level apart, and THEN the big end bit of bringing them all back. That would have had a lot more feeling to it I think!

(And because some people seem to think 'we have different opinions' equates to 'you didn't play the game & are therefore wrong' - hi, I've played through every bit of MSQ with zero skips, all pre-ShB sidequests except the couple of riddle ones, most of the ShB sidequests as well, & every single job & role quest of every pre-EW job up to 80 (have the 'omni-80' ShB chiev & mount reward). Haven't started on EW sidequests yet; I'll be doing those as I level up alts.)

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Originally Posted by Tavieon

I haven't and wasn't able to finish the MSQ to the end. But all I care in an MMO is a group play, not a killer storyline. In that sense, I appreciate OP on taking the issue to the public. I had similar feeling when playing MSQs as well. This could end up much more shallower than expected with so much of 'expectable' outcomes. Well, what can I say.. I've been watching too many Anime series and spoiled too much with so called 'epic' storylines.

But then again, since it's an MMO, if there are some moments of awesomeness, then it'll be ok for me and I've already met Loprrits which is literally an endgame in terms of storyline. Also, MMO is all about group play, you can't be completely free of spoiler when you watch raid strategy videos.. which is why I'm not really weighing too much on MMO's storyline.

So, EW having medicore MSQ isn't so much of a dealbreaker for me.. but the queue......

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EW msq isn't perfect, but it's certainly not mediocre. Everything from what happened 1.0 msq up to this expansion was answered and brought to an ending. It's not an easy feat to create a story this grand, while not missing any small details. Don't bash the story, when you don't even bask in the story.

I honestly couldn't agree more. This expansion had way too much comic relief story pausing nonsense and the major plot points that we were teased were just either touched upon for 5 minutes or entirely non existent.

Zodiark - This expansion was announced to be the end of the Hydaelyn vs Zodiark saga and as though they were both going to be massive prominent good and evil figures. Zodiark however....yeah we just kinda got to the moon not even looking for him and the watcher was like yeah mate he's over there go nuts.

Zenos - What really is there to say.. He had us kidnapped to have a meal and put our soul into a random Garlean soldier for his amusement. He showed up later just to go yo you ready to fight me yet and then just walked away like a sad puppy when we said we had bigger issues to deal with. Then he shows up to assist us only because he still wants his fight. This man was highly prominent in the trailers and was played up to be the big bad then he just...well, existed.

Gaius - I mean...no comment? I'm pretty sure he was seen in a whole 1 cutscene or 2 and never did a single thing.

Garlemald. This nation was played up so much to be the pinnacle of civilisation and technology, this grand empire controlled by one of the greatest threats to Eorzea. We finally get to go there aaaand its gone. Legit just Coerthas Western Highlands 2.0. The people there literally had the ideaology that everyone should accept Garlean rule or be conquered and acted like we were awful warmongers coming to conquer them and expecting them to live by our rules. Hypocritical nonsense at its finest. All that build up in post Stormblood for.....well, that.

We then spent the rest of the expansion being told our planet cannot be saved by some stupid moon bunny lolis we literally just met and we believed none of their words nor agreed with Sharlayan's ideologies but we just agreed to help them just because we needed their ship to chase down Meteion and they just suddenly had a change of heart because the Daddy issues arc was complete or something.

I just honestly don't know how people can say Stormblood was bad for trying to tackle multiple stories at once and has bad pacing but that this expansion is a masterpiece. Just reeks of agenda and trying to put the game on a pedestal out of some desperate urge to assert some kind of superiority complex over WoW and justification for the mass migration and ridiculous over attention the game is getting in the last 4 months.

Heres some actual criticism they can improve upon:
-Why was the moon arc so rushed? No sooner do we get there and were defeating Zodiark as if it was nothing. I understand he was incomplete, but there was very little buildup this expansion to the encounter.
-Why did almost none of the Scions react with any more surprise when we defeated Zodiark? All we got was Y'shtola going "Then he is defeated? The ultimate evil? Good job." Thats it I guess.
-Why did the Scions and the people outside who got word of Hydaelyn's death not react more to it? Its like the Sharlayans and Loporrits present were just "Oh that sucks that our God just died. Anyway."
-Why did we just casually teleport to the moon? How did anyone know it was safe? Why did everyone suddenly act like it was a normal occurance?
-Why did the Scions not have a scene reacting to and discussing how you literally went into the past to the early days of Elpis to speak with the Ascians? Its like everyone brushed it off with "Okay cool good we got the info we needed."
-Zenos showing up over and over going "Ready to fight yet? No? Alright dang.." and just walking away.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Why does everybody have issues with that easy quest? Do people not check every path?

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Well, I can only answer from myself personally:

The search area is just wayy too big, and it halted the pace of the story during the time when I was really excited to see the next part of it (we're gonna go ride a starship to the bad guys' den after all!)--this quest screeched all the pacing to an absolute stop, IMO. That, and I also generally dislike the search for stuff in a circle quests in FFXIV, and this one is the MOTHER of them all, lol.

It took me quite a while running around seemingly aimlessly to find them all. I just personally found it a rather asinine way to provide additional story content, to be honest.

I certainly felt like the pacing was strange. Was generally ok with the escorts.
I was so excited to see Garlemald... Don't get me wrong. I loved what I received. However, I felt like it just wasn't nearly enough and was very short lived and isolated.
Loved the Elpis surprise. Was sad that also felt as short as it did. I wanted to see/do more in the ancient world. (Holding out that in the future we get to explore more of that timeline.)
Felt like the scion's sacrifice on Ultima Thule was kinda.... meh. All was going well until they were brought back almost immediately after the last of them disappeared. How convenient. Felt like they could have held off on that for stronger impact. (Not that I would miss any of them. I'm actually glad that the WoL's story is moving past them and their clutches of seemingly endless errands.)

Overall, felt like it was an exciting and fun xpac. ShB had a smoother story imo.

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Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

I honestly couldn't agree more. This expansion had way too much comic relief story pausing nonsense and the major plot points that we were teased were just either touched upon for 5 minutes or entirely non existent.

Zodiark - This expansion was announced to be the end of the Hydaelyn vs Zodiark saga and as though they were both going to be massive prominent good and evil figures. Zodiark however....yeah we just kinda got to the moon not even looking for him and the watcher was like yeah mate he's over there go nuts.

Zenos - What really is there to say.. He had us kidnapped to have a meal and put our soul into a random Garlean soldier for his amusement. He showed up later just to go yo you ready to fight me yet and then just walked away like a sad puppy when we said we had bigger issues to deal with. Then he shows up to assist us only because he still wants his fight. This man was highly prominent in the trailers and was played up to be the big bad then he just...well, existed.

Gaius - I mean...no comment? I'm pretty sure he was seen in a whole 1 cutscene or 2 and never did a single thing.

Garlemald. This nation was played up so much to be the pinnacle of civilisation and technology, this grand empire controlled by one of the greatest threats to Eorzea. We finally get to go there aaaand its gone. Legit just Coerthas Western Highlands 2.0. The people there literally had the ideaology that everyone should accept Garlean rule or be conquered and acted like we were awful warmongers coming to conquer them and expecting them to live by our rules. Hypocritical nonsense at its finest. All that build up in post Stormblood for.....well, that.

We then spent the rest of the expansion being told our planet cannot be saved by some stupid moon bunny lolis we literally just met and we believed none of their words nor agreed with Sharlayan's ideologies but we just agreed to help them just because we needed their ship to chase down Meteion and they just suddenly had a change of heart because the Daddy issues arc was complete or something.

I just honestly don't know how people can say Stormblood was bad for trying to tackle multiple stories at once and has bad pacing but that this expansion is a masterpiece. Just reeks of agenda and trying to put the game on a pedestal out of some desperate urge to assert some kind of superiority complex over WoW and justification for the mass migration and ridiculous over attention the game is getting in the last 4 months.

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Zenos didnt kidnap us not even under his command did that happen.

That was just amon trolling zenos lol

Sharlayan, Thavnair, and Garlemald all crammed into one expansion is probably the reason why there are pacing complaints. However, I understand why they did it. After the success off Shadowbringers, it is obvious that Garleans, Garleans, and more Garleans was not going to cut it. Personally, I was just tired of it. Stormblood really almost did it in for me. Yet, Shadowbringers was a breath of fresh air and quite frankly surprised the heck out of me. They needed to wrap up this stale saga and put us on something new. I am quite happy Garlemald was just a ruin and not numerous cut scenes of politics, meetings, and Garleans running around here and there. Gritted my teeth through Garlemald (my least favorite zone) and was quite happy with the rest of the expansion (more so for the fact that it put the final nail in the coffin of this story arc... maybe we can get more Shadowbringers).

Endwalker had its good points but overall I am also not its biggest fan for its story. Moon was way to rushed - it was so hyped - Trailer, even a whole music video for 10mins on the moon. For years I wanted to kick Zodiaks ass and for what? "suicide time" - I could look all past that, but the biggest downfall for me was that everything that has happened up to now- literally, the founding of the Allagan Empire, the creation of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, the sundering of Etheirys, the fall of Amaurot… literally every single important plot point in history has all been because of someone’s pet bird getting sad.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

which also fit kinda brilliantly for how it would be the downfall of the Ancients, they didn't exactly have heavy emotions like people normally do, like they were stifled.

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This is just untrue. In ShB the writer themselves told us that the Ancients are the same as us. Able to feel happiness, sadness, anger, pain. They're capable of crying.

That's why some people disagree with the concept of dynamis being introduced in EW, because it's not a simple "the Ancients doesn't have emotions", but because they have to make a convoluted reason as to why the Ancients were unable to harness dynamis.