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

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

Yes, some have expressed feeling a huge disconnect/dissonance between their own views and the "correct" view being pushed by the writers and developers, to the point where it destroyed any faith in the storytelling. Not just the handling of that one character, but how other story elements were thrown under the bus. Much like how your own faith was blown up by the entire catman hair situation and the huge disconnect there. One difference is that criticizing the gameplay and other elements is a little more acceptable than the story, which is held aloft as the main advertising point and "strength" of the game and has a sort of sacred cow status.

Between this and the reaction to some other things, maybe I should play my own game of "who will the devs anger next?" Bets? It's just getting funnier and funnier at this point.

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The biggest issue is that they pushed it being correct in a very 'world' way, like they set new rules into the story and world to FORCE a conclusion. Instead of making a conclusion be part of a personal character or group of characters. Meanwhile you could force a conclusion depending on the idea or theme but if it requires you to justify something many people find morally abhorrent you get into this situation. Even outside of ignoring the bad writing or convenient ignoring of past lore to justify venat to you

As i've said before, the difference between this and stormblood is that stormblood is just boring, elpis/venat actively retroactively fucks over tons of lore. And in all likelihood i cant imagine venat opinions getting better due to the fact that over time the new expansion honeymoon will end and thus more people will criticize her

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

And Venat kicked Emet's puppy as well!

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Oh don't be silly, Venat would never kick Emet's puppy, she sundered it.

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Originally Posted by Lucida3b

I do wonder at times if venat was a intentional attempt at emet but they missed what made emet so popular

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Not sure about that, but if that were the case then it would help for her actions to be consistent across the board. I believe Emet quickly endeared himself to most people by being an open book who rarely if ever lies despite having no obligation to help you, and even greets you by confirming right off the bat that while he still has every intention to cause the 8UC, he wont hinder your own plan to destroy the lightwardens. Meanwhile, as a result of what might be several retcons and shifts in story direction throughout the years, It seems like the writers accidentally portrayed Venat as a compulsive liar/manipulator. Even stranger is that her ideals weren't even imposed upon mankind indiscriminately.

Take her contingency plan for instance. Her moon ship was meant to Shepherd us to safety in the event that we failed to stop the final days, but that would’ve resulted in abandonment of the shards, essentially throwing everyone on them under the bus to save our skins. Considering how ready she was to incorporate Hermes’s ideology into her own, I find this decision to save us very out of character for her.

Reminder that this is the same person who ripped her own people to shreds when faced with the possibility that they might’ve eventually sacrificed innocent lives (Ironically ripping said innocent lives to shreds as well). Her contingency plan would’ve served as the very catalyst for our failure to pass their test, proving once and for all that we were no better than the ancients. Yet despite that, we were the ones granted the right to live past our failure. But why is that? C'mon Hydaelyn! bust out the o'l pizza cutter and eviscerate our souls! We deserve it lol! This is like a teacher handing us a cheat sheet for a quiz deliberately filled with wrong answers, then passing us anyways.

No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise…unless they’re sundered.

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

Yes, some have expressed feeling a huge disconnect/dissonance between their own views and the "correct" view being pushed by the writers and developers, to the point where it destroyed any faith in the storytelling. Not just the handling of that one character, but how other story elements were thrown under the bus. Much like how your own faith was blown up by the entire catman hair situation and the huge disconnect there. One difference is that criticizing the gameplay and other elements is a little more acceptable than the story, which is held aloft as the main advertising point and "strength" of the game and has a sort of sacred cow status.

Between this and the reaction to some other things, maybe I should play my own game of "who will the devs anger next?" Bets? It's just getting funnier and funnier at this point.

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That's fair. Believe me, I get it, even if I might not agree with everything that is being said here.

My assessment is as follows:

Thank goodness that it's the Void being pushed now instead of Meracydia. Good to see that the writers have pivoted away from the mystical land of kangaroos and hippotamuses. Thank goodness that we managed to retain Estinien and while Y'shtola is still an utterly stagnant character, at least she has begun to work on a goal and do something. I am hoping that rather than calling on the Scions again in patch 6.2 that instead they take the opportunity to finally introduce new party members.

After completing the patch we have the beginnings of a light party with ourselves, Y'shtola, Estinien, and Varshahn should they choose to give him a battle job. Given Vrtra's nature and personality I would not be surprised if he eventually became our healer, which leaves the matter of our tank. We will either be subjected to another expansion of Thancred's stagnation or be forced to put up with G'raha Tia being a general nuisance. Aymeric will not be joining us no matter how much I want to have an elven paladin on my team because he is too busy being a blue elephant terrorizing my new neighbourhood.

Or alternatively, in a completely unprecedented move, they could finally give us a new hero. When I think of a tank who will join us on our adventure into the void, I think of a hardened individual who likely has some kind of grudge against the voidsent, similar to how Estinien was during the Dragonsong War. As far as their appearance goes, I'm open to pretty much anything that does not resemble G'raha Tia. Ideally, I wish we could get someone like Vampire Hunter D but as an Au Ra in order to give off an imposing, dark vibe.

I am trying to remain optimistic about things regarding the 13th. With Garlemald's story dumped in the trash and nothing of interest remaining on the Source, by all means send us to the Void in 7.0. Short of another Heavensward, I suppose I can be content with this.

Going to try to make a quick post.
In response asking why Hydaelen saved Hades it's because the WoL would have died, TWICE, if she hadn't. Once through whatever Elidibus does and once before that through black rose; No Solus means no Zenos means blackrose doesn't get smashed = 8UC

In response to the spiral, it's a nautilus, a symbol of immortality and infinity in some cases. It definitely connects the Ancients to Sharlyan, or would have but it seems it was just scrapped. Sharlyan isn't sending out assassins anymore, so they're not really being as edgy as they once were perceived to be. Instead they're just a giant library with a starbucks. The spiral I though was also supposed to be the same one that's the underwrld...which I honestly though the underworld was going to be the last zone, where we get information from Hades. The character connected to it. Who really hasn't had any connection to it whatsoever other than side stories and pulling a cat out of it. I'm still in the belief they will do something about that, even if it's still beating a dead horse as people are wanting to call it. I'm in that line too. Wasted potential for the last zone of endwalker.

Royal family all dead? Did they even reveal the name of Varis's father?

Venat's codex entry was written by herself

The scions are tempered but they don't know and don't care to even consider it.

The shards are not planets, they're alternate dimensions. If they were planets then poor cat lady wouldn't need to figure out how to travel there when they have a SPACESHIP.

Not done with the patch, but I agree with Estinien about shoving Alphanaud through the void butthole. Throw his sister in there and seal it behind too.

It's been x amount of days and I'm still salty. Still hate endwalker. someone find a cure and fast.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Aymeric will not be joining us no matter how much I want to have an elven paladin on my team because he is too busy being a blue elephant terrorizing my new neighbourhood.

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I laughed way too much at this. My headcanon is Aymeric lost a bet with Estinien. I can't come up with a good reason for it otherwise. The bar for the junior writers is at an all time low if what I can expect going forward are serious characters in mascot costumes (see also Gaius). *sigh*

As for a new character, I'm still hoping against hope that Nerva had at least a child we don't know about yet. I hate the idea that the Solus line is gone. I don't necessarily care if they're male or female as long as they're in contrast to the Scions for a change. However, I do think we could stand to use more female, non-caster characters.

Frankly, if they're going to keep bringing side stories into the MSQ I wish they'd do the same for the DRK quest chain. I want to see my WoL struggle more with whether or not they're doing the right thing, being uncomfortable with what the Scions want them to do, feelings of wanting to escape it all, etc. Additionally, I'd like a new character who could be a friend to them in that way, someone who's not expecting them to be a hero or on the Scions' side of morality all the time. (This should have been done with the WoL regarding the Ancients.) DRK is the only job quest chain I was disappointed came to an end because I thought it explored some important aspects of the WoL's journey that don't get addressed in the MSQ. The level 30-50 arc particularly got to me.

So many Garlean characters have been introduced over the years that there's actually a good number just sitting around waiting to be used again. We could have had Nerva reluctantly approach the player character for aid and work to rally surviving Garleans to his side in order to help pick up the pieces and commit to reconstruction efforts.

The Ironworks would probably support such an effort now that the war is over. The crew of the Prima Vista could be reintroduced and would probably support such an effort. Jullus is right there twiddling his thumbs in the frozen train station and would almost certainly support such an effort...and then there's Gaius who could easily have deduced that maybe he can help nudge things back in his homeland in a better direction.

Who knows? Maybe that is what the general trajectory of a hypothetical reconstruction effort will involve but...it'd be really weird if 'yeah, some Garleans went to the moon but everyone else just stayed in the ruined city' is meant to be the conclusion to their story.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

So many Garlean characters have been introduced over the years that there's actually a good number just sitting around waiting to be used again.

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Man, I’m still bummed out the Ivalice stuff is just put on indefinite hold. They address the inevitable downfall of Garlemald during the Bozja stuff, while propping up Noah as someone who will salvage it and pull an even grander nation out of its ashes, only for everything to suddenly just stop, with Noah being assassinated… or something in supplemental material. His story could've at least served as an excuse to have a proper Othard expansion and cover regions we've missed in Stormblood.

That’s a good thought actually. Yeah they could have very easily used that storyline to let us explore regions in the far east we may have never been able to or even get to at this rate. Such a major shame. I was so looking forward to meeting with Noah as well, seeing how he would react to us, maybe he’d persuade us to join his cause?Wouldve been an interesting exchange for sure.

So, having recently delved into the bizarre landscape that is Twitter I happened to be directed to some rather interesting finds. Since some people seem to be insisting that there is absolutely no way for there to be potential bias involved in the handling of the game's script and localisation, here's a gem to whet people's appetites:

https://i.imgur.com/rKfFd2u.png

Source: https://twitter.com/BorgedFlan

Each to their own, I suppose, since everybody is certainly entitled to their own personal takes on the story even if they work for Square Enix...though I have to say that I think it's rather bizarre to see someone in charge of 'Quality Assurance' for localisation to be operating under the belief that Venat's genocide of her own people was the equivalent of her getting frustrated at being the only one working to protect Etheirys.

We know that isn't true simply at looking what was revealed during both Shadowbringers and Endwalker. To say nothing, of course, of Venat's refusal to even inform her people of the plight she was hoping to avoid.

Following on from this, the profile for Koji Fox's alleged successor happened to enter my Twitter feed as well:

https://twitter.com/fabulafatua/

I was quite shocked to see some of the things being 'liked' and retweeted by the individual in question and I must confess to finding myself wondering as a humble Scottish guy if someone so very deeply involved in the deepest reaches of the Twitter sphere is truly a good fit for someone who is meant to represent more than just Far Left ideologues where the game's English localisation is concerned. Not all of us are obsessed with identity politics, after all and even many LGBT people - myself included - are deeply troubled by those with a perpetual chip atop their shoulders perpetually directed at anyone who doesn't think, act or look like they do. I want to highlight that I do not post this with the intention to name and shame but merely to seek clarification and raise awareness about potential bias seeping into the localisation process.