I feel like people are too harsh on Endwalker, though...

I've been playing FFXIV since HW and I'm pretty baffled by these weird outspoken issues to Endwalker. This MMO has never been in better shape, the main MSQ story in 6.0 was a masterclass in storytelling. Not a single dungeon missed (and was the first expansion to do this)... There is a TON to do in this game... I personally loved the Alliance raid, which was beautiful.

Haven't run out of engaging stuff to do in EW. I don't see any issues.

Personally, I think Dawntrail has a MASSIVE job cut out for it to get near the level of these last two expansion... I have no idea how they will pull it off. I just hope they can come somewhat close.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...walker/page930
Granted half of the thread is probably just people arguing in circles but that's still over 400 pages of grievances with Endwalker's story.
If you look at it with a more critical eye and not just through the "It made me feel things"-lens then there are absolutely issues with the 6.0 MSQ.

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As someone who has a degree in literature and is working toward a masters, even the worst student in our class could have torn this msq apart. I would love to give it to ppl who actually study lit for a living and see how they would rip it apart. As a lifelong FF fan and someone who has been playing this game since 1.0 because I adore it, I felt EW was almost embarrassing to the series. I swear ppl are just wearing fan googles or just haven't encountered more than basic story telling cause this was bargin bin manga at best.

Endwalker's issue is that it's not really a 10 year conclusion to anything. It is the immediate sequel to Shadowbringers, and it forsakes much of ARR 2.0 to 4.55 in order to be that sequel.

That's why in the majority of its side quests we get complete retellings of old ARR 2.0 side quests. To try and tie it to the old lore, they did not actually rely on the MSQ. A blurb about Coils there, and a coming together of previous characters here, and everyone got the WoL and co. the rocket fuel they need does not a 10 year arc conclusion make.

I don't think people are necessarily too harsh on it, honestly.

I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as good as it should have been, and I enjoyed it primarily because I tend to consume stories without really thinking too deeply on them, and only really looking at them on a surface level, but even without really going deep on it, the glaring problems I has was that when it tried to create some sense of danger -- Then there was always something that would detract from it, be it with some levity in the story, or be it with the whole Elpis segment. -- I think there were better ways of doing the latter half of the base story without taking us there.

Even then some of the other issues I had on a surface level with it, IMO were more narrowed down to the build-up that ShB created... We wasted far, far too much story telling, both in the post-story for ShB, and in the start of EW just on the towers.

It was stinky poo poo.

No, seriously, I honestly didn't like it. The main 6.0 story wasn't super good, and the patch content was worse. Your mileage may very, but I'm not gonna tell you what to like.

I'm hoping Dawntrail isn't as bad.

Like many others have said, I enjoyed doing things in the expansion. Savage was great, Island sanctuaries, even if it's spread sheet sim, was relaxing afterlong days in prog or work, or both on the same day for me. I LOVED Tataru's story stuff and I'm happy they used the Mech Suit more. However,


Metieon(?) is a shoehorned in character and it made the ending feel flaccid a bit, Garlemald and Elpis deserved their own expansions, and the raid tiers story, as with all of them bar coils, need more fleshing out, period. Zero is bland, flat, and I only started to care for her at the literal end of this mini arc after the main EW narrative. I hate how Azdaja was just there on the sidelines after as well, I wish Midgadsormr, Unukalhai, and Cylia(?) had more screentime in the void narrative. Variant and Critireon dungeons were DoA(Dead On Arrival) we had zero reason to go back in after the first time as the rewards were lack luster.

The Oversimplification and Homogenization of jobs really leaves a bad taste in my mouth and their approach to content has made it all to easy to plan out, We have no Midcore, The alliance raids were offensively braindead, even my more casual friends were confused by how slow Thalia was.

And then the elephant in the room, Relics, you touched upon it and we all have so much, but the extreme heavy handedness of this relic change was just sad. We also have a lot of COntent Islands, as in a lot of content doesn't really interact with other forms of content, so it's all stand alone and it's done when it;s done, when it could all tie into and lead into one another more seamlessly and create a much more fufilling interacting within the game when we're playing. Instead it's all disjointed and boring after the first few times if it's not your bag.

So yeah it's all subjective to a certain extent, but theres the sad fact that a lot of this expansion felt purposely uninvoled and a tad bit lazy on the devs part. EW for me was a very mid and boring epxansion, when in comparison to ShB SB and HW. And given what I've seen them do over the years, I know they can do better.

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Originally Posted by rawker

It's the oversimplification and Homogenization that is problematic.

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Literally only the forums care about this and this is the smallest percentage of the players. Go away dude

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Originally Posted by Battler-Ushiromiya

Literally only the forums care about this and this is the smallest percentage of the players. Go away dude

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You go first.

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Originally Posted by Battler-Ushiromiya

Literally only the forums care about this and this is the smallest percentage of the players. Go away dude

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I’ve yet to see a single piece of the community that isn’t somewhere between “getting sick of it and it’s noticeably bad on the healers” and “this is genuinely ruining the game at this point”

Facebook and non mod twitter lean towards the former, the forums reddit and discord lean towards the latter but nobody seems to be happy at this point, especially on the support roles

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

I'm pretty sure that when people complain about the story, they are almost always referring to the patch content. Don't think anyone has much issue with the main expansion story, except for some nitpicking about time travel and what have you.

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My problem with EW was the pacing for an end of world scenario, it was bloody slow and littered with trash quests in between and throws the pacing off really bad. That was one of my issues with EW along with the homogenization and oversimplifying everything.