Endwalker is the lowest point of this game since 1.0

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

It's part of the astrologian job quests. Although I always read that as being a specific group, not the entirety of Sharlayan.

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There's that and also the expeditions into the ruins strewn throughout the Dravanian Hinterlands/Isle of Val that had us encounter all manner of creepy and weird familiars/experiments. The music in relation to Sharlayan before Endwalker always had a very distorted and eerie angle to it as well as if something wasn't quite right. To say nothing of the insinuations of certain levequest/FATE flavour text.

I don't have the energy these days to go hunting down specific text snippets, so people can take it with a pinch of salt. It's not like the writers who took over bother to pay attention to it themselves which is a shame but it is what it is.

Those who are in the know likely know though.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Please provide some level of in-game dialogue that lead you to this assessment. Or is this yet another 1.0 thing that got changed when all you knew about the world was wiped out with the reboot of the world in 2.0.

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just do the ast questline m80 it's easier than linking every quest

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/S...nding#Dialogue
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/T..._Fate#Dialogue

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

It's part of the astrologian job quests. Although I always read that as being a specific group, not the entirety of Sharlayan.

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"Sevestre
And what? You shall remain here and continue to spread our knowledge across this worm-eaten realm like it was sweet cream butter?
You know not what you do. The barbarians of this realm have shown that they can only use knowledge to destroy each other. They corrupt it. They lessen it. And then they forget it. They never once have shown they are worthy of the knowledge they so defile.

And yet you would still give it to them. <sigh> Very well. I shall do as you ask.

But know that the Forum is ever listening, ever watching. Should you continue your escapades here in Ishgard, they will find out.

And they will send others until they have succeeded where I have...failed."

This made me interpret it as a tacitly approved action rather than being entirely behind their back, especially with how whatsherface reacted too. There's other stuff that's less overt, but I'd have to think more about where it is. Think matoya made some comments, might have been some in idyllshire sidequests too?

It was ok with me up to the point of disbanding the Scions, being called Adventurer, essentially unemployed and the rest of the 6.x series of patches.

If it wasn’t for my static, I would have joined the rest of my FC in hibernation until 7.0. Now that we have finished, now I spend more time here than online as I burned out finishing the last tier of Savage and Omega was pure death.

(Taped to a tree somewhere.)

I think it's more likely a case of Endwalker intending to be the expansion that emphasised showing the "good side" of humanity, in a bid to both support Venat's view of the world and put the lie to the opinions of the likes of Hermes and Emet-Selch in 5.0 - the problem is that they took it too far, and in their haste to showcase the positive aspects of human nature, it cost them a lot narratively-speaking, and now that the story has concluded and EW's glow has worn off, we're left with the ramifications of those decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm sure the devs are thinking they've got other areas to explore and it's not of much consequence, but a lot of fans have been been anticipating some of those areas for a long time and it doesn't do much to mitigate the inevitable disappointment they're feeling, and they've written themselves into a corner with what is now a really sizeable chunk of Hydaelyn itself.

Moreover, FFXIV was never a game about black and white morality, and ironically in the beginning made frequent use of the basic truth that sometimes, some people are just irredeemable garbage, and all we can do is keep trying our best and set an example for others. I know why they did what they did in Endwalker and what they were going for, but some of it came down to rewriting not only entire subsections of lore but the principles on which FFXIV's writing was founded, and I just don't think the pay-off was worth the sacrifice, especially since it seems to be developing into a recurring theme than a one-off scenario.

Mumbles something about humans being overtly messy may cause certain incidents in the MSQ to be called into question before crawling back under a rock

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Originally Posted by fulminating

But know that the Forum is ever listening, ever watching. Should you continue your escapades here in Ishgard, they will find out.

And they will send others until they have succeeded where I have...failed."

This made me interpret it as a tacitly approved action rather than being entirely behind their back, especially with how whatsherface reacted too. There's other stuff that's less overt, but I'd have to think more about where it is. Think matoya made some comments, might have been some in idyllshire sidequests too?

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The worst part is Sevestre is shown a couple of the times in the forum cutscenes, without the formal headwear even but still not adressed. So they didn't forgot, but didn't bother or retconned that part of the story.

While it understandable that some of the members of Sharlayan society might be "intent on hoarding our nation's knowledge" with regard to Astrologians, it does not appear to have been the stated policy of the Forum, backed by assassins, regardless of what we might infer from the Astrologian quest line. Retconning in this case is more like "setting the record straight" from what I have read.

Thanks for the responses.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

Notice how nearly everyone who praises Endwalker only does so for the story. What about content? You know, gameplay? Like, in a video game?

Final Fantasy XIV is not a Netflix show. It’s a video game. At this point I’m only subscribed to make adult content and annoy people. It’s not a good video game at this point. The story was pretty banger, but not worth a monthly sub after it’s done.

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Irrelevant, but for the longest time I thought you were a meme. But you've gradually become one of my favorite people on this forum with comments like this.

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

I say the lowest is still Stormblood for me. Whole EW arc still pretty good compared to SB :)

(Still can't forgive how dirty they do to Ala Mhigo)

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Meanwhile the Garlean capitol is like 3 streets.

More could have been done with Ala Mhigo but at least it ended up getting three zones - four if you count Rhalgr's Reach - and was part of the story in the background and forefront for quite some time. I'd say it had considerably more build up and pay off overall. All the refugees aided back in ARR came back into the story and the city of Ala Mhigo itself is largely intact and is either explorable now through the dungeon exploration feature or will be at some point in the future.

So, personally, I don't believe that it was 'done dirty' to the same degree as either the Garleans or the Ancients. Especially the latter who lost absolutely everything and had their own genocide pushed as a 'necessity' even after the game decided (quite rightly) that it was never an acceptable line to cross. At least until it benefits the protagonists of the game, then suddenly it's an 'unfortunate necessity'.

I suppose we'll see if anything decent is done with Garlemald moving forward but it's unnerving that the usual time spent in post patches to properly rebuild things isn't being spent and so few of the Garlean characters build up in the background over the last decade have been used in the same way as all the Ala Mhigan characters built up in the background were.

It's funny - if sad - because all of the stuff I liked in the background in World of Warcraft eventually had payoff by comparison. To various degrees of success and depth but it was a pleasant surprise to see Suramar and the Highborne not only show up in the story but become a playable option.

MMO's should be designed to appeal to a broad audience, not just fans of a handful of characters as far as I'm concerned...and that's something I've consistently pushed for myself over the years only to find that even when a single bone is seemingly thrown to fans of something different it's just as readily taken away - which is precisely what happened between Shadowbringers and Endwalker with the Ancients.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

Notice how nearly everyone who praises Endwalker only does so for the story. What about content? You know, gameplay? Like, in a video game?

Final Fantasy XIV is not a Netflix show. It’s a video game. At this point I’m only subscribed to make adult content and annoy people. It’s not a good video game at this point. The story was pretty banger, but not worth a monthly sub after it’s done.

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Gameplay? Do you mean third-party mods?