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

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I do wish that instead of an exaggerated stylistic cutscene we'd actually been shown some raw footage of the Sundering itself. It's very telling that the game will insist on showing the effects of the likes of Black Rose in excruciating detail but that it chickened out at every possible turn when it came to showing 'mOmMy' in an unflattering light.

I'm firmly opposed to people being stripped of their agency through no fault of their own and that's something Venat is responsible for across the board. All whilst conveniently being championed as a 'saviour'.

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I wonder how you'd feel if Elidibus and Venat switched roles, but everything else was the same. So Elidibus caused the sundering, Venat was the heart of Zodiark.

You seem to be real hung on on Venat being a woman. Like.. You just can't let that one thing go, it comes across are rather crass honestly.

Plus, if the Ascians succeeded, all currently living souls lose their agency, through no actions of their own.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I wonder how you'd feel if Elidibus and Venat switched roles, but everything else was the same. So Elidibus caused the sundering, Venat was the heart of Zodiark.

You seem to be real hung on on Venat being a woman. Like.. You just can't let that one thing go, it comes across are rather crass honestly.

Plus, if the Ascians succeeded, all currently living souls lose their agency, through no actions of their own.

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Ah yes, pleading misogyny when someone disagrees with a video game character. Next up on how low and can the lore community go.

Venat's philosophy is one I tend to agree with. Though I can concede the way the cutscene played out was wonky. Although, to be honest the whole Ancient/Ascian/Time travel plot was a bad idea and forced them into a corner writing wise. Shoving two expansions together didn't help.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Venat's philosophy is one I tend to agree with. Though I can concede the way the cutscene played out was wonky. Although, to be honest the whole Ancient/Ascian/Time travel plot was a bad idea and forced them into a corner writing wise. Shoving two expansions together didn't help.

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Same, think EW did her a disservice. I really wanted to give her a chance in ShB, there were many times in lore discussions on other platforms where I'd defend her saying we didn't get the full story... and I still feel like we didn't really get the full story. Didn't like the execution at all and how overwrought and strawmanny it all was. They had to specify some things out of game, too. But hey, at least we got to gasp and clap at the super cool Answers anime music video.

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

Same, think EW did her a disservice. I really wanted to give her a chance in ShB, there were many times in lore discussions on other platforms where I'd defend her saying we didn't get the full story... and I still feel like we didn't really get the full story. Didn't like the execution at all and how overwrought and strawmanny it all was. They had to specify some things out of game, too. But hey, at least we got to gasp and clap at the super cool Answers anime music video.

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It's also that as a player I really don't have investment in the ancients. I had investment in Ishgard, I had investment in Ala Mhigo and Doma, I had investment in the First. However, I get a single zone with the Ancients then get told to feel sad and go fight despair. It's a mix of lack of investment and poor grounding for the player character. Now philosophical plots and lore can work, but XIV is not some like Elder Scrolls where that works.

Her philosophy is fine and I agree with it to an extent (although I think part of what the story shows is a failure of imagination in some of the caricature Dead End worlds), but it's just words on paper at the end of the day, that will be forgotten in time and isn't even embraced by the Scions, who aim to minimise suffering and spread peace in their own right.

I also don't like how hamfisted some of the "themes" are. The caricature worlds, constantly repeating the same point in completely different contexts which as a result rings hollow to me given how the metaphysics of the setting are set up, the fact that the sundered as a whole are even less fit to endure this version of the Final Days (because their souls will be consumed whole) so it's mainly just a select few, with plenty of help, who actually overcome the test (meanwhile we saw how Emet-Selch and Elidibus were capable of enduring for 12k years to pursue their goal so the idea that they lack resilience is just silly), her excuses not to reveal it all to the ancients, the time travel to force that (probably my biggest issue with it all) etc.

It's just not great in my eyes. There's ways to make a point and this expansion was lacking in all subtlety.

Well that has been a issue for a long time. For all the aspirations of being a epic, the story is not structured like one. The main character, the WoL, never feels like they have any agency and instead has to have side characters speak for them. Furthermore, instead of letting the story play out XIV does have a bad habit of directly stating and restating its point and themes at the player. All the speeches wear thin, when I as the player feel more akin to a errand boy instead of this mythical hero of legend. Also the stakes never reach or feel epic. Nothing is really lost, and more is told than shown. It's tiresome.

Yep. I am trying to be optimistic about the new plot but I don't think they're going to diverge too much from the formula they've now hit upon.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I wonder how you'd feel if Elidibus and Venat switched roles, but everything else was the same. So Elidibus caused the sundering, Venat was the heart of Zodiark.

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If the circumstances were exactly the same, then I'd be sympathetic towards Venat in such a scenario.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

You seem to be real hung on on Venat being a woman. Like.. You just can't let that one thing go, it comes across are rather crass honestly.

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I think that's pretty disingenuous and a rather strange assumption to make about someone you do not know. From what I recall, it isn't the first time you've implied it either - so I'm genuinely curious as to what drives such defamatory comments. If you want to know who my favourite female characters are, then you only need to ask.

Venat's gender isn't a factor as to why I dislike her. I do find the 'mOmMy GoDdEsS' thing to be a little creepy, though I'd say the same thing if - as you proposed - Elidibus was switched with Venat and it became 'dADdY goD' instead. I don't root for characters based purely on their appearance or gender.

Disagreeing with a character, who just so happens to be a woman, is not sexism. I didn't find her reasons for doing what she did to be realistic or compelling, given that she deliberately withheld key information from her people and judged them on the basis of not responding in the way she desired when the Ancients themselves had no possible way to know what, exactly, she was judging them for.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Plus, if the Ascians succeeded, all currently living souls lose their agency, through no actions of their own.

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My stance has long been that it makes sense for the Sundered to do everything possible in order to survive and that expecting them to just roll over and die for the sake of the Unsundered is not a fair expectation.

With the caveat that the reverse is true as well. The Unsundered can't reasonably be expected to just roll over and die for the sake of the Sundered when such an abhorrent atrocity was inflicted upon their civilisation.

To say nothing of the simple fact that it is Venat, herself, who is ultimately responsible for the Rejoinings by willingly allowing the three Unsundered to escape the Sundering. At the time, she was possessed of the knowledge of what they would do and even stood to benefit from the Rejoinings herself on some level as it factored into her 'grand plan'. As such, it is at the feet of Hermes and Venat where I lay most of the blame as they're ultimately the duo responsible for most of the more abhorrent events in the story to date.

Can you explain why it is that you do find the mother goddess motif creepy? It's common symbolism in many religions, it's not unique or unusual.

I'd go one step further and make Emet a woman, looking like Cruella de Vil in ShB and being absolutely Tsundere for Azem in EW. Now the Unsundered can be the Mean Girls I've always wanted them to be deep down. You can't hang out with us, Sundered.

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

But hey, at least we got to gasp and clap at the super cool Answers anime music video.

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It had just occurred to me a couple of days ago that this was probably the reason why Venat was so obsessed with giving Hermes/Meteion humanity's "answer": so we could stand up and clap when the lyrics hit. Then I had this terrible feeling about the potential title of the final fight BGM, so I had to go check the OST tracklist and I'm pleased to report neither of them have anything to do with a question whatsoever. Whew. I might have died of cheese.

(I also found out the Elpis night theme, which tends to make me sad to begin with, is titled "Stars Long Dead". Oof ouch owie...)

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Originally Posted by Lauront

(meanwhile we saw how Emet-Selch and Elidibus were capable of enduring for 12k years to pursue their goal so the idea that they lack resilience is just silly)

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I really liked your previous signature quote, of bearing the burden and fighting on, kicking and screaming until your last breath is spent, as said by the Scions in Ultima Thule – wait... (checks notes) ...it's not the S– oh dear there's been a terrible mistake –

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Furthermore, instead of letting the story play out XIV does have a bad habit of directly stating and restating its point and themes at the player. All the speeches wear thin, when I as the player feel more akin to a errand boy instead of this mythical hero of legend. Also the stakes never reach or feel epic. Nothing is really lost, and more is told than shown. It's tiresome.

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By the time I unlocked the Endsinger I was ready for Ra-La to come and take me tbh

I wish the Final Days had been so much more. But Sundered stronk!

I know it's taboo within the FFXIV community, but when the director feels the need to "communicate she's not a bad guy" despite the gross amount of gaslighting that occurred and has to explain key character motivations and story elements, then the script didn't go into enough depth and the game didn't depict them sufficiently. I won't go as far as saying it's bad writing/directing, but they did not give these characters and storylines the attention they needed. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised when the Q&A made it clear that they don't consider the finer details of the lore that the fandom pores over excessively.

However, even then, I simply don't understand how Yoshi-P can compare Venat to Emet and Hermes, imply they're basically all the same and this is just an Ancient mentality, but the way Venat is portrayed is as a protagonist, not an antagonist like the others, and that's while being responsible for everything except the cause of the Final Days.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

You know, it's always something I've found bizarre... Does any character that isn't on Venat's side ever explicitly say the Convocation was planning more sacrifices after the third one that would bring back the people within Zodiark?

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As far as I know, not even people among Venat's group were concerned with 'endless' or 'continuous' sacrifices to Zodiark. It's always been player headcanon that somehow came to be accepted as fact.

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I love this, by the way. Azem, who historically refused to side with either Zodiark or Hydaelyn to deal with the Final Days (as far as we can tell, anyway), now having the blessings of both to deal with the Final Days.

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This is one of the (many) reasons the WoL being the champion of Hydaelyn irked me. Venat is someone who 1) your OG self didn't join, 2) condemned your two BFFs to fates worse than death, 2) sundered you and then groomed/manipulated your reincarnation. Why in TF would I ever view her favorably? I can concede to having to work with her due to the position she put us all in, essentially having to clean up her and Hermes' mess, but like she's some sort of good guy in all this? No.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

You seem to be real hung on on Venat being a woman. Like.. You just can't let that one thing go, it comes across are rather crass honestly.

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Baseless accusation, but I suppose that's the 2020s. Were roles reversed, I would feel contempt for Elidibus and heartbreak for Venat. It has nothing to do with gender and everything with character.

As for the "crystal mommy" bit, maybe had Hydaelyn ever been a likeable character I could've let it slide, but think of any character in the game you dislike constantly referring to you as their children (or "my" anything) and see if that doesn't start grating on your nerves.

I just hope they don't sink low enough to implement the idea that the Azem of the ancient world is the player character now, having gone back in time...

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Originally Posted by Teraq

I really liked your previous signature quote, of bearing the burden and fighting on, kicking and screaming until your last breath is spent, as said by the Scions in Ultima Thule – wait... (checks notes) ...it's not the S– oh dear there's been a terrible mistake –

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It's a great quote, isn't it? He has many great ones. I also liked that one because it (along with Hades) is a corrosive against the idea I've seen floated around that the ancients couldn't relate to the idea of struggling to fight for their existences to the bitter end. To me he epitomises the notions of "nothing is impossible" and exceeding love for and allegiance to his people far better than a certain other character professing these notions.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I just hope they don't sink low enough to implement the idea that the Azem of the ancient world is the player character now, having gone back in time...

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I don't think they will.

There's no real benefit to telling that story if it leads to a foregone conclusion—the WoL sitting on the sidelines, abstaining from conflict altogether, then laying down and meekly accepting annihilation at Venat's hands.

There's also little benefit to telling the same story twice—we've already had our song and dance about stopping Meteion and the Final Days, so doing it a second time would have much less impact regardless of how it's handled. Even if they leaned into that by having her be, say, the boss of the level X5 dungeon, we'd have folks feeling it's underwhelming to take her out so easily when she was a nigh impossible hurdle to overcome in Endwalker.

And even then, we already have Meteion as the heretofore unknown third party who was actually responsible for the Final Days. There's not much room to inject an even more secret fourth party who needs to be dealt with, unless they pull something like the Infinite Dragonflight from World of Warcraft—and even then, the story would probably run into the same headache we have now regarding Venat's character, but with the player instead.

And finally, I doubt they will ever willingly undermine the legitimacy of Venat's actions. If the WoL went back in time and successfully did anything that Venat failed to do, it would only make her look worse by comparison. And even if we succeeded in stopping the Final Days, Venat would still be the woman who wants to end the Ancients' world because "What if they might die of apathy?".

I think the story was okay, the only point I had an issue with was the time travel since it was ultimately unnecessary. The echo can show visions of a potential future, or show events that occurred in the past related to a foci (be it a person or object). Given that they can't have the WoL just warp reality by changing the past, it would have made more sense that Venat and the WoL communicated indirectly via the echo, since the sundering is a fixed and unavoidable event, so anything that happens after the sundering would be beyond the scope of the unsundered to impact. While normally it would be impossible for the echo to go that far back, there are relics on the first that would enable it such as the old ruins, so communicating via that means would have made a lot more sense.

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Originally Posted by Firlont

Can you explain why it is that you do find the mother goddess motif creepy? It's common symbolism in many religions, it's not unique or unusual.

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I'm not religious myself and although this isn't the place for a deep debate on the subject, it could be proposed that a lot of real world religions strip away freedom and agency from believers who in turn then sometimes seek to spread teachings which do the same to other people.

Another factor, specifically for Venat is that her behaviour is very similar to munchausen by proxy. Yet in the case of the Sundered she isn't even their mother to begin with - only masquerading as such and declaring that everyone on Etheirys is now suddenly her 'children' based on a non-consensual act of forcing them to be more to her liking.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the 'mother goddess' motif in general, so much as in the context of Venat. As I mentioned in prior posts, I don't think her reasons for inflicting genocide upon her own people were particularly strong. She deduced, with no guarantee that it was the correct judgement, that the Ancients would eventually suffer a similar fate to the inhabitants of the planets mentioned in Meteion's report. However, even if we concede that such might have been true...she had information that allowed her to know of the impending approach of the Final Days as well as Meteion's existence. She insisted on withholding both pieces of key information from her people despite it clearly being something that would have helped the Ancients respond accordingly. They did, after all, have a society based around research and debate.

In terms of the player character, the lack of an ability to express our disagreement with what she did is also rather strange. That a significant chunk of the most recent Live Letter was focused on 'clarifying' elements of the story suggests to me that quite a lot of people found the premise of the expansion to be rather bizarre in places. I also get the impression that Venat wasn't nearly as universally loved as the development team were led to believe which likely caught them off guard.

If nothing else, I think the writers dropped the ball in regards to handling the controversial subject of genocide. I don't agree that there was a 'good reason' for the genocide of the Ancients and I thought it was pretty weird that the Scions are so lukewarm in their reactions to Venat. It's entirely possible for someone to directly or indirectly benefit from an act as horrific as the Sundering but still find the act to be utterly reprehensible. The story seems to pick and choose which morals and themes it wishes to embrace at any given time instead of maintaining a sense of consistency.

Ultimately I think Venat was done a major disservice. I found her to be likeable during the Elpis portion of the story - right up until the infamous 'thou shall walk' cutscene which, conveniently, involved exaggerated caricatures of the Ancients and reduced the complex reasoning outlined in Shadowbringers and Elpis to eyebrow raising parody. The other jarring element is making her responsible for sparing the three Unsundered and viewing the Rejoinings as a 'necessity' for her plan to work. I think it takes away the agency of many different characters and factions.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

involved exaggerated caricatures of the Ancients

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This guy ended up being the unsung tragic martyr of the resistance against Venat's "grand plan":

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

Bizarrely enough, Yoshi's "she's an ancient huh" is applied to her (again, I'll reiterate how unconvincing I find this given that we see many sundered characters engaged in similar "for the greater good" and "the ends justify the means" reasoning, but whatever), but no such luck for the poor strawmen. No, they just have to react to immense grief and loss the right way, in the face of very weak reasoning. We can conveniently neglect that the majority of their number had to sacrifice to prevent their star from dying beneath their feet and how we'd realistically react in this scenario and hope for platitudes to carry the day.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

This guy ended up being the unsung tragic martyr of the resistance against Venat's "grand plan":

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

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All hail the boomer amaurotines. They just wanted to grill and mow their beautiful perfect lawns in their beautiful perfect world, then walk into the suicide machine 5 minutes later. Also, the perception that Zodiark was putting on his bib and slamming 3 pairs of forks and knives on the table begging for more souls still is funny since it was revealed that he had been keeping them all intact for all these 12k years while the ones in Hydaelyn were consumed.

Ah yes, the never-ending soul sacrifices to feed the greedy darkness! How can one forget that old chestnut. Yeah, that was quite the revelation, that he wasn't quite the hungering blood god some thought he was, and actually preserved them inside him.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

I'd go one step further and make Emet a woman, looking like Cruella de Vil in ShB and being absolutely Tsundere for Azem in EW. Now the Unsundered can be the Mean Girls I've always wanted them to be deep down. You can't hang out with us, Sundered.

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Here you go. :P

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Yep. I am trying to be optimistic about the new plot but I don't think they're going to diverge too much from the formula they've now hit upon.

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Honestly I hate the fact they feel the need to make the WoL to be as lawful good as much. This results in the Reaper job, which normally should at least be chaotic neutral, to be the "good" faction in the end. Apparently they are the garlean batman/punisher who punished oppressors. It was fine during the start when the reaper guild was a pure garlean mercenaries, but after the WoL joined it turned into "everyone oppressed can join our club now :)".

Also, as someone who way prefer Thief over Ninja, I'm still pissed that Rogue turn into NIN because "Thief is evil and we can't have the WoL to be one".

Seriously, does Square enix has a rule where FF main character cannot be morally gray?

I'm right there with you. 80% of Endwalker story just completely bored or annoyed me and I've genuinely never had to force myself through an expansion before.

Follow this npc and don't get caught, they're going to frigging see you anyway once they get to their destination but there's a point to this we swear. Aww look at the cute kawaii bunnies aren't they adorable? No, their entire story arc is pointless when you literally know everything they're going on about is useless filler because you're going to save the world anyway. Over glorified fashion report. Oh noooo it's the cliche all of our friends are disappearing but is always totally obvious they'll come back immediately because who else would you have for the trust dungeon otherwise? /s. Legit I didn't think they could make Zenos more of an irrelevant useless clown than he was in SB but man they did it. Plz care about generic NPC no.2870 that you just met 5 minutes ago dying when we haven't had the balls to kill off a scion since 2017. Ascians? Nah mate, goth loli pigeon for all the lolicons out there and another generic gigantic goth lady for people to unironically call mommy. Killed two 'birds' with one stone, haha get it?

My biggest issue with it though? Our character has never had such a central role with so many lines in the story before and still its completely mute, ruins the entire scene.

It's impressive how they manage to actually make me hate venat in an expansion that supposed to explain her reasoning. I'd rather she sunder because she opposed the third sacrifice, rather than "oh my, the future sounds beautiful. This guy from the future is my ideal vision of what mankind should be. Brb gotta introduce despair to my (previous) people".

At least it's funny to see how venat's stan is so desperate trying to defend her though, lol.

We all should've just ate burgers. It would have been a better plot.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Honestly I hate the fact they feel the need to make the WoL to be as lawful good as much. This results in the Reaper job, which normally should at least be chaotic neutral, to be the "good" faction in the end. Apparently they are the garlean batman/punisher who punished oppressors. It was fine during the start when the reaper guild was a pure garlean mercenaries, but after the WoL joined it turned into "everyone oppressed can join our club now :)".

Also, as someone who way prefer Thief over Ninja, I'm still pissed that Rogue turn into NIN because "Thief is evil and we can't have the WoL to be one".

Seriously, does Square enix has a rule where FF main character cannot be morally gray?

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Square Enix has an "ethics" department. Just putting that out there.

All I gotta say is. I started playing towards the beginning of Shadowbringers, and all I would hear from both my own friends playing this game and from a massive fucking HOST of other players?
"Hydaelyn is 100% going to be the final boss that's how FF always works."
"She's evil, calling it now."
"Look man Emet-Selch STANS always know."

I was basically the one in my group who kept suggesting that maybe Hydaelyn was legitimately trying to be good, but the writing quality of ARR and Heavensward prevented this. Multiple times, it seemed like she should've had relevance in more of ARR -> HW and patch content that didn't revolve around Minfilia being sacc'd -> SB -> ShB, but was never allowed by the writers to actually DO anything.
We get to Endwalker where we finally get to see Venat and Hydaelyn, and it's more piss-poor writing coupled with a veneer of Big-Good over a picture of "Holy shit how can this person be anything but an antagonist in any other Final Fantasy game."

So I tell my friends.
And now I tell you people.

Congratulations. You got a villainous Hydaelyn.
You got your Mommy Crystal Genocidaelyn. Your big evil angelic mommy milker crystal of sundering.

Was it worth it?


Edit:
And also, friendly reminder that the Live Letter Q&A outright stated that trailers are made before any plot is established.
So yknow.
The story was never going to make any fucking sense following that logic.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

Square Enix has an "ethics" department. Just putting that out there.

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Yeah. Which is unfortunate, given what 'ethics' usually translate to in 'current year'.

As for Hydaelyn/Venat I was very much in the camp of wanting Zodiark and Hydaelyn to work together to defeat a third party that had manipulated the Ancients. I was hoping for some sort of alien parasite burrowing into the planet like Jenova or Lavos rather than what we ended up getting as the cause of the Final Days, though.

I've never liked how Hydaelyn was handled because, conveniently, all the Scions adore her with paper thin reasoning. Even their supposed 'crisis of faith' feels forced and doesn't amount to anything nor does the game even bother to give the player the dignity of calling out the lying and gaslighting that Venat engaged in.

I think the most efficient route would have been to just...make her an antagonist. She ended up becoming one in all but name due to now being tied to every 'bad' thing that happened in the story.

She'd come across as a lot more sympathetic to me if the story wasn't awkwardly trying to defend absolutely everything that she did as a 'necessity'. It's alright for characters to have a lapse in judgement. I think it'd work better if the story simply highlighted that although she meant well, her route wasn't the only route that could have been taken.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

It's impressive how they manage to actually make me hate venat in an expansion that supposed to explain her reasoning. I'd rather she sunder because she opposed the third sacrifice, rather than "oh my, the future sounds beautiful. This guy from the future is my ideal vision of what mankind should be. Brb gotta introduce despair to my (previous) people".

At least it's funny to see how venat's stan is so desperate trying to defend her though, lol.

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Some of the posters, with the way they describe her, make her sound like the most abhorrent jRPG villain in the world, too. Like a fem-Zenos who was bored and wanted to make the world more exciting, at the expense of the previous world. And I'm supposed to believe that this is worth it for The Greater Good (tm), legitimately distressing and feels like I am in some nightmare clown dimension. Reminds me of games where the main protag unwittingly plays along with the villain's plan the entire time... though this time, it all works out in the end for her and she gets what she wants, with none of the protags going against it. It'd be like if in FFX, everyone just shrugs and goes along with Yunalesca's plan for the Greater Good of the temporary Calm.

I can enjoy villains that are awful people as long as they are fun and entertaining, but there was no fun or entertainment, merely preaching about 'ummm sweaty, this was all for the best, deal with it'. TBH... I should probably stop paying attention to anything XIV lore-related, but it's just too fun to read other peoples' well-writen takes on it.

brb, taking another hit of my industrial giga-copium canister, as I imagine all those released Unsundered being reborn as super cool 9 foot tall Echo-users... ahhhh...

From an in universe point of view one could understand backing Venat, considering her action led to the existence of them and theirs. Although, once again she is a victim of the writers who thought meteion was a good idea.

Seeing the QnA and reading everyone else responses only makes Venat seem even more questionable than before.
It’s like she’s been waiting for an chance to force people to her ideals and her ideals only. She just needed an excuse and the power to finally do it without direct consent of the rest of the world. No wonder she was so adamant about becoming Hydalyn’s heart.

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Originally Posted by Simple_Barghest

It's honestly to the point where I can't blame any of the characters for any of their actions.
They don't have any agency beyond what the sub-par writing team gives them, and sometimes this leads to actions that completely run counter to any of their previous characterization or development.
It's also resulted in legitimately not being able to care about this game's world anymore, unfortunately.

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It's not just this arc. Prior to ShB some of the most interesting characters and arcs were around Garlemald. Gaius, Regula, Noah, even Varis are/were interesting, especially as we got closer to going to Garlemald proper. Instead all those years of development and waiting, and we got a single zone (cool and atmospheric mind you) whose story is just a footnote in the plot. Same for conflicts setup in Doma and Ala Mhigo. MSQ tier setups relegated to barely there side stories.

The writers seem to prefer writing "slice of life!" scenes as opposed to anything of actual importance. Imagine if Garlemald or the entire fiasco surrounding Venat were as fleshed out and had as much care dedicated to them as G'raha Tia and his ridiculous hamburger scene.

If it wasn't for the Garleans and the Ascians, I wouldn't have bothered investing in this game in the first place.

I dislike the focus on 'slice of life' and 'escort quests'. I don't want absolutely everyone and everything to revolve around my character, either.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

The writers seem to prefer writing "slice of life!" scenes as opposed to anything of actual importance. Imagine if Garlemald or the entire fiasco surrounding Venat were as fleshed out and had as much care dedicated to them as G'raha Tia and his ridiculous hamburger scene.

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As someone who sincerely enjoys writing little slice of life stuff, I could have done without the hamburger scene. And not even because I dislike G'raha. Why the heck does Sharlayan have hamburgers?

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Originally Posted by Kozh

It's impressive how they manage to actually make me hate venat in an expansion that supposed to explain her reasoning. I'd rather she sunder because she opposed the third sacrifice, rather than "oh my, the future sounds beautiful. This guy from the future is my ideal vision of what mankind should be. Brb gotta introduce despair to my (previous) people".

At least it's funny to see how venat's stan is so desperate trying to defend her though, lol.

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I never want to hear you complain about anyone being bad faith again, Kozh.

I seem to remember at some point the devs said they did not have all the Ascians' lore planned out from the very beginning, that they were literally just Bob Evils to cheese a story until Shadowbringers? That would explain a lot of things, because at this point everything about the Ancients feels like WoW's "The Jailer was behind everything", XIV Edition. The implication that the players think too much about these things was just the icing on the cake, considering this is supposed to be a "story first" game.

TL;DR: why does my character trust any of these characters ever :confused:

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Originally Posted by Puksi

I seem to remember at some point the devs said they did not have all the Ascians' lore planned out from the very beginning, that they were literally just Bob Evils to cheese a story until Shadowbringers? That would explain a lot of things, because at this point everything about the Ancients feels like WoW's "The Jailer was behind everything", XIV Edition. The implication that the players think too much about these things was just the icing on the cake, considering this is supposed to be a "story first" game.

TL;DR: why does my character trust any of these characters ever :confused:

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Story first game, but haha, stop looking too into it you guys, it’s just a story. Stop criticizing it so much!

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Originally Posted by Simple_Barghest

Congratulations. You got a villainous Hydaelyn.
You got your Mommy Crystal Genocidaelyn. Your big evil angelic mommy milker crystal of sundering.

Was it worth it?

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It might have been if they had actually committed to it, instead of... what we got. I wanted to kick her face in for what she's done, but instead all I got was a friendly little test of my might while I was left to ponder this convoluted and unsatisfying plot as Y'shtola patted her on the back because Dynamis. At least I didn't have to suffer the day 3 DPS queue because it was trust compatible!

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

I can enjoy villains that are awful people as long as they are fun and entertaining, but there was no fun or entertainment, merely preaching about 'ummm sweaty, this was all for the best, deal with it'.

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Along with everyone treating her like a hero, this was her other biggest crime as far as I'm concerned tbh. I could take pre-ShB Emet, Butler Fandaniel clowning around and Nabriales stroking Minfilia's face like a Saturday morning cartoon villain – I'd say I'm pretty easy to please – but even if we consider her something of a villain I just find her boring at it. Come on sis, FLAUNT IT!

I was really invested on the story until they started with all the fake deaths on SB, Yotsuyu final arc was decent but i literally lost any interest on the story when they killed Varis offscreen and the only villians we had was the joker without batman and Zenos warming throne over several patches, my favourite scene on the whole game was Varis roasting the whole alliance.

SHB and EW has been a total dissapointment for me, i be honest that the only enjoable parts i had on of both expansions has been the ascian lore reveal from Emet and the second part of thavnair when i foollish belive things are getting interesting just to find that after that zone the final days and his effects just didn't have more screentime bcs reasons, was more worthy pulling the power of friendship to build the ship i guess.
Emet and hythlodaeus has been the only character along with Quintus i enjoyed, everything outside of that has been really meh, specially venat and the whole time traveling arc wich i consider a mess despite i find interesting how the ancients work there and Y'sthola spoiling they can get back after disapear in ultima thula before the twins and g'raha was just the final screw the scions plot armor for me.

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Originally Posted by shao32

the second part of thavnair when i foollish belive things are getting interesting just to find that after that zone the final days and his effects just didn't have more screentime bcs reasons, was more worthy pulling the power of friendship to build the ship i guess.

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Same here, I loved level 85 Thavnair and thought "well, maybe it was worth it having Zodiark as the level 83 trial if it gets this epic". But that was pretty much it. The Garlemald part felt like an afterthought (although it gave us the catharsis of Alisaie telling Zenos nobody cares). The role quests are just a couple of monsters here and there, though I found some of the story hooks interesting. Are you just going to tell me nothing happened in Ul'dah with all that misery around the city? Really? Come on.

And I genuinely thought it was going to finally pop up in Sharlayan during the Labyrinthos quests, but... nope. I legitimately got a sinking feeling in my stomach when at one point someone goes "you should come outside and see this!!!" and I was like "oh shit it's here in Sharlayan and the sky is going to be blood red" but nah it's just everyone and their grandma showing up to bring you the Unobtainium lol