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

I have no issues with the concepts, tone and topics of Matsuno's works. If anything, his nuanced politics, mature tone, and unwillingness to engage in fanservicey fluff (fanservice in this case not meaning sexual content, but basically, any moment in a story that exist solely to give a player warm fuzzies and no other reason) are sometimes refreshing.

But, as I said, I just find his story-telling to be hard to sit through. As I said, all of his characters sound the same, most plot points are exposited on at length as if the audience is too slow or too inattentive to infer points that they aren't directly told, and his heroes are often way more reactive than active.

I can enjoy his writing in moderation, and I can honestly say it's never ruined a game (like Endwalker's did for me), but he's definitely not my cup of tea.

In light of all of this discussion about which writer is good or bad, I say we all simply join hands in prayer for the return of Maehiro

If that's the HW writer, I'd definitely trust them best with handling this "conflict of morals" we're supposedly getting in 7.x after Endwalker doubled down on pushing a singular perspective as the "right" one instead of giving us something more nuanced.

I just hope a respectful approach is taken since depending on the subject material, it could easily end up stepping on a lot of people's toes. The game already takes too many liberties in terms of assuming that the player and the character that we play agrees with everything put in front of them. I wish Yoshi-P had the stones to take a step back and actually commit to what he has said in older interviews about the 'incredibly complex world that we live in'. I still don't know why the development team have such an aversion towards outright stating that what Venat did was awful and that even though it worked out, the cost is not something most of us would be willing to embrace if it were our loved ones in the same position.

The irony is that very same argument was raised in Shadowbringers but by the time Endwalker came around it was conveniently forgotten and brushed aside. Alas!

Either way, the more a game insists that I have to like or agree with a specific character or plot point the more I feel inclined to do the opposite...

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Originally Posted by anhaato

In light of all of this discussion about which writer is good or bad, I say we all simply join hands in prayer for the return of Maehiro

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Gets my vote, certainly. If EW is any indication of how this "conflict of morals" is to be dealt with, I'll become an avid cutscene skipper, if I'm still around.

Maybe 7.0 will have a time skip or some such that allows for a soft reset on conflicts and we can get something more interesting.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Maybe 7.0 will have a time skip or some such that allows for a soft reset on conflicts and we can get something more interesting.

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My personal hope is something like "you set sail to the new world but shipwreck and are alone in a strange land with new people" or "you get sucked into another shard by yourself this time".

But I doubt Square would dare to leave you scion-less for too long.

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Originally Posted by Cach

My personal hope is something like "you set sail to the new world but shipwreck and are alone in a strange land with new people" or "you get sucked into another shard by yourself this time".

But I doubt Square would dare to leave you scion-less for too long.

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I seriously want us to head off to the new world and get embroiled in their conflicts over there HW-style. Traveling across either North American pine forests or Central American jungles as well as some Caribbean islands, taking refuge in one of these fabled "golden cities" that just happens to have a market board somehow even though it's very much cut off from the other continents. We could have 2 travel companions off that ship and 1 or 2 who are new world natives. End hub being based on Machu Picchu? Stuff like this that's really scaled down and kept to local affairs is where the game excels.

As long as it's not done through the lens of "conflict of morals". :p Especially pushing ones I vehemently disagree with on me, whilst leaving me very little room in the story to express disagreement. At least they recognised during SHB that they're not philosophers and that morality (as well as historical facts) are complex and thus there is substantial differences in opinion on these.

Had they proposed a conflict in values during ShB (when nuance still existed in the story) I would have had a lot more faith than now after the handling of EW. My values are directly in conflict with those of Venat while my character was forced to assist and fawn over her. The fact that the writers/devs have not addressed Venat at all outside of some fan questions in the Q&A LL is also concerning to me. I don't care about Hermes, he was the villain. I care about the person elevated to "herois" who was just as bad as Hermes if not worse. The Final Days may be over, but the sundering is indefinite unless the next 10 year arc intends to change that.

Personally, I would love to find out that Hydaelyn failed the 13th, the voidsent have an abysmal opinion of her, and her codex entry has to be rewritten to take into account the views of those on the shards. Considering that the 13th happened when Hydaelyn would've been at her most powerful post-sundering and she was unable to save it would imply she either couldn't or wouldn't intervene with the shards (her seeking to maintain the time loop would imply the latter). I believe that POV should be taken into account. You'd think the denizens of the First would have some choice words for her like Ardbert did.