Endwalker is the most controversial expansion

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Sorry, but they should never let Elpis into the game like this. The problem is, since we are active in the past, there is no way to fix the causal loops without introducing new different ones.

---

I was going to say how the writers would use voidmagic to somehow close said time-loop but I'm not sure they even care if it's just out in the open like that, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Sorry, but they should never let Elpis into the game like this. The problem is, since we are active in the past, there is no way to fix the causal loops without introducing new different ones. If you let Venat's memory being erased then there would never be a space ship. Because Venat would not know, that Meteion is responsible for the first final days etc.

---

As I said earlier, it could be written that she regains those memories in the aetherial sea.

Alternately, Hydaelyn doesn't need the memory of what happened to Meteion exactly, because she still "tagged" her with aether, and we could turn up with the full story and then it's just "oh, that's why I can detect a fragment of my aether at the edge of the universe; let me give you a map."

We don't need to specifically have a Hydaelyn-designed spaceship as long as we have one from somewhere for some reason. The Sharlayans could have still been building a spaceship for their own scientific purposes, or we could acquire an Allagan full-size Lunar Whale, or the crashed ship on the moon, or the still conspicuously unused Nyunkrepf's Hope. The moon just needed to be Zodiark's prison; the whole "actually a spaceship" plot took us away from actually having any much time spent out on the surface appreciating that we were really there.

There are ways around the details of the time plot that could have worked better than the exact story that we got, without turning it into something completely different if the writers really wanted the time travel element but other aspects were flexible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

As I said earlier, it could be written that she regains those memories in the aetherial sea.

Alternately, Hydaelyn doesn't need the memory of what happened to Meteion exactly, because she still "tagged" her with aether, and we could turn up with the full story and then it's just "oh, that's why I can detect a fragment of my aether at the edge of the universe; let me give you a map."

We don't need to specifically have a Hydaelyn-designed spaceship as long as we have one from somewhere for some reason. The Sharlayans could have still been building a spaceship for their own scientific purposes, or we could acquire an Allagan full-size Lunar Whale, or the creased ship on the moon, or the still conspicuously unused Nyunkrepf's Hope. The moon just needed to be Zodiark's prison; the whole "actually a spaceship" plot took us away from actually having any much time spent out on the surface appreciating that we were really there.

There are ways around the details of the time plot that could have worked better than the exact story that we got, without turning it into something completely different if the writers really wanted the time travel element but other aspects were flexible.

---

I like that you're at least trying to think of ways it could be fixed. I just have to say though, the fact we the players have to try and undo a supposed professional writer's mess is....both kind of really funny, but also incredibly sad.

It feels like they saw a bit of a playthrough of Chaos Rings III without any of the context and went: "Yup, that's what we're doing for Endwalker, anyone who says otherwise will be that guy that gets tossed out the window in that meme comic of a man suggesting a non insane idea to his boss." Also play Chaos Rings III, it does what Endwalker wishes it could do in every single way. Hell, it does what XIV wishes it could do. And the best part is it's considered the least good of the AFAIK three.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm mostly confused as to why they would want to even leave that question open for a character whom the narrative frames as unanimously good and a hero and Yoshi himself wanted the audience to view as such. It created a dissonance for some that left them feeling detached from the story.

Had they simply had her memories get wiped at the end of Elpis and thus left all of her choices untainted by knowledge of the future, it would've eliminated basically all of the reasons people took issue with how the story portrayed her. I remember you saying you'd feel like that would "cheapen" the decisions she'd made, but I feel like it would've made things much more gratifying if she had actually had to grapple with the weight of whether or not she made the right choice, as opposed to the angle of "It hurts to do this, but it's going to pay off eventually".

---

She did grapple with it though, like that’s something they’ve made clear in game and out. Venat doesn’t know if this will work out, as simply having us in Elpis isn’t the endgame. It’s someone defeating her and going to Ultima Thule and overcoming despair. Removing her knowledge of Elpis wouldn’t have solved that, if anything, it would just increase the amount of criticism. “How dare she destroy this entire world just to protect some random souls. Those souls probably weren’t even human!”

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by anhaato

How did this happen?

---

my guess is that they got where they wanted to go with the game. It should pay off well, and now it's time to relax and invest in other games, while using this one as a money making machine.

I thought I wouldn't dislike a story as much as I did in SB, but EW managed to get over it. More than half of the expansion you can skip the dialogs because there is no difference. In the midst of a disaster, we were trying on carrots and putting on clothes (not to mention that Graha has a dialogue, in the midst of Radz-at-han's confusion, where he stops to talk about the tapestry). Not to mention the other problems that this story had, like the excess of fanservice (the entire Elpis is a fanservice and without relevance) and parts of the story where it's clear that whoever wrote it was begging me to cry (seriously, I couldn't take the unnecessary drama).

Patch 6.1 doesn't improve much. We had the whole SHB on how hard it was to go to the first and back (has anyone forgotten what Cid had to do?), and now I have no doubt that Yshtola will figure out how to go to the void and back, in a matter of days .

Since SHB the game is lacking in details, whether it's cutting the races' ears to fit the hats (and now hairs), as races are limited in content (I must remember that they promised that these races would get more customization options, since they would not make the hats, and after 3 years the races are still without these promised customizations). Also, we have a bot infestation, content removal (ultimate, hildbrand, deep dungeon, halloween event... but at least it looks like these they will fix), even the jumping puzzle that was in the summer event has been removed.

I could list many more things here, but it would be a huge wall of text, and it would be too lazy to read.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adamantini

(the entire Elpis is a fanservice and without relevance)

---

Aside from setting up the final boss. Whether or not it did it well is another thing, but to say it's entirely without relevance is incorrect.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Aside from setting up the final boss. Whether or not it did it well is another thing, but to say it's entirely without relevance is incorrect.

---

Yep, can't forget they part where they suddenly introduce the cause of the entire story out of nowhere only to kill her off a few levels later.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Aside from setting up the final boss. Whether or not it did it well is another thing, but to say it's entirely without relevance is incorrect.

---

this could have been boiled down to 1 or 2 quests. We didn't need a whole map about it, where it's warned that NOTHING WE DO THERE WILL CHANGE ANYTHING OF THE PRESENT.

Elpis was only made because Emet Selch was a character adored by the audience. Everything on that map is extremely irrelevant.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adamantini

Elpis was only made because Emet Selch was a character adored by the audience.

---

Relevant quote: "I can't believe they pulled this ridiculous Emet fanservice only for it to be VENAT FANSERVICE IN DISGUISE".

Speaking as a huge Emet fan, EW wasn't worth it. Emet's character was manipulated beyond belief. First, I'm supposed to believe the mind-wiping device he had significant concerns about in the beginning of the zone he decides wasn't worth investigating by the end of it. Then I'm supposed to believe that after 12k years of "hatred and heartbreak" he praises Venat? GTFO of here. Learning that the bucket list he gives us at the end of UT was Yoshi-P's doing didn't surprise me. I suspect he had his fingerprints all over Emet this time to push a narrative because he's so widely adored and I didn't appreciate it one bit.

Edit: Additionally, not being able to save him/having to watch him die a second time was just wonderful. Happy, satisfying ending for sure. /s

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rulakir

Relevant quote: "I can't believe they pulled this ridiculous Emet fanservice only for it to be VENAT FANSERVICE IN DISGUISE".

Speaking as a huge Emet fan, EW wasn't worth it. Emet's character was manipulated beyond belief. First, I'm supposed to believe the mind-wiping device he had significant concerns about in the beginning of the zone he decides wasn't worth investigating by the end of it. Then I'm supposed to believe that after 12k years of "hatred and heartbreak" he praises Venat? GTFO of here. Learning that the bucket list he gives us at the end of UT was Yoshi-P's doing didn't surprise me. I suspect he had his fingerprints all over Emet this time to push a narrative because he's so widely adored and I didn't appreciate it one bit.

Edit: Additionally, not being able to save him/having to watch him die a second time was just wonderful. Happy, satisfying ending for sure. /s

---

I'm not a huge fan of Emet, but even for me it was revolting how his mind was reset. Like, there were three ancients and we were there, against Hermes, whose we had already beaten him. And yet, both Emet and Hythlodaeus stood there, speaking anime lines, while their minds were reset and our character was sad (seriously, I lost count of how many times my character made a stray dog face on Elpis. This character does not represent me)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adamantini

I'm not a huge fan of Emet, but even for me it was revolting how his mind was reset. Like, there were three ancients and we were there, against Hermes, whose we had already beaten him. And yet, both Emet and Hythlodaeus stood there, speaking anime lines, while their minds were reset and our character was sad (seriously, I lost count of how many times my character made a stray dog face on Elpis. This character does not represent me)

---

And the funny thing is, would Venat summon four golden doggos instead of two then Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch could also be saved from the memory wiping device. But it would propably destroy the whole Elpis plot and the writers decide to let Venat act very stupid.

Cheers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larirawiel

And the funny thing is, would Venat summon four golden doggos instead of two then Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch could also be saved from the memory wiping device. But it would propably destroy the whole Elpis plot and the writers decide to let Venat act very stupid.

Cheers

---

Yea! And right after that, she proves to be stupid again, because she doesn't do anything to reverse the situation of her people, and for us she just keeps repeating "hear, feel, think", instead of saying something relevant like "protect, Zoldiark, moon", or "bad, blue, bird" (this last was a joke).
Also, have you ever stopped to think that her grand plan, if all went wrong, was to move us to the moon, where there were rabbits who had no idea how to keep the people of "earth" alive. Like, didn't it cross Venat's mind that Meteion, after destroying the "earth", would destroy the moon if there were people there?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rolder50

Yep, can't forget they part where they suddenly introduce the cause of the entire story out of nowhere only to kill her off a few levels later.

---

Hermes is a she now?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aluja89

I never said he should summon our reflections, just tether them together for a brief moment so the echo can take effect, if he can send us back in time, he can do that as well.

---

Tether them together how? You’re still proposing something that makes no sense and has never been shown to work the way you for some reason seem to think it does.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Silvarer

Tether them together how? You’re still proposing something that makes no sense and has never been shown to work the way you for some reason seem to think it does.

---

So? You realize it's all fiction right, there are no rules, if there were we wouldn't have the time travel junk. You're also not explaining why it wouldn't work, but if you really want a explanation. Ardbert exists within WoL, the moment he joined us Emet saw glimpses of Azem so that means joining together truly does form back to an ancient, so why couldn't Elidibus search the same frequency Azem's crystal emits through the Crystal Tower like a beacon towards the WoL for a brief moment?

Endwalker may as well have been a visual novel for how little gameplay it actually had. First expansion to be that bad to me, that's my biggest beef with it.

Shadowbringers was really lacking in content but at least the story let me press buttons and do things every now and then.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Endwalker may as well have been a visual novel for how little gameplay it actually had. First expansion to be that bad to me, that's my biggest beef with it.

Shadowbringers was really lacking in content but at least the story let me press buttons and do things every now and then.

---

This. And for me, it has the aggravating factor of having been a very bad visual novel.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aluja89

So? You realize it's all fiction right, there are no rules, if there were we wouldn't have the time travel junk. You're also not explaining why it wouldn't work, but if you really want a explanation. Ardbert exists within WoL, the moment he joined us Emet saw glimpses of Azem so that means joining together truly does form back to an ancient, so why couldn't Elidibus search the same frequency Azem's crystal emits through the Crystal Tower like a beacon towards the WoL for a brief moment?

---

And yet there are people complaining about the time travel, even though there "are no rules". Having been exposed to science fiction and fantasy tropes for longer than most posters on these forums have been alive (also, longer than anime has been a viable media), the plot for Endwalker made sense to me. I was not expecting more than your typical MMORPG level of storyline, and was not disappointed.

It isn't classic literature. It isn't post-modern lit. It isn't The Circus of Dr. Lao, Dianetics, the Song of Songs, Pride and Prejudice, nor the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I think Shakespeare might have appreciated the level of irony in the story, and Charles Dickens the level of pathos in the story. Then again, I really enjoyed reading John Crowley's Aegypt before it got retitled, and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.

A simple explanation about why tethering will never restore the full Warrior of Light/Azem: at least one part of that soul is gone forever thanks to the stupidity of the Unsundered. Or is it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DPZ2

And yet there are people complaining about the time travel, even though there "are no rules". Having been exposed to science fiction and fantasy tropes for longer than most posters on these forums have been alive (also, longer than anime has been a viable media), the plot for Endwalker made sense to me. I was not expecting more than your typical MMORPG level of storyline, and was not disappointed.

It isn't classic literature. It isn't post-modern lit. It isn't The Circus of Dr. Lao, Dianetics, the Song of Songs, Pride and Prejudice, nor the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I think Shakespeare might have appreciated the level of irony in the story, and Charles Dickens the level of pathos in the story. Then again, I really enjoyed reading John Crowley's Aegypt before it got retitled, and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.

A simple explanation about why tethering will never restore the full Warrior of Light/Azem: at least one part of that soul is gone forever thanks to the stupidity of the Unsundered. Or is it?

---

I'm getting tired of saying this.

The point was the echo, not my explanation on how to achieve it. I pulled that one out my ass in the moment yet everyone keep being fixated on it.

The raids are really good, which is why I play the game, so I like that aspect. Some of the job changes are asinine though, monk and summoner got done real dirty

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aluja89

The point was the echo, not my explanation on how to achieve it. I pulled that one out my ass in the moment yet everyone keep being fixated on it.

---

What would the Echo actually do with the plot in this case? None of the principals are available to us, and every use of the Echo I can remember in-game revolved around someone being present who experienced the visons brought on by the Echo. In any case, Azem wasn't physically present when things went down in Elpis, so any 'soul memory' would be of no use.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DPZ2

What would the Echo actually do with the plot in this case? None of the principals are available to us, and every use of the Echo I can remember in-game revolved around someone being present who experienced the visons brought on by the Echo. In any case, Azem wasn't physically present when things went down in Elpis, so any 'soul memory' would be of no use.

---

It probably wouldn't work exactly as the story was written and would need some adjustments, but they could probably have done something like "The soul crystals you collected during 5.3 are repurposed using the energy of the crystal tower and Elidibus' help to grant you a vision of the past." Then you get maybe a more condensed version of Elpis, perhaps not as an actual zone but maybe like a solo instance or something, where you are watching as a ghost and not actually present. Mind that's just what I came up with off the top of my head and I'm certainly no professional writer.

Not sure about other things but there always has been job design problems since SB…or even since HW.

Remember when WHM lily was joke and plenary was useless? Remember SB drk and mch? And how sam being the unwelcome job in pug? Then how they fucked up ast sch smn nin in ShB?

Not even mention job balance was non-existent in PVP…but not a lot of people play pvp back then anyway so not a lot of people care.

ShB is also the expansion content got canceled or “delayed”…but at that time you cant say anything bad cuz covid.


Let’s just simply say if any recent events concern you, you probably should be concerning about them a lot longer ago.

I'm not effected by any controversy.
I was able to play the MSQ without DCs or to long queue times.
My main Job PLD had great addition to his kit.
Current PvP is fun and I'm totally understanding of the imbalance, because I know how difficult it is to balance that.
I'm not effected by housing because I got mine without camping a slot for hours.
Nothing changed in regards of Savage, so no complain there.

The expansion is what we had to expect and I'm excited to see the thing's they will bring with the patches.

But to maybe have a small complaint.
With 6.0 and 6.1 something happend to Eureka and especially BA.
It became far to easy and is not as exciting or challenging as it still was in SHB.
But I'm probably alone with that opinion.

I expected the entire world would be infested with blasphemies but it was quite chill…

You know, things like blasphemies appearing in the old zones where the towers have been placed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by anhaato

And I'm just speaking factually. I was only here for a small portion of Stormblood, but for the duration of Shadowbringers I hadn't seen quite so many... mind boggling changes that upset, or at the very least bemuse, more people than they please. From job design to housing to mundane content like crafting and gathering. But regardless of my opinion on some of these changes, there has been a lot of outrage because of them.

I also have never seen the playerbase be so divided on the msq. Stormblood got its fair share of "oh my god this is so bad compared to Heavensward oh my god Lyse is so boring" but people were ok with it in the end because it wasn't that bad. People could generally agree that it was kind of a letdown but all of the other content was good so the game was still doing fine. Shadowbringers was pretty much universally praised as far as I could tell, and those who weren't with the majority at the very least were still pretty ok with it. Endwalker... well, if the existence of that one thread is anything to go by, there are quite a few people who are not into it. "But those are just whiny people on the forums!" Yeah but... even on Reddit and Twitter more people are starting to criticize it. This time it's kinda either you love it or you were severely disappointed by it. Either it's the best story in MMO history or it's worse then Stormblood or even ARR. Regardless of your opinion of it, this is just how it is.

And I know there will be plenty of people saying "it's not even that controversial you're just whiny" or "this is all overblown" but if that were the case YoshiP wouldn't have felt the need to defend himself numerous times, from an msq clarification stream, to the Hroth hair backlash, to the housing disaster, and now the recent post about blm buffs. The blm post was the strangest of all to me because the "backlash" over those buffs (aka some memes) was nowhere near the severity of the firestorm caused kaiten's removal or the constantly smoldering anger of scorned healer mains. Why he chose to type up a response to some memes about him being biased through an official post dripping with shade (that's producing even more memes) is BEYOND me.

I'm saying this because it's very weird and upsetting to see the game end up in this sort of state. I really don't know what motivated certain decisions but to me it seems like Endwalker has had a lot more bad than good, and even the good is heavily debated. And that's depressing because I want this game to do well, but now tons of players are upset over how out of touch the devs seem to be these days, and the devs are playing defense. Like, we used to be able to trust in the devs to make changes that most people would be ok with, and to be generally in tune with what the majority of players wanted. How did this happen?

---

Endwalker story was fantastic. A truly great way to end the 10 year saga. Next!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElizanderNorisse

I expected the entire world would be infested with blasphemies but it was quite chill…

You know, things like blasphemies appearing in the old zones where the towers have been placed.

---

Blasphemies are created from despair and hopelessness. We've spent the entire game until now fighting against all of that. It makes a degree of sense that there isn't as much despair in places we've been working to make better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Blasphemies are created from despair and hopelessness. We've spent the entire game until now fighting against all of that. It makes a degree of sense that there isn't as much despair in places we've been working to make better.

---

I know. But I’m talking about my first impression of the Final Days before I knew the blasphemies were humans. I thought they were something like voidsents from the trailers.

At least it’s not Heavensward. The only good thing there was Hotfart or whatever dying ROFL. One of the most overrated NPCs, Moanbreeder too from ARR.

They also said, right back in Shadowbringers, that the original Final Days only manifested in specific areas to begin with before spreading everywhere. We're only seeing the beginning of it in Endwalker – the first pockets where the aetherial currents are weakest.

I did find a touch odd that Ul'dah somehow didn't have any issues with blasphemies whatsoever.

I was honestly half-thinking they might opt to use them to bring a bit character like Laurentius or Roaille back into the picture because both of those two have enough skeletons in their closets to have been logically at risk of turning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElizanderNorisse

I expected the entire world would be infested with blasphemies but it was quite chill…

You know, things like blasphemies appearing in the old zones where the towers have been placed.

---

Because the towers drain the aether from the environment. And the blasphemies can only appear when there is a lack of aether in a zone. Zodiark stopped the first final days because he poured tons of aether over Aetheris.


Cheers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I was honestly half-thinking they might opt to use them to bring a bit character like Laurentius or Roaille back into the picture because both of those two have enough skeletons in their closets to have been logically at risk of turning.

---

Both of those would have been great callbacks. Roaille really feels like she's supposed to come back into it at some point.

Even after the edits to the MSQ, there's a long cutscene discussing how she's a double-triple-quadruple agent working with the Flames, the Monetarists(?), Gaius and ultimately loyal to Varis, and in hindsight that whole chunk of information went nowhere.

It's a dull scene that feels like you need to pay attention because the information is presumably important later, but it isn't, and now it seems too late for it to be made relevant again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Because the towers drain the aether from the environment. And the blasphemies can only appear when there is a lack of aether in a zone. Zodiark stopped the first final days because he poured tons of aether over Aetheris.

---

I don't recall them ever saying low aether in the zone caused the blasphemies specifically. A weakness in the celestial aether currents allows Meteion's influence to penetrate, and Zodiark creates a shield to strengthen these currents and keep her out, but that doesn't involve flooding the planet with aether at ground level.

EW is really controversial.

Balance changes are really up there including Samurai and ninja changes. Devs not knowing how to balance MCH.
6.1 MSQ is divisive simply due to them trying to introduce a new storyline completely and start a new way of telling stories by making the expansions end the story and the .X patches be the story buildup.

PVP overhaul with those balance changes also being controversial. I think things will be better come 6.2 simply due to more balance changes and the even patches are more story heavy.

as some one who has been here since the beginning you aint seen nothing yet kid. honestly this is pretty normally for mmos company releases something either people like it or they don't and the company fixes it or they don't and just move on SE at least owns their mistakes right away and they generally fix it asap which is more than i can say for other companies

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElizanderNorisse

I expected the entire world would be infested with blasphemies but it was quite chill…

You know, things like blasphemies appearing in the old zones where the towers have been placed.

---

Blasphemies did appear in the old zones. We visit a few of them through the Role Quests, a sampler of what is occurring throughout the known world. I suppose they could have done something similar to WoW's zombie invasion pre-Litch King, but that went over like a lead balloon for me, full of unintended consequences (like "no fighting in neutral zones = nothing but zombies running around that you can't fight") and player zombies complaining when people actually killed them because they were, well, zombies.

Something like that wouldn't have gone well when Your Warrior of Light turned into a blasphemy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RubyCirha

as some one who has been here since the beginning you aint seen nothing yet kid. honestly this is pretty normally for mmos company releases something either people like it or they don't and the company fixes it or they don't and just move on SE at least owns their mistakes right away and they generally fix it asap which is more than i can say for other companies

---

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...qFX0AQh8Jv.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I was honestly half-thinking they might opt to use them to bring a bit character like Laurentius.

---

I always thought he got murked off-screen or something.