Endwalker was "meh" (for reasons other than technical issues)

FOREWARNING: THIS THREAD CONTAINS SPOILERS

I know there are a lot of people hating on Endwalker because of the numerous technical issues SE has been having due to their crappy servers, which has in turn resulted in a huge portion of the player base being unable to even play the game. This post is not about those technical issues; instead, it is a critique of why I personally thought that Endwalker was only "meh" overall for other reasons.

Huge Amounts of Pointless Time Sinks
Endwalker introduced a lot of mechanics that were completely pointless and did nothing to further the story but instead just dragged out the number of hours of "gameplay" in this expansion. These include the "guide this NPC around" quests, "stalk this NPC" quests, and "follow this NPC" quests. I realize that iterations of these mechanics have been present in quests in past expansions, but it felt like there were numerous of these quests in every single zone in Endwalker. Normally, you could just mount up and run over to the next spot, or even use the aetheryte. However, in Endwalker, you now have to stick with a slow NPC and walk/run across the map on foot as part of the MSQ. I think the best example of this is when you're body-swapped in Garlemald and, at the end of that quest, you literally have to crawl across part of the map before you finally trigger the cutscene. Another good example is when you're in the lower part of Labryinthos and have to go around and find 8 NPCs. "Gameplay" like this was tedious, unnecessary, and not "fun" whatsoever (mainly because it was so easy that it was almost impossible to fail any of these quests, yet still wasted time). It didn't feel like I was playing a game, but rather doing a chore. I'm not sure why SE decided to suddenly add a bunch of crappy mechanics like this. For many players, they can barely even get in to play the game due to the horrendous queues, and when they do finally get in, they get to spend (waste) a lot of their time doing filler content like this, which is completely disrespectful to players' time.

Endwalker also saw an increase of the Eulmore-type areas (e.g., the Garlean subway camp and Radz-at-Han) where you're annoyingly prevented from attuning to the aetheryte. This made a little bit of sense with the Garlean subway camp from a story perspective, but not Radz-at-Han, where you almost immediately come into the good graces of the folks in charge.

SE has also added new "achievements" like mounts and fashion pieces that effectively require you to do 4,000+ FATEs each. How about instead of creating rewards that incentivize people to do hundreds of hours of mind-numbingly boring content (which is what FATE grinding is), SE actually comes up with some fun, new content?

Too Much Doom and Gloom
We've previously fought the Cloud of Darkness. Now we have to fight Zodiark, who we know is darkness (after all, we’ve been told that repeatedly up until now, and his trial is even called "The Dark Inside" and drops the Lynx of "Eternal Darkness"). It can’t get darker than that, right? Wrong. Finally, we have a character (Meteion) who has basically come to embody despair and hopelessness. Having to lose all of the Scions in order to get to Meteion was extremely tedious, and the “goodbyes” were a waste of time because you know that you’re just going to bring everyone back anyway thanks to the new superpower that Hydaelyn gave to you. Anyway, we finally get to her and do her dungeon. And then she goes full emo and we have to fight her again as a trial. And then we have to fight Zenos as a solo instance. Oh wait and then Zenos goes SSJ and then we have to fight him again as another solo instance. As much as I liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the ending of the Return of the King was really long. Like, you thought it was over, but then it just kept ending. That's what the end of the Endwalker story felt like, but worse. While Shadowbringer left on a high note, I was just hoping that Endwalker was actually finally over by the time I got to the end of it.

If they really wanted to make the "final days" feel meaningful, I'm sorry, but they needed to permanently kill off (at least) one of the Scions (like they did with Papalymo, for example). However, because we have the Trust system, we know that they're not going to kill any of those characters because then that system wouldn't make sense if we could go back and run dungeons with now-dead characters. Knowing that everyone was "safe" really killed any sense of peril and thus weakened the story a lot, in my opinion. I feel like they should've made Urianger transform into a blasphemy in Labryinthos when he was lamenting the loss of Moenbryda - this would've shown us how dangerous the "final days" actually are and that nobody is truly safe. Instead, you have one guy whose business goes poorly and so he turns into a blasphemy and in turn starts a chain reaction in Radz-at-Han, but then when anyone that matters seems sad or in despair, nothing happens. They had a huge opportunity to make us be like "ohhh boy things just got real," but that moment unfortunately never happens.

Dumb Dialogue
The whole Garlemald arc was pretty dumb. You have to deal with these emo Garleans who are so dumb that they can't see the difference between their invading other countries and trying to force their Garlean culture upon them versus us trying to just drop off somefood and CE. It’s like the difference of China invading Tibet versus a country sending some humanitarian aid in the form of supplies to a country ravaged by war. Alphinaud, who's supposed to be the smart one, is suddenly too dumb to point this out when confronted with this rhetoric by the legatus - it almost felt like what they did to Tyrion Lannister or Varys during the last season of GoT (i.e., made these supposedly smart characters suddenly bumbling idiots). Yes, I get that the Garleans were subject to non-stop propaganda and thus kind of in a nationalistic "cult" of sorts. But they doesn't change the fact that Alphinaud's response to them was extremely weak.

Speaking of dumb characters, when you get to Omicron portion of Ultima Thule, you spend a while running around doing quests and it’s 100% obvious that this is Omega’s home world. After spending a while there, G'raha is like “I think that this may be Omega’s world.” Like, no duh? How did you not notice that the moment we stepped foot on this island and saw the level checkers? It was sad and frustrating seeing even the former Crystal Exarch being portrayed so stupidly.

Conclusion
I really, really wanted to like Endwalker – I truly did. I’m fortunate enough that I get to play during times when there’s not a lot of congestion, so I can’t really complain about the wait times like a lot of folks on these forums. Parts of the story were really good and compelling. However, many other parts (I’d daresay the majority) of the story moved at the pace of flowing molasses and were simply not very interesting. As a result, my overall experience with respect to Endwalker was that it is an okay-ish expansion (with some absolutely amazing music).

EDIT
Because some people are claiming that I must have used a story skip as well as skipped all of the cutscenes in Endwalker in order to feel this way, no. I have not used a single skip. I played through the entire MSQ (on multiple characters, actually) and got all of my classes to max level prior to Endwalker. I have also done every single side quest in the game (i.e., no more "!"s on the map in any zone, including Endwalker zones), so I'm used to tedious and annoying quests. Those are okay if they are relegated to optional side quests, but they really hurt the story if they're part of the MSQ.

*Gives OP sword and shield*
You're gonna need these, maybe.

The garlean thing was clearly showing the propoganda that want on in garlemald, which is a real thing that happens in countries IRL

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Originally Posted by Phaty

The garlean thing was clearly showing the propoganda that want on in garlemald, which is a real thing that happens in countries IRL

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Strikingly so. I very much appreciated it. An empire that wants everything to be considered simplified, combined under one banner for the good of mankind. Can't see where they possibly.. went wrong.

The doom and gloom aspect is true indeed, but I think it has its significance and delievered some type of message, I believe.

Agree to disagree. Although I did feel the pacing was off at certain points, I think the overall story being told as well as the extremely memorable moments (Estinien getting roasted for being gullible, Urianger getting teased for his outfit in Garlemald, etc) really brought the whole thing to life. It felt like a complete story, and the montage of worlds at the end was something I didn't even know I wanted until I saw it.

Endwalker is plagued with the same problem as Stormblood; trying to tie up too many storylines in too little time and trying to do too many things at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Phaty

The garlean thing was clearly showing the propoganda that want on in garlemald, which is a real thing that happens in countries IRL

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Perhaps on the part of the legatus, but what really irked me was (as I stated above) the fact that Alphinaud was too stupid to offer any sort of retort. He just clenches his fist and is unable to explain how the Garlean invasion of Eorzea is different from us providing supplies.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Endwalker is plagued with the same problem as Stormblood; trying to tie up too many storylines in too little time and trying to do too many things at the same time.

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They could've cut out a bunch of the "filler" quests where you just waste time walking around (especially those that I mentioned above) and the pacing wouldn't have been half as bad as it was. There was no reason to limit your character's mobility in Endwalker when they have generally not done so in the MSQ in recent expansions.

Stormblood was generally bad for different reasons, in my opinion. In Stormblood, you basically had to to do the exact same storyline twice. Oh no! Doma is in trouble. It needs to be liberated from some baddies who are led by an evil female character who is a native of the area turned bad (Yotsuyu). But wait! Ala Mhigo is also in trouble. It too needs to be liberated from some baddies who are led by an evil female character who is a native of the area turned bad (Fordola).

Calling the Garleans 'dumb' for refusing the aid of their enemy since conception is a bit flippant, don't you think?

The Legatus had a point - warring states don't do things out of the goodness of their hearts, regardless of what you and the contingency believe. The offering of aid carries and implicit expectation that the Garleans who accept will cooperate with their 'liberators,' which is a hard thing to sell after all of the things the alliance - and especially the WoL - have done to them. In a way, it's a predatory proposition - they are in no position to refuse, and if they do, then they will starve and freeze to death. Whether they were wrong in the war is irrelevant at this point.

That's not even talking about how utterly terrifying it must be to see the WoL in their presence. Having heard the things the WoL and alliance has done to Garleans (and then multiplied due to likely propaganda), how could you possibly trust them?

Skipped reading the post almost as fast as I skip cutscenes

I think your takes are quite valid, but I took things very differently. While they were overused I mostly loved the escort and stealth quests in the MSQ because they gave me a much closer experience to the story than just running to orange zone after orange zone.

I knew the whole time we'd be getting the scions back, but that didn't undercut the sentiment for me in the ending. I also really liked the Garlean zone stuff, I think it really captured the themes of struggling to move on. They were blatantly stupid as fuck that is true, but in a way I found very human rather than just plot stupid. (There is a bit of plot stupidity though, I felt like Hades and Hermes in Elpis reacted to Meteions report very strangely given the circumstances.)

Absolutely agree on Ultima Thule and Omega. It was obvious from the outset. The same is true of the Moon and Y'shtola revealing the rabbits benefactor is the forum. Obviously the devs know we can figure it out so if there needs to be a moment of 'revelation' at least let us bring it up since we've been aching to point it out since getting to those zones.

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Originally Posted by Orieldis

Calling the Garleans 'dumb' for refusing the aid of their enemy since conception is a bit flippant, don't you think?

The Legatus had a point - warring states don't do things out of the goodness of their hearts, regardless of what you and the contingency believe. The offering of aid carries and implicit expectation that the Garleans who accept will cooperate with their 'liberators,' which is a hard thing to sell after all of the things the alliance - and especially the WoL - have done to them. In a way, it's a predatory proposition - they are in no position to refuse, and if they do, then they will starve and freeze to death. Whether they were wrong in the war is irrelevant at this point.

That's not even talking about how utterly terrifying it must be to see the WoL in their presence. Having heard the things the WoL and alliance has done to Garleans (and then multiplied due to likely propaganda), how could you possibly trust them?

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Because... the WoL could literally kill every single one of them then and there if he wanted to? If the point was to subjugate them, we would already be doing it lol. Also, we had no problem knocking out tempered Garleans on our way there. It would've made much more sense if, instead of letting ourselves be captured, we just knocked everyone out and left them with some supplies that they would wake up to. Then they could choose whether to eat the food or not, and they could find out after the fact (when they aren't subjugated) that we were honest when we said that we're just there to help and not take their country over.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Because... the WoL could literally kill every single one of them then and there if he wanted to? If the point was to subjugate them, we would already be doing it lol. Also, we had no problem knocking out tempered Garleans on our way there. It would've made much more sense if, instead of letting ourselves be captured, we just knocked everyone out and left them with some supplies that they would wake up to. Then they could choose whether to eat the food or not, and they could find out after the fact (when they aren't subjugated) that we were honest when we said that we're just there to help and not take their country over.

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Sure, we could have just gone in and killed them all, but then:
1) there would be nothing left to subjugate - which was not the intention, and
2) proves the Garleans right about us - that we're savage monsters.
The contingency, no matter how well intentioned, was a means to end the war that, evidently, many Garleans had no interest in doing, even in times of desperation. We even see this after the Legatus commits suicide - many of the refugees are so broken and tired that they just don't care any more and are simply desperate to live. We stripped them of any choice in the matter by moving in when they were at their most desperate, and even then they still wanted to fight. Were we right to do this? From a humanitarian standpoint, yeah. It's either this, or they all die slow and painful deaths. Were they justified to resist, or at the very least, remain skeptical? Sure.

And, if you ask me, the whole "We're merely knocking them out!" wave off was probably the weakest point in the story for me. Ignoring the fact that telling a whole army to set their guns and swords to stun mode is really stupid, so many of the refugees were weak and sick that 'knocking them out' probably would have meant killing them.

I thought the Garlean section was quite nice, how they behaved is exactly how a lot of people behave on many issues (some far minor). The extra touches given the situation were also interesting, like the propaganda music.

Which is one of, many, reasons why I think the story had many gray elements (unlike a post that said it was more light and dark). Bias, propaganda, pride, nationalism, whatever form of fervent emotion that decides self checks and balances are not worth doing anymore because it's impossible to see, feel, or think anything else, stuff that can take good people and make them do bad things or seem really dull when they're really not. With FFXIV often responding with redemption and opportunity to grow, or at worse a relationship of how such things became as they were and not simply "bad is bad", not speaking strictly EW. A message that has generally, but not put in this way before, said many times in this game, imo.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Perhaps on the part of the legatus, but what really irked me was (as I stated above) the fact that Alphinaud was too stupid to offer any sort of retort. He just clenches his fist and is unable to explain how the Garlean invasion of Eorzea is different from us providing supplies..

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Can't have an FF expansion with out a clenched fist.

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Originally Posted by Sclair0

Absolutely agree on Ultima Thule and Omega. It was obvious from the outset. The same is true of the Moon and Y'shtola revealing the rabbits benefactor is the forum. Obviously the devs know we can figure it out so if there needs to be a moment of 'revelation' at least let us bring it up since we've been aching to point it out since getting to those zones.

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With the Moon, I felt like Y'shtola just outright saying it despite the Loporits trying to build it up was hanging a lampshade on how obvious it was. It felt like the writers knew we'd figure it out almost immediately and used it to make a point about how out of touch the Loporits are.

My biggest issue with the story as a whole is that I don't feel like Zenos really adds anything. But then, I don't feel like he's really added anything to the game since the Royal Menagerie, so that was to be expected. The pacing was also a little shaky at a few points. But overall, I'm mostly satisfied with it.

I agree with a little of what you say, some of it for slightly different reasons:

Huge Amounts of Pointless Time Sinks - I actually am not too bothered by the things you've brought up but I do have my own gripes about travel and also split zones. I don't like the thing of having to do 6 FATEs to upgrade chocobo speed. Namely, because the chocobo speed is so slow that getting to those FATEs before they're finished, with enough time to get gold on them, is a pain. IMO it would be better to have the faster speed from the off and maybe gate an Aether Current behind the first tier of Shared FATEs instead. This was compounded by split zones, where I would start heading to a FATE to find it was locked behind an invisible wall. One split zone per expansion at most in future is something I would like to see, if they must do them at all.

Too Much Doom and Gloom - I actually think they did a great job of balancing things here. Yes, there are dark moments, bleak moments but it never descends into misery porn, which some games absolutely would have at that point. Garlemald in particular hits a couple of very dark moments but then we help reunite a family for instance. And isn't that the theme of EW, yes, there are bad times and bad things happen but also good times and good deeds? As to Zenos, I'll grant you that one. The last fight with him upset the pacing for me at that point. I would have also liked the option of simply walking away from him.

Dumb Dialogue - Whilst I felt there were a couple of cringey moments on other parts of the story, I don't think it was all that dumb. Garlemald in particular, it actually made sense. These were a proud people who were sure that a plan was in place that would see the empire rise again. Why would they accept that the "barbarians" who, in their eyes, had victimised them historically to the extent that they set forth and found Garlemald, suddenly want to help them? From their point of view, we were there to take advantage of the disaster that had struck them, trying to subjugate them again before they could regroup, spreading lies to make them think the situation was worse than it was.

I didn't care for the "Final Days" bit. Not one thing about it felt "Final Days"ish, not one. You don't see any other zones affected by this other than one small cutscene showing a guy stumbling around in Ishgard and most of it takes place in a few quests in Thavnair and that's it, you're TOLD about it but never experience it. Once you've done the quests you're sent to Elpis to fap about chasing an NPC that had no real point being in the story. You come back and do some crap in Sharlayan and then that's it, off to the main bad guys base of operations, no resistance, no fights, no nothing. The towers? Nothing ever came of that, if Zenos could've just gone to the moon and destroyed the seals...why didn't he just do that to begin with? What was the point of alerting the entire world with your giant towers if it was just going to fail and for you to go "welp guess we'll just have to go there and one shot the remaining seal ourselves" while our character just stands there and watches no less....

This expansion, imo, is a mess. The pacing is all over the place and constantly undercuts any sort of tension or climax there is to be had. Just as "The Final Days" begin and it seems like the expansion is FINALLY going to move, it immediately does a 180 and goes back to escorting people around and hours of dialogue so we can see how the apocalypse is started ages ago. Great...I don't care. I care about the fact that people are currently dying and the end is nigh.

Then you have the nonsense of the space bunnies and moon spaceship that screamed Hitchhiker's. We also killed one of our Gods a few levels into the expansion because why pay off the entity we have been told is the 'evil' god that the 'good' one is locked forever in step with. And for some unknown reason NOBODY has the common sense to realize that killing one of the two that are in balance is probably a REALLY bad idea. Then we have storytime in the past to learn about how the ascians were bonkers insane and created a Terminator that is going to kill us all. Then we have a mass-effect style spaceship for some reason that is in complete defiance of everything the world knows about technology wise. It doesn't even look Allagan or Garlean. It looks like it's from an entirely different sci-fi universe.

And through all of this, all of the scions seem generally rather unbothered or unsurprised about pretty much any of it. I was sitting there for so much of this going: "Why does everyone seem so cool about all this? You just found out the moon is a spaceship filled with bunnies put there to save you from the apocalypse. How in any way is this something you all aren't absolutely shaken by? Your entire LIVES have been a lie in the grand scheme of things!

The story is like playing through a Kojima fever dream. And it's not even remotely up to par considering the expansions that came before it. I don't know why they felt the need to rush everything and try to close every plothole they could in rapid succession, but it is terribly executed.

With that said, I'm very happy for anyone that truly enjoys this xpac and it's story. I really wish I did as well considering how much I liked the previous one.

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Originally Posted by Kyrj

I didn't care for the "Final Days" bit. Not one thing about it felt "Final Days"ish, not one. You don't see any other zones affected by this other than one small cutscene showing a guy stumbling around in Ishgard and most of it takes place in a few quests in Thavnair and that's it, you're TOLD about it but never experience it. Once you've done the quests you're sent to Elpis to fap about chasing an NPC that had no real point being in the story. You come back and do some crap in Sharlayan and then that's it, off to the main bad guys base of operations, no resistance, no fights, no nothing. The towers? Nothing ever came of that, if Zenos could've just gone to the moon and destroyed the seals...why didn't he just do that to begin with? What was the point of alerting the entire world with your giant towers if it was just going to fail and for you to go "welp guess we'll just have to go there and one shot the remaining seal ourselves" while our character just stands there and watches no less....

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There has been a lot of convenient "telling" what happened off-screen instead of showing in Endwalker, at least as far as I've gotten. So far, we have had:

* Thavnairian research team making hundreds of talismans overnight.
* Garlean prisoners being rescued almost as soon as they are locked up.
* Body swapping (at least twice), in possibly the most inconsequential doppelganger arc I've ever encountered.
* The 10th legion seeking aid from the Eorzean Alliance.
* The repairing of one of the six seals almost immediately after it got shattered.

So far I admit to some disappointment in the quality of the writing. Unlike every other expansion that came before it, I feel like I am rushing through a checklist of things they wanted to cram into the finale. I think the Sharlayan/Garlemald duality is the strongest core of the story, but with each only receiving one zone they tried to pack in too much else around that...Thavnair, the moon, the past, the final days...

Maybe I will feel differently when I finish the expansion, but everything else just feels so tight by comparison: Ishgardian v. Dragon zones; Gyr Abania v. Doma zones; alter-Aldenard zones. And here there's no real thematic or geographical unity so far...just a bunch spare threads they wanted to halphazardly tie up. I think they either should have pushed back the Ascian resolution on the Moon to 6.X/7.0, or otherwise saved Thavnair for 7.0 when we could visit the southern continent and/or the rest of Garlemald...

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

Then you have the nonsense of the space bunnies and moon spaceship that screamed Hitchhiker's. We also killed one of our Gods a few levels into the expansion because why pay off the entity we have been told is the 'evil' god that the 'good' one is locked forever in step with. And for some unknown reason NOBODY has the common sense to realize that killing one of the two that are in balance is probably a REALLY bad idea. Then we have storytime in the past to learn about how the ascians were bonkers insane and created a Terminator that is going to kill us all. Then we have a mass-effect style spaceship for some reason that is in complete defiance of everything the world knows about technology wise. It doesn't even look Allagan or Garlean. It looks like it's from an entirely different sci-fi universe.

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We knew or at the very least had a vague idea of the ramifications of disposing Zodiark, but then again, what other choice was there? The binds were broken and a psychopath hijacked the eldest and most powerful primal and was about to commit planeticide, what could have been done? Ask the people on Etherys to cough up half of their populace to power Hydaelyn to rebind him?

The Ancients were...eccentric, but only one was actually planet-ending dangerous (Hermes). The others tried to actually nip the Final Days in the bud, but things happened and escalated. And if we're going with pop culture comparison, I think Meteion and her sisters made me think of what would happen if the Borg went nihilistic. Certainly didn't see this development coming, but I was absolutely enthralled (and depressed) during the many retellings of the many tragedies of those fallen worlds. I really hope that becomes a topic for future side quests. Maybe after completing all of the role quests or something.

The design of the ship isn't either Garlean or Allagan. It's a design by Venat and the other ancients skeptical of Zodiark's plan that the Loporits built on over the millennia (the one thing they didn't completely screw up) while being isolated on the Moon-ship thing. Of course the Etherians made their last minute modifications too, but the bulk is Ancient technology.

Maybe that made things a little clearer. I'm still digesting the story and may take a while. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I have some nitpicky complaints.

EDIT: didn't like my original comparison of Borg v. Terminator, so removed it and added more unnecessary information

Space bunnies and moon spaceship is ripped straight from the plot of FFIV, except much less comical in FFIV

100% agree with OP's first point.

50% agree with OP's second point. I feel that the pacing was bad, and made a lot of the "apocalypse" seem like it would wait around for an eternity for us to celebrate seven unbirthdays and a wedding before it finally happened. But I liked the buildup and characterization of Meteion, a lot. She surpasses Zeromus as a piece of writing, while being a character that was inspired by him, or deliberately made to resemble him in story and theme.

0% agree with OP's third point. The Garlean characters were extremely well written. They're not dumb, they've been victimized into believing something contrary to what you know. There's people like that all over the world in real life, too.

With respect to OP's conclusion: Pretty much agree. Pacing was awful. Had a lot of great moments, though. I'd rate it higher overall than any other expansion beside Shadowbringers, though. For writing, scene to scene, character to character, it leaves Heavensward in the dust. As much as I love Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by DoH

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Huge Amounts of Pointless Time Sinks
Endwalker introduced a lot of mechanics that were completely pointless and did nothing to further the story but instead just dragged out the number of hours of "gameplay" in this expansion. These include the "guide this NPC around" quests, "stalk this NPC" quests, and "follow this NPC" quests. I realize that iterations of these mechanics have been present in quests in past expansions, but it felt like there were numerous of these quests in every single zone in Endwalker. Normally, you could just mount up and run over to the next spot, or even use the aetheryte. However, in Endwalker, you now have to stick with a slow NPC and walk/run across the map on foot as part of the MSQ. I think the best example of this is when you're body-swapped in Garlemald and, at the end of that quest, you literally have to crawl across part of the map before you finally trigger the cutscene. "Gameplay" like this was tedious, unnecessary, and not "fun" whatsoever (mainly because it was so easy that it was almost impossible to fail any of these quests). It didn't feel like I was playing a game, but rather doing a chore. I'm not sure why SE decided to suddenly add a bunch of crappy mechanics like this.

Endwalker also saw an increase of the Eulmore-type areas (e.g., the Garlean subway camp and Radz-at-Han) where you're annoyingly prevented from attuning to the aetheryte. This made a little bit of sense with the Garlean subway camp from a story perspective, but not Radz-at-Han, where you almost immediately come into the good graces of the folks in charge.

SE has also added new "achievements" like mounts and fashion pieces that effectively require you to do 4,000+ FATEs each. How about instead of creating rewards that incentivize people to do hundreds of hours of mind-numbingly boring content (which is what FATE grinding is), SE actually comes up with some fun, new content?

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This here is what really stuck out as I played through the expansion. Even in comparison to previous expansions, there were way more stupid quest mechanics that served no other purpose than making things take as long as possible to inflate the play time...like that one awful quest in Labyrinthos that wanted you to help 8 people, but you ended up needing to talk to like 20 because most of the quest markers didn't count towards the quest with half the 8 being in really awkward to find locations. Seriously guys, we're going to play your game...we've already proven that...you don't have to go out of your way to have zero respect for our time.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

With the Moon, I felt like Y'shtola just outright saying it despite the Loporits trying to build it up was hanging a lampshade on how obvious it was. It felt like the writers knew we'd figure it out almost immediately and used it to make a point about how out of touch the Loporits are.

My biggest issue with the story as a whole is that I don't feel like Zenos really adds anything. But then, I don't feel like he's really added anything to the game since the Royal Menagerie, so that was to be expected. The pacing was also a little shaky at a few points. But overall, I'm mostly satisfied with it.

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I was honestly thinking the same about Zenos while playing. Like "ok where is he? He was so hyped in all promo materials that we saw!"

But...it is exactly as you said it. He doesntt add much and that is honestly the point of the story of his character. And self-admittedly so by him.
He craved only and ONLY a fight with a powerful opponent, that beings us as the strongest one on the star. And not any fight, but the hardest fight which means the closest to death or straight up on live and death.

Yes, that is all. That is all about him, Zenos, and his life and story. There is nothing more, nothing less and he describes exactly that in the dialogue before and after your duel.

I think it was a very nice touch as ending of the expansion and Endwalker. An epic fight to end it all with another powerful foe, that is but different than the all so mighty, sophisticated and poetical one we fought before....an epic fight that is/turns actually a simple brawl between 2 adventurers that burn inside for a great challenge against a strong opponent...something basic and intrinsic to an adventurer and fighter.

At least that is how I got it. A simple fight between two warriors fighting so intensely and hard that their lives are on the line...after a poetic fight against a deity-like entity that not only claims to be but can influence a major part of the universe and the natural flow of life/death with a major sophisticated history/story behind it all.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Perhaps on the part of the legatus, but what really irked me was (as I stated above) the fact that Alphinaud was too stupid to offer any sort of retort. He just clenches his fist and is unable to explain how the Garlean invasion of Eorzea is different from us providing supplies.

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Alphinaud's lack of a retort made perfect sense, because the Legatus' statement poked a hole in Alphinaud's statement that "they simply wanted peace."

Let me explain from the beginning here.

The Legatus, and by extension, the more traditionalist aspects of Garlemald see the world as a zero-sum game where there will always be a loser and winner, or in other words: a subjugator and a slave. This is primarily colored by the history of the nation, and is why Quintus is so adamant on refusing assistance ー he does not want to be indebted precisely because that would be becoming the slave, and it's not only an ego thing that drives this decision; to become the slave would mean to be indebted to the magic wielding nations with Garlemald's people at their mercy once again, and to them, death would be a better alternative to the humiliation they already suffered once in the past. The reason he believes this is so, is because in his view, as long as there are differences between people, there will always be conflict. Remember Varis? Remember what his goal was? To literally physically unite all the peoples of the shards again into what they once were: a single master race, and usher in an age of lasting peace. That should form the basis of what Garlemald sees as the intrinsic flaw of the world: that people are different, and thus we fight. This is why Quintus can't trust your aid. He simply does not believe there aren't someone's strings attached to it.

Alphinaud, of course, argues that they're here for peacekeeping and disaster aid purposes. That all they truly ever wanted was peace between their peoples. This is where Quintus' statement comes in. No, he does not literally think that Eorzea should have just given up and surrendered to Garlemald. The reason he says that is a counter to Alphinaud's assertion that their highest priority was to create peace between Garlemald and Eorzea ー because, of course, the fastest way to ending the conflict is to submit as the slave and assimilate with Garlemald. But Eorzea didn't give up, because there are things more important than peace to us, like our values, cultures, morals, identity, etc. And for Garleans, the same is true: these are the very differences that would spawn wars, and to reiterate, the very reason he sees the world as a zero-sum game where conflict is inevitable, and why he rejects your aid. And Alphinaud is speechless because Quintus is right, on that front at least; peace is not our top priority, and there are things worth fighting and dying for that rank above peace. It's just that Alphinaud believes that differences can be resolved without conflict, whereas Quintus believes that it's all theatre because in the end, someone must win and someone must lose.

In the end, it's not words that show that Quintus' ideology is wrong, it's his fate: the final reward of Garlemald's destructive belief system is a lonely death, in the cold and freezing wastes as you cling to your pride with the barrel of a gun against your head. And the thing that proves the truth of Alphinaud's words is his actions ー that he never resorted to force or threats and genuinely wished for reconciliation with the Garlean population, which is why you have characters like Jullus.

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Originally Posted by Kyrj

I didn't care for the "Final Days" bit. Not one thing about it felt "Final Days"ish, no.

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This reads like someone who had skipped dialogues and cutscenes.

1. The severity of the Final Days was shown in Thavnair plenty good even with its own dungeon. The severity of the situation on a small island country was terrible enough to make a conclusion of how terrible it would be on a global scale. You dont need half the planet on fire and demons to just then realize "oh shit, this is bad, we need to stop it". And..OH WAIT, we were actually showed already many times how bad the Final Days are.....in Shadowbringers, the previous expansion you know. And especially in its last dungeon - Amaurot. So we (the WoL and the Scions) have already seen and experienced how bad the Final Days can be by that point.

2. No real point? The NPC that has probably the most key point in the whole FF14 universe and its story. The NPC that is a being that can sense, convey and control the most abundant power in the universe that even the ancients couldn't is had "no real point"? It is the NPC that has affect all stories and characters in the game and their existences.

3. About the towers: Maybe because destroying 1 pillar of an almost destroyed seal is easier than destroying a full seal with full pillars directly? The point of the towers was to get aether to destroy the seal which they almost did. Zenos just did the final push. You really think that Zenos could have outputed as much damage (aether) as that gathered from like at least half the planet?

4. Zenos/Fandaniel not having a point: Well yeah, that is the whole point of their story and it explained it to use very well through their characters.
Zenos never cared about Fandaniel's plans and whether or not they work, he didnt care about the Final Days, he didnt care about Zodiark or Hydaelyn or the ancients. He just wanted a challenging fight to the death with a strong opponent, which was us, the WoL.
Fandaniel didn't care ever that much about winning (one distinction with Zenos here), or living. He actually wanted to die and said so himself many times. He himself said in few cutscenes that he is his worst enemy because of the things he lets happen to his plans. Examples are: the cutscene where he is outside the workshop of the alchemists in Thavnair that were creating the anti-tempering talismans and the cutscene where he helps you to get to Zenos while you are in the Garlean soldier body.

Fandaniel wanted to die and destroy everything before dying, as he saw deaths as the only solution to everything and that nothing else mattered.

From the Elpis arc we understand that Fandaniel (Amon) was just the inheritor/part of the soul of Hermes, which explains the whole part of Amon and his deathwish. Amon was just an extreme part of Hermes' views and thoughts...it was like that part of Hermes' soul (since it was sundered) that was all about nihilism and the death of humans.

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Originally Posted by KatsuraJun

Alphinaud's lack of a retort made perfect sense, because the Legatus' statement poked a hole in Alphinaud's statement that "they simply wanted peace."

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It absolutely did not. He went into a non-sequitur on his personal beliefs which had nothing to do with the actual history of their conquest or how they supposedly offered 'prosperity'. Alphinaud is supposed to be a master debater from a nation of scholars and getting shut up by such a stupid argument is absolute cringe storytelling. I don't think the writers even know how to write a smart character. You can't keep fanboying how smart and talented Alphinaud is and then keep having him fail so God damn always and resort to stupid anime schlock like 'the power of hope and friendship'.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

It absolutely did not. He went into a non-sequitur on his personal beliefs which had nothing to do with the actual history of their conquest or how they supposedly offered 'prosperity'. Alphinaud is supposed to be a master debater from a nation of scholars and getting shut up by such a stupid argument is absolute cringe storytelling. I don't think the writers even know how to write a smart character. You can't keep fanboying how smart and talented Alphinaud is and then keep having him fail so God damn always and resort to stupid anime schlock like 'the power of hope and friendship'.

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Maybe it's because no matter how intelligent you are, someone can pose a question that makes you question your beliefs? Maybe you can't come up with all the answers right on the spot no matter how intelligent you are if you meet the right person to question your motives?

To me it makes more sense that the question stumped him initially, only for him to come up with an answer later after thinking on it

You can be an intelligent person but still admit that you don't know all the answers, heck admitting you don't know all the answers is essential to developing a more rounded worldview

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

The pacing is all over the place .... Great...I don't care. ...

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Well, I cared personally and I think it was one of hte best arcs of the expansion and the game. Besides the zones being one of the most beautiful ones in the game, the story there that they showed is not only super important because it reveals basically everything...every reason for everything that has happened, the beginning of everything and the reason of our initial plot (shards, Hydaelyn, Zodiark, current races and magic and etc.), but it is also a part that I have wanted to see more about since Shadowbringers revelead us the ancients. I wanted to know more about their life, how powerful they were, their culture and civilizations and more importantly: HOW did was such advanced civilization with creation magicks not able to survive the Final Days and thus: WTF are they and what caused them in the first place? Elpis arc explains all that.

It is not like we WANTED to kill Zodiark. WTF? It was FANDANIEL AND ZENOS that FREED (removed the seal) Zodiark that ruined the balance. Then Fandaniel merges with him to use him. We have no choice but to destroy Zodiark. Hydaelyn (and thus us) wanted to keep the balance to protect the planet.


Only Hermes created the terminator. And neither did he create the terminator side/transform of Meteon and her sisters. Their travel through the universe and those civilizations as well as death souls is what turned her/them into Nihilistic beings and thus also affected Hermes as he was waiting for the results. In the end, Hermes did not take a complete side but deicded that both are possible...the ultimate centrist :D

Hydaelyn gave them big chunk of the knowledge for the ship. And it was definitely 100% Allagan looking from the inside. Go rewatch the cutscenes from inside the ship. It is definitely Allagan design and also why we needed so many people to gather Allagan relics and materials.

They were definitely stunned by the bunnies. They learn lot of the things last expansion already. They learnt the truth about the ascians (the ancients) and Hydaelyn that was what shook their world view and they were shocked. Even at the beginning of this expansion, when Hydaelyn shows herself on our ship to talk with us, she says some words to you to let you know that you are doing everything out of your own free will and are not tempered by her...since she is a primal too and it is very plausible that you and the scions are the equivalent of primal thralls.

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The story is like... executed.

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I disagree here completely. It wasn't rushed. The expansion was longer than ShB exactly because it needed to finish the story. It is imo the best expansion so ever, even than ShB which to my taste is overhyped compared to most popular opinions (it has many highs but wasnt all highs as it is portrayed).
Endwalker just did it all from earlier expansion but better and with better quality.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Huge Amounts of Pointless Time Sinks
Endwalker introduced a lot of mechanics that were completely pointless and did nothing to further the story but instead just dragged out the number of hours of "gameplay" in this expansion. These include the "guide this NPC around" quests, "stalk this NPC" quests, and "follow this NPC" quests. I realize that iterations of these mechanics have been present in quests in past expansions, but it felt like there were numerous of these quests in every single zone in Endwalker. Normally, you could just mount up and run over to the next spot, or even use the aetheryte. However, in Endwalker, you now have to stick with a slow NPC and walk/run across the map on foot as part of the MSQ.

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This was probably the only thing I disliked about the expansion. Yes it's very cute you found out a way for us to walk with NPCs and get lore tidbits SE... that's enough.. no.. enough.. STAHP I DON'T WANT ANOTHER ONE. There was literally one at every hub. It did make things drag and I'm used to doing every single side quest there is (and yes I did it this time too, making me do even MORE "lead the NPC" quests).

Every expansion they make up a new quest mechanic and then try to show it off as often as possible.. this one was these and hopefully they've gotten over it. I do not want more of these every patch.

I don't agree with any of this at all, but I doubt just explaining why is going to suddenly convince anyone to change their mind...

The pacing is weird and I do agree that the Radz-at-Han aetheryte not being able to be attuned to is annoying for no reason. But I don't think this is some kind of crazy outlier when it comes to FFXIV. Even Shadowbringers, which was many people's favorite including my own, had that whole dumb section in Western Amh Araeng with the miners for the flimsiest excuse, Ran'jit showing up all the time and being super strong for no reason, and everything involving the mystel couple and Alphinaud in Eulmore. And that's to say nothing of the other two expansions and 2.x which are truly awful by comparison in this area.

I didn't even register a "darkness" theme, since by this time we know the story behind Zodiark and the Final Days pretty well. The whole story this time is payoff for the setup concerning these events in Shadowbringers, and a key aspect of any Final Fantasy storyline - we have to figure out the cause of the Final Days and the truth behind what really happened to get the world to where it is now, and we do. Zenos was pretty pointless and I really don't understand why the writers keep him around at all, so I do agree that he brought everything down here, just not for "story is too dark" reasons.

Everyone else has already mentioned that the Garleans act a lot like imperial citizens in real history. I also liked that our relationship with the empire ended this way - no need to have Stormblood part II where we have a massive world war to take them down, instead empires are naturally unstable and collapse under their own weight as soon as they have problems in the leadership. They're no longer a threat and this demonstrates it well while making way for the rest of the story.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

Maybe it's because no matter how intelligent you are, someone can pose a question that makes you question your beliefs? Maybe you can't come up with all the answers right on the spot no matter how intelligent you are if you meet the right person to question your motives?

To me it makes more sense that the question stumped him initially, only for him to come up with an answer later after thinking on it

You can be an intelligent person but still admit that you don't know all the answers, heck admitting you don't know all the answers is essential to developing a more rounded worldview

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Again, though, Alphinaud was stumped by the legates’ question of why didn’t you accept peace when the Garleans offered it - how is what the Eorzean alliance doing any different than what Garlemald tried to do?

Well, let’s see. Sure, the Garleans may have been persecuted a long time ago; as a result of that, and to compensate for their inability to use magic, they came up with magitech… which they eventually used to basically pull a Nazi Germany and invade the rest of Eorzea, killing those of different faiths (i.e., the beast tribes). As I mentioned above, we literally had the WoL there and could’ve subjugated them then and there if that is what our plan was. Alphinaud being unable to raise any of the law counter arguments to the legatus was weak.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Again, though, Alphinaud was stumped by the legates’ question of why didn’t you accept peace when the Garleans offered it - how is what the Eorzean alliance doing any different than what Garlemald tried to do?

Well, let’s see. Sure, the Garleans may have been persecuted a long time ago; as a result of that, and to compensate for their inability to use magic, they came up with magitech… which they eventually used to basically pull a Nazi Germany and invade the rest of Eorzea, killing those of different faiths (i.e., the beast tribes). As I mentioned above, we literally had the WoL there and could’ve subjugated them then and there if that is what our plan was. Alphinaud being unable to raise any of the law counter arguments to the legatus was weak.

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Do you think Alphinaud should have brought up that they had the definitive upper hand in these negotiations?

What you might think he sounds like: "If we wanted to invade and use violence, we could have, and the fact we haven't is testament to our intentions."

What the Legatus will hear: "If we wanted to, the Warrior of Light here could kill you, your guards, and every man, woman, and child in a ten mile radius without breaking a sweat. Now, do what we say before we unchain this savage monster on you all."

Your average Garlean citizen is, as Alphinaud learned earlier when three malnourished men stabbed him behind the shed so a defenseless woman can drag her sick sister across monster-infested frozen wastelands just to get some physical distance from us, pretty untrusting of Eorzeans. What do you think a Legatus -- especially the one who was fanatically serving the Empire after the Emperor's demise -- would think?

On one of your points. Specifically Doom and Gloom.

We are facing the Final Days, the end of all existence and the main villain of the expansion is basically Owlman whom has Anti Monitor already at the end of the universe wrecking stuff, of course it's going to be a very dark, existential crisis style setting.

There were always going to be deep moral quandries and heavy philosophical questions to answer, things that make you think and that to me makes this one of the more mature and well handled usages of this setting I've seen.

We can agree to disagree on other points, I get the escort quests aren't liked by a lot, but the Doom and Gloom point ....if you were looking for a more light handed handling, you would be asking for them to try to gloss over the theme of the expansion and that would not have done it justice.

If so many people "like" and agree with op wtf y'all doing in a forum of a game you consider "meh"?

I don't understand, please enlighten me.

Also please leave the game and give your place in the queue for people who actually enjoy it.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

It absolutely did not. He went into a non-sequitur on his personal beliefs which had nothing to do with the actual history of their conquest or how they supposedly offered 'prosperity'. Alphinaud is supposed to be a master debater from a nation of scholars and getting shut up by such a stupid argument is absolute cringe storytelling. I don't think the writers even know how to write a smart character. You can't keep fanboying how smart and talented Alphinaud is and then keep having him fail so God damn always and resort to stupid anime schlock like 'the power of hope and friendship'.

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He went into his personal beliefs precisely because it is a matter of personal belief.

The core disagreement between him and Quintus was simply this: given that humans will naturally come into conflict because of their differences in values, that as established by Quintus holds greater value to them than peace (if peace was your greatest desire, why not surrender?), is there any hope of real resolution, or can you boil down every human interaction to a zero-sum game where one party stands to lose from the exchange? In the end, all Alphinaud can do is affirm his belief in the ability for humans to cooperate ー ergo, the power of friendship/hope/whathaveyou.

It's precisely because he is a good orator that he doesn't launch into the trap of calling out Garlemald about their conquests, because you saw how well *that* went with Varis, no? lol. In the end, it's action which proves the truth of Alphinaud's worldview, which is why he set out to prove their good intentions through action and not words with characters like Jullus. Whereas, the one whose worldview led to self-destruction is Quintus.

But why are you in a rush to beat it?

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Originally Posted by Powercow

Do you think Alphinaud should have brought up that they had the definitive upper hand in these negotiations?

What you might think he sounds like: "If we wanted to invade and use violence, we could have, and the fact we haven't is testament to our intentions."

What the Legatus will hear: "If we wanted to, the Warrior of Light here could kill you, your guards, and every man, woman, and child in a ten mile radius without breaking a sweat. Now, do what we say before we unchain this savage monster on you all."

Your average Garlean citizen is, as Alphinaud learned earlier when three malnourished men stabbed him behind the shed so a defenseless woman can drag her sick sister across monster-infested frozen wastelands just to get some physical distance from us, pretty untrusting of Eorzeans. What do you think a Legatus -- especially the one who was fanatically serving the Empire after the Emperor's demise -- would think?

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It's amazing how many people think that Alphinaud should have just said the equivalent of "But GARLEMALD BAD!" and think that would accomplish literally anything in that situation.

You might as well just force them into compliance and kill the resistors if that's how you want to go about it. Yes, Garlemald is a messed up empire. No, if you're trying to actually fix things and coexist, that's not a great approach, especially when the reason they're a nation-building state going around slapping other nations is because other nation-building states did it to them first. You can list off their crimes all day, and they'll just do the same back to you, and in the end, someone's going to have to be beaten into submission, which is exactly what they're trying to avoid.

Literally, this approach was attempted only last expac with Varis and people with goldfish memories apparently forgot how that diplomatic meeting went.

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Originally Posted by Orieldis

Calling the Garleans 'dumb' for refusing the aid of their enemy since conception is a bit flippant, don't you think?

The Legatus had a point - warring states don't do things out of the goodness of their hearts, regardless of what you and the contingency believe. The offering of aid carries and implicit expectation that the Garleans who accept will cooperate with their 'liberators,' which is a hard thing to sell after all of the things the alliance - and especially the WoL - have done to them. In a way, it's a predatory proposition - they are in no position to refuse, and if they do, then they will starve and freeze to death. Whether they were wrong in the war is irrelevant at this point.

That's not even talking about how utterly terrifying it must be to see the WoL in their presence. Having heard the things the WoL and alliance has done to Garleans (and then multiplied due to likely propaganda), how could you possibly trust them?

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I had that thought too but then remembered that the Garleans were always the aggressors. The Alliance only recently got out from under the Garlean thumb, so I don't think its fair to phrase it that way. I'd say its more like that fable about the tiger with a splinter; the legatus would could never accept help from the same people he wanted to kill / subjugate not that long ago.

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Originally Posted by Saier

I had that thought too but then remembered that the Garleans were always the aggressors. The Alliance only recently got out from under the Garlean thumb, so I don't think its fair to phrase it that way. I'd say its more like that fable about the tiger with a splinter; the legatus would could never accept help from the same people he wanted to kill / subjugate not that long ago.

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The Garleans were the aggressors only after being pushed to the north by other magic wielding aggressors. Nor are they the only ones who suffered at the hands of nation-builders, when you look at the beast tribes of Eorzea.
They take a look at how the Limsans lied to the kobolds, how Ul'dah treats refugees. They look at the racism suffered by the Duskwights in Gridania, and can only see that the Dragonsong War ended through violence, and then you tell them that they, as foreigner refugees that were formerly your enemies, should just trust you because you just want to help and sing kumbaya around the fire － of course they'll ask: is this a joke?

That's why their entire worldview boils down to, conquer or be conquered. That if they didn't do it, you'd be doing it to them. It quite literally parallels the rationale behind the formation of many empires in history, including Japan for that matter, after their ports were forced open by America, and saw what happened to China when it got carved up neatly by the British after the Opium Wars. Is it just? No, but it's definitely not unrealistic, and trying to talk them out of it is about as feasible as doing it to an empire in real life.