A worry/rant about storylines till now (very very minor spoiler warning)

[Genz]

cliffhangers are one of the oldest and most often used story telling devices known to man.

It doesn't mean cliffhangers are automatically good.

[kyuven]

It doesn't mean cliffhangers are automatically good.

Also doesn't mean they're going anywhere.

If you inject finality into a story, then your audience is less motivated to come back.
The key is wrapping up storylines and starting new ones. XIV just integrates new stories with the current ones so it's harder to see.
Also, Japanese writers suck at endings. It's more in their culture to focus on the beginning and middle, than the ending.

[Ooshima]

Also, Japanese writers suck at endings. It's more in their culture to focus on the beginning and middle, than the ending.

Well that's quite true though.

[Aeyis]

Also doesn't mean they're going anywhere.

If you inject finality into a story, then your audience is less motivated to come back.
The key is wrapping up storylines and starting new ones. XIV just integrates new stories with the current ones so it's harder to see.
Also, Japanese writers suck at endings. It's more in their culture to focus on the beginning and middle, than the ending.

Not sure where you heard that. Theres plenty of well written endings out there.
It's more to do with audience expectation more then anything else.


That said they really went over the top with this particular ending. While I saw every single betrayal (literally all!, im somewhat amazed by that. Usually I have half the characters wrong.) coming miles away, they really did a good job at having me go ''wow, didnt expect them to go that far with it''.
Not sure if that counts as a spoiler, because yeah. I think they made that part pretty obvious patches ago.