Do you think after Endwalker there will be time travel?

[Cabalabob]

This is inaccurate. I've played the entire story of Wings of the Goddess. It's an alternate universe in which the Crystal War never ended, so the events play out differently. There are different characters who never mattered in the main timeline, and none of the events you take part in change anything that happen in present day Vana'diel.

FFXIV can't actually give us any meaningful travel to the past, either. What would we be able to do? Nothing that could change the shape of how the game plays out for everyone playing through 2.0+

Which means nothing at all worth noting.

There are quests in wings of the goddess where your actions in the past directly effect things in present day vana’diel (such as the dancer job quest line). Lilith comes from an alternate future where the war never ended and is trying to change OUR timeline, the vana’diel in WoTG is very much our own.

[Feronar]

I would prefer that there not be time travel unless there is a very good reason for it. Time travel in fiction, especially involving travel to the past, is very difficult to do well. When done poorly, it can completely break the lore, confuse the players, and can cause problems down the line for many years.

Case study: Warlords of Draenor (WoW expansion) had players travel to Draenor as it existed in the past before it was destroyed, but it was an alternate timeline version of Draenor. It caused all sorts of issues, particularly with characters having main universe and alternate universe versions of themselves.

The story of Warlords of Draenor came across like a bad fan fiction. Even the way they presented it at BlizzCon felt like they were just geeking out with no regard for the consequences to the lore.

[Iscah]

Theoretically the Crystal Tower in the First could potentially travel there, but again the

mechanism that turned the tower in the Crystal TARDIS was deactivated for good during the events of the Twinning (to be fair G'raha actually planned to use the tower to travel to the Thirteenth himself on a one-way trip as the coda to his plan to save the WoL and the worlds, by absorbing the corrupted Light aether from the WoL into the Tower, and then taking it and himself on a suicide trip to the Void where he would vent it, resulting in the tower's destruction - of course a certain trigger-happy Ascian threw a big spanner in those plans though.),

so that option is out too.

From memory, I don't think he was aiming for the Void there but for the rift between the worlds. And I didn't get the impression that he was going to take the tower with him, just throw himself and all that energy into the rift there and then, and the tower would vanish as a result of time unravelling. Though I suppose it might have been pulled along with him remotely.

I mean.. eventually adventure would be the reason to travel to those shards. To see what's out there, how it differs from the source and other such things.

From the amount of effort required to get us to the First - literally hundreds of years of effort altogether - jumping shards isn't just something we can do on a whim. We can't do it without someone at the other end to pull us across, and getting someone there is the extremely hard part. G'raha was only able to travel there after merging himself to the tower, and while he was willing to do that to save the world, I don't think he's going to be willing to do it again just so we can have a fun trip to the Eleventh or whatever. Nor should we want him to.

It's not entirely impossible that a sufficiently powerful mage from one of the shards could summon us across for some reason - that being the story the Exarch first gave us for calling us to the First - but they've already used that idea even if they subverted it, and it's not that plausible for it to happen.

[Lanadra]

We'll just continue as is. All Ascians will be gone and we start with one of the new continents. They are barely explored so everything can be on them. And they can make stuff up as they go along anyway. Fantasy and all that.

I just hope we loose most of our powers. I'm tired of being a demigod that walks like a garbage collector. How could a simple monster or bandit pose any serious threat after having slain I dont know how many gods. The narrative power creep needs to be turned down significantly, if you ask me.

What 'powers' exactly are there to lose..? The Blessing of Light will likely be irrelevant after this story arc, with no more Ascians, Zodiark or Hydaelyn. The Echo provides no real powers other than immunity to tempering and visions of the past, hell, the WoL probably has the least impressive Echo ability compared to some of the others. The rest is literally just the WoL's fighting prowess. So... unless you want to turn the WoL into a cripple or want a fresh start with a new character, there doesn't seem to be that much to take away.

[kaynide]

I mean, it is ultimately about development costs and whatnot.

Were an expansion to come along that used the current 2.0 zones, but slightly altered, it would be a huge savings in development time.

This is not to say it would be time travel necessarily as it could simply be the “void” shard or some such. I expect as FfXIV winds down, we will see something along these lines.

For reference, FFXI did this with “dynamis” (each city-state was a raid) and used several zones in two different expansions called “wings of the goddess” and “Abyssea”.

All that said, I’m not sure it would happen as a time slip backwards since a huge amount of in game lore explains how the actual physical layout of zones has changed significantly from 1.0 to 2.0.

[Derio]

Im thinking after Endwalker there will be a 2-5 year time jump. I am thinking they are using this ending to spark a new starting point for new players that dont want to have to go through 4 expansions to catch up starting in 7.0, who knows, in 7.0 we could see a engine update which could help ffxiv for another 10 years.

[Bright-Flower]

Im thinking after Endwalker there will be a 2-5 year time jump. I am thinking they are using this ending to spark a new starting point for new players that dont want to have to go through 4 expansions to catch up starting in 7.0, who knows, in 7.0 we could see a engine update which could help ffxiv for another 10 years.

I don' tknow,the new plot starts in 6.1 and it could feel a little jarring to get to that point and then '2 years later' or whatever.

New plot, sure, but I dont' expect a time skip to come with it.

[Listrella]

it's possible I suppose, we have no idea what's going to happen in the story after 6.0 which makes it all the more exciting. That said I don't think they'll do time travel, could be wrong about that, but it's my guess.

[Payadopa]

What 'powers' exactly are there to lose..? The Blessing of Light will likely be irrelevant after this story arc, with no more Ascians, Zodiark or Hydaelyn. The Echo provides no real powers other than immunity to tempering and visions of the past, hell, the WoL probably has the least impressive Echo ability compared to some of the others. The rest is literally just the WoL's fighting prowess. So... unless you want to turn the WoL into a cripple or want a fresh start with a new character, there doesn't seem to be that much to take away.

I really like the Echo as a plot device. I don't like the whole we're 8/14th of an Ascian and the bestest at everything. I mean, I wouldn't like it if we'd continue like that. It's time we become at least somewhat normal again.

[Lanadra]

I really like the Echo as a plot device. I don't like the whole we're 8/14th of an Ascian and the bestest at everything. I mean, I wouldn't like it if we'd continue like that. It's time we become at least somewhat normal again.

You need to separate narrative from gameplay imo. Narrative wise do you really think the WoL would be a master of close to 30 different professions/fighting styles? I never have, I suspend my disbelief and chalk it up to 'gameplay'.

As for the Azem thing, I would be surprised if they ever mention Azem or the WoL now being 8 times rejoined again.. because the relevancy of it would peter out with this arc.. arguably the relevancy of it ended with Shadowbringers. Most likely the status quo will be maintained as far as the WoL's feats go. Because while there are surely others who feel as you do.. who would be delighted to see the WoL 'become at least somewhat normal again'.. there will be just as many who do not want that.

I know I for one sure as hell do not yearn to go back to what the WoL was in ARR, a noname errand runner for half of 2.0.