I really hope than Fandaniel and Zenos are not... (spoilers)

[Lauront]

Varis had so much potential in the first half of the meeting at the tail end of SB's patches. Shame he went off the deep end in the second half and then was killed off by Zenos.

I don't necessarily hate selfish, chaotic villains. But Zenos doesn't do it for me. I can get behind a shallow but fun villain like Kefka or the Emperor from Star Wars. Even Fandaniel's starting to grow on me in that regard. But Zenos just bores me. It doesn't help that he feels like a villain sue who just one shots everything in his path and never has to actually struggle, scheme or work toward everything. In his partnership with Fandaniel it feels like Fandaniel's doing most of the actual work and Zenos is just along for the ride. They missed a golden opportunity to actually put Zenos under pressure having to use inferior bodies to reclaim his own but he never has any trouble or struggle to overcome. Even making Elidibus flee his body and warp off to the void without a real fight.

Zenos is one of those villains that's invincible until the story says it's time for the hero to defeat them and that's just not satisfying for me, at all. Kefka for example had to spend the first half of the game using underhanded tricks, running away when things got too hot, and scheming/betraying his way into power when the time was right. He didn't just show up into the story with the power to toss the main characters around.

I just find nothing there to engage with. He doesn't need to be sympathetic but I need SOMETHING and right now he just isn't offering anything for me.

I found him amusing in SB but he's a one-trick pony to me. Once you've seen him in action a few times, it gets dull pretty quickly. One thing they're compensating for a bit with Fandaniel is how apparent failure in realising his plans doesn't phase him overly much (this is something they did with Elidibus as well, of course), which creates a sense of intrigue as to what he's really trying to accomplish through his schemes. The fact that he wants to die but in a way that erases all existence (which would probably require the destruction of the Aetherial Sea too) means it wouldn't suffice for someone to simply "kill" him, as he could achieve that right now and simply not use his dark crystal. He wants something much more thoroughgoing.

Unfortunately, none of the "themes" that supposedly exist in Zenos do much to interest me and I don't consider him to pull them off particularly well, to the degree that they're even themes I care about.

Every single AAA project SE puts out is written mandated by the 'rule of cool' though. I guess the earlier years of 2.0+ XIV made people hopeful it wouldn't be the case for it.
I also fully believe they didn't have 5.2+ properly planned as early as they like to brag and killing all antagonists that had grounds on 1.0~3.0+ too early was a massive mistake they're trying to compensate with pulling stuff like a surprise crazy ascian out of their rear and rehashing Zenos.

Ishikawa isn't looking like that good of a writer since 5.1 and I'll be extremely surprised if she somehow turns it around with Endwalker.

There's hints of this in certain interviews they did re-jig aspects of the story, so I'm inclined to agree with this. Elements of the story they went with (e.g. Elidibus's Primal nature, as well as the memory loss) just about barely worked if you don't look too closely.

Regarding Ishikawa, I believe she's competent enough, but in the end, character popularity seems to play a big part in their decision making, and it can fluctuate quite a lot, and is a likely constraint that can force last minute changes. In particular, I suspect they may have had more planned for Elidibus, but Emet-Selch took a lot of his thunder, and his rather meteoric popularity must have been too tempting to resist putting to use, plus I am sure they began to grow leery of the fan reaction of terminating the Exarch for good. IMO 5.3 was a mix of good (ancients'/Elidibus backstory) and bad (much of the rest, afaic), and I was disappointed in some ways, because I was expecting great things out of Elidibus following 5.2... not for him to be dispatched summarily by 5.3, a mere few patches after Emet was taken out. Elidibus and Varis were two of my favourite characters.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

only be able to write sob stories and sympathetic character arcs

Most writers use those nowadays in almost everything since it's basically a 100% chance to succeed. All i hope is that they don't drag zenos lower than he already is by trying to introduce some sob story for him. At that point i'd just skip the story until he's dead, just like i did with Yotsuyu.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Most writers use those nowadays in almost everything since it's basically a 100% chance to succeed. All i hope is that they don't drag zenos lower than he already is by trying to introduce some sob story for him. At that point i'd just skip the story until he's dead, just like i did with Yotsuyu.

Luckily(ur unluckily depending on how you see it) Yoshi has said they won’t do a sympathetic story for him which, on one hand is like…yay? But on the other hand that’s probably the only thing at this point that could somewhat save his character since people are suckers for that kind of thing.

[BaconBits]

Zenos is at his best when he's riled up and ready to satisfy his rampant bloodlust. They should of leaned into that side of him more instead of constantly showing him being absolutely bored and moping about not being able to go kill his best frienemy while Fandango does a merry jig in the background.

[Kozh]

What’s interesting to me is according to Yoshi, Eden was supposed to be the final boss of ShB, which makes me wonder what they had planned for Emet and Elidibus.

For real? I haven't heard about this. It's very interesting indeed. I guess if eden was supposed to be final boss of ShB, it would be 5.3 boss. I think emet is always supposed to be 5.0 boss, while elidibus is to rushed to be 5.3 boss. Since they also said that originally hydaelyn zodiark arc was to be done in 7.0, elidibus should be our final boss in it.

They also missed the chance of having the arc close when we are at lvl 99/100 XD

[KizuyaKatogami]

For real? I haven't heard about this. It's very interesting indeed. I guess if eden was supposed to be final boss of ShB, it would be 5.3 boss. I think emet is always supposed to be 5.0 boss, while elidibus is to rushed to be 5.3 boss. Since they also said that originally hydaelyn zodiark arc was to be done in 7.0, elidibus should be our final boss in it.

They also missed the chance of having the arc close when we are at lvl 99/100 XD

Well the way he worded it it seemed like Eden was going to be the 5.0 boss with Emet as the 5.3 boss. It makes sense though because yeah, Elidibus as the 5.3 boss was just insanely rushed and poorly done. Was basically a butcher of his character. I have really low hopes for Endwalker because i don’t see how they’re going to fit what was supposed to be in a whole extra expansion, in just one. They aren’t even using the post patches to finish the arc either they said. The entire arc is supposed to be ended by 6.0, not 6.3 which is even more concerning. And with how much they need to cover between all of the new areas, Garlemald, Sharlayan stuff etc. I can’t help but think it’s going to be a mess and we’re going to see more rushing like we saw with Elidibus.

[Starflake]

I always thought the Zodiark frame we see in some cutscenes to remind me of FF9 Necron

[Kozh]

Well the way he worded it it seemed like Eden was going to be the 5.0 boss with Emet as the 5.3 boss. It makes sense though because yeah, Elidibus as the 5.3 boss was just insanely rushed and poorly done. Was basically a butcher of his character. I have really low hopes for Endwalker because i don’t see how they’re going to fit what was supposed to be in a whole extra expansion, in just one. They aren’t even using the post patches to finish the arc either they said. The entire arc is supposed to be ended by 6.0, not 6.3 which is even more concerning. And with how much they need to cover between all of the new areas, Garlemald, Sharlayan stuff etc. I can’t help but think it’s going to be a mess and we’re going to see more rushing like we saw with Elidibus.

Oh boy, we're going to speedrun sharlayan's "redemption arc", aren't we? It took more than 3.0 to deal with ishgard, and now we're going to deal with sharlayan AND the calamity+Garlemald+etc in a single base expansion. I just hope they don't half-ass the garlean conflict, since I'm more intrigued by them than thavnair etc.

[Rinhi]

Well the way he worded it it seemed like Eden was going to be the 5.0 boss with Emet as the 5.3 boss. It makes sense though because yeah, Elidibus as the 5.3 boss was just insanely rushed and poorly done. Was basically a butcher of his character. I have really low hopes for Endwalker because i don’t see how they’re going to fit what was supposed to be in a whole extra expansion, in just one. They aren’t even using the post patches to finish the arc either they said. The entire arc is supposed to be ended by 6.0, not 6.3 which is even more concerning. And with how much they need to cover between all of the new areas, Garlemald, Sharlayan stuff etc. I can’t help but think it’s going to be a mess and we’re going to see more rushing like we saw with Elidibus.

elidibus really deserved a whole expansion dedicated to him, tbh

[TeraRamis]

elidibus really deserved a whole expansion dedicated to him, tbh

I'd like to think that they are aware that the whole Ascian thing has kind of run its course.