Anyone else feeling disappointed by Endwalker MSQ? MAJOR MSQ SPOILERS!

[Knot_D]

Endwalker > Shadowbringer. Period. Can't wait to journey to other world such as Meracydia or New World.

[FusiaRain]

At the final days trail, so im going to say this.

Im so fucking tired of basically dbz hero scions.

Scion dies
50min later
Pop scions back.

It honestly makes me want to slit all their throats. You get a moment of tearfull eyes only for 50mins then pop they back. I sware death means nothing in 14.

Like the only few deaths were meaningless or hardly something to careabout its like meha thing. Or they were already dead and they just tore at our hearts.


For a big end walker of despair was a huge disappointment was basically cub cakes and unicorns with how little impact it has.

The way death works in 14 is almost as horrible as dbz

[MoofiaBossVal]

The only thing that really bothers me is how often our character stands stock still, like a deer in the headlights, like a training dummy, like mold on a wall, while bad things happen.

"Oh no, something terrible is happening. The bad guy is doing something just awful! Better stand 10 feet away and watch passively until he's done."

Yeah. The hostage situation at the end of Castrum was pretty frustrating because almost every job you could be playing as would have some way or another to instantly kill Misija. Samurai or Dragoons could cross the distance and kill her instantly, or a Machinist (who has their weapon drawn) could simply raise their gun and shoot her, etc.

Or in Thavnair, when Ahewan is fighting that monster... and you the WoL are slooooowly walking towards the monster and Ahewan gets eaten... when you could've had used a ranged attack on it to draw its attention (if not slice its belly open or jab its eye out or kill it). Or you could have even picked up a rock off of the ground and tossed it at the monster (which an NPC later does in the story, but the WoL can't do that?).

We have Estinien, a guy who could instantly kill people, but he is never allowed to do so and is always blocked, which is aggravating.

[PangTong]

I feel like perhaps my expectations were simply too high, since Shadowbringers was probably the best video game story I've ever experienced and Endwalker looked poised to at least match it if not surpass it. I didn't dislike it, there was a lot I really loved, but I really wanted to like it a lot more than I did, especially since the common sentiment seems to be that it's the best expac ever and tops Shadowbringers easily, meaning the criticisms are gonna be seen as contrarian.

The two biggest issues with the MSQ I feel are:

A: Pacing
Endwalker is so determined to resolve absolutely every established concept and wrap up every lingering thread that it rockets through arcs and set pieces that would normally be slowly and carefully built up and then given time to breathe. The result is that massively important parts of the story are flown through in a matter of hours, which severely weakens their impact. Everything is so hurried that it begins to feel as though a conclusion is being forced by a writer instead of occurring naturally.

Zodiark and Hydaelyn are the biggest victims of this. While they might be considered small fry in the grand scope of Endwalker's story, to us they are the entire setting as we have known it for the past 10 years. To have them dealt with in such brisk, unceremonious fashion felt wrong. Confronting Zodiark should feel MORE epic than fighting Hades, not less. Let alone Hydaelyn!

Not to mention that all the new lore and concepts are introduced and resolved so quickly that there was no time to mentally integrate them into the setting. By the end, I didn't even feel like I was playing FF14 anymore. There was no way I could feel the same way for Meteion, a character introduced mere hours prior, as I did for Emet-Selch and the Ascians, a group that had been slowly built up for years. Again, it's not given time to breathe and really earn the passion of the players.

B: Cheesiness
Endwalker really goes all in on the idea of making this a finale and to that end there's a number of sections which I feel are extremely indulgent with regards to pandering to nostalgia for past expansions/characters and cheap emotional manipulation regarding characters that people love. Stuff like having Emet and Hythlodaeus show up again, both in Elpis and in Ultima Thule to give a big speech about love and hope. Having little memories of your dead friends appear to help you in the Anitiascope. Having all the Scions sacrifice themselves one by one with emotional little speeches even though we know they're going to come back.

Stuff like this feels contrived and hammy and I feel it cheapens the story overall. Compared to the subtle elegance of Shadowbringers, Endwalker is massively over-the-top and in-your-face with its themes and emotional moments, which I personally think makes them weaker. I cried twice during the story, but it was for much simpler character moments instead of anything regarding this big sweeping message of sadness and hope the story is determined to pound into you.


Honorable mention to the Loporrits, who made every part of the story they appeared in an absolute misery. I have nothing against comic relief, but the Loporrits are used excessively and at the most inappropriate times. At no point in any of the past expansion stories have I ever felt outright annoyed by a part of the story and just wished for it to be over, until I reached Bestways Burrows.


Part of me feels bad for even voicing my issues since I think it'll only just make me dislike the story more over time especially as I see more and more people who love it and praise it as perfection, and I really, really do not want to come to resent the story, because it's a great story! I want to love it as much as other people do, or at least treasure the parts I really did enjoy, and maybe over time my view will soften, but it's really hard for me to look past the flaws.

[Necrotica]

It had its high points and low points.

Still way better than Stormblood. Just not as good Shadowbringers or Heavensward.

I just hope now that this first arc chapter whatever is done, the WoL can become less WoL and more just adventurer. Maybe with some dark conversation options and reaction from party members sometimes?

I am so sick of being the good guy.

[Xylira]

Overall I think there was more good than bad. But the bad that there was was enough to drag my enjoyment of it down.

My criticisms are mostly to do with the frenetic pacing of the plot, plot holes and contrivances that came up, and being too heavy handed in trying to evoke certain tones. It seemed like they spent more time trying to elicit certain reactions from the player rather than focus on making the story more coherent and well paced.

The execution of the story into game mechanics would often end up dragging on far longer than they really needed to, to the point where I would end up being bored and irritated, just wanting to move on with the story so I could find out what would happen next because the plot had practically stopped in its tracks for a detour. The second half of Thavnair, A large portion of the return to Labyrinthos, the whole sequence of having to chase Meteion down, etc. There were too many times where I felt like the story had suddenly come to a standstill for no other reason than to try to pad out the game and waste my time. Those parts could have been condensed into much shorter portions that got the point across just as well without wasting my time.

There were also sections I just felt were bad story telling. I personally really disliked the detour of the WoL having their body temporarily stolen, it felt like a cheap trick by the writers that added nothing to the actual plot and only served to upset the player. And yeah I was upset by it, at the writers for making it happen, not at the villains like they probably hoped for. The fight at the end with Zenos was... just awful. I was expecting, hoping, for Zenos be told off yet again that he wouldn't get the satisfaction of the fight he'd been hounding us for. Nothing would have been more satisfying for me than to have Zenos break down in realization that he will never get what he wants and actually decide to do something productive with himself. Instead we're forced into a fight by the writers choosing for us what 'our' character decides to do, culminating in a fight that was bad anime levels of cringe. And he's probably not even dead so they can just trot him out again later to bother us, with zero actual resolution coming from all that nonsense.

That said, the MSQ was okay, and I enjoyed it more than I didn't. But that wasn't what I was expecting or hoping for, so I guess that's a 'yes' for being disappointed. The story felt aggressively mediocre tor me because there were just too many flaws for me to look past, which is a let down after seeing what they're capable of from Shadowbringers when it comes to storytelling.

[Gameovers]

That's not true. The pope is not evil, his way of solving his people's problems might be morally corrupt to us, but that's what that person is talking about, a more realistic approach to things. And in Stormblood and ARR we were dealing with the Garleans plot of imperialism, again taking a very realistic approach that hits close to real life.

Just now we've reverted into "fighting despair itself" as if we're back to the 90s or early 2000s.

I'm sorry but when said pope turns into a primal himself talking about things like you're either with me or against me and death awaits. Then thats freaking evil. Evil doesn't mean " I'm taking over the world" He was freaking evil, hell his intentions wasn't even pure. It may have been turned down and not as anime as fighting fate, but he was evil. Make no mistake about that.

[Ririta]

I'm sorry but when said pope turns into a primal himself talking about things like you're either with me or against me and death awaits. Then thats freaking evil. Evil doesn't mean " I'm taking over the world" He was freaking evil, hell his intentions wasn't even pure. It may have been turned down and not as anime as fighting fate, but he was evil. Make no mistake about that.

For you too he either was with you or dead. He knew of the truth of Ishgard's story, but as he said to Ser Aymeric, had that truth come out, people would panic and his society would be in shambles. From his and Ishgard's perspective, becoming Thordan and ending the Dragonsong war by exterminating the dragons and bringing world peace through his religion would be a blessing.

He is immoral, misguided, arrogant, etc, but at least to me, real evil is a character like Fandaniel who wants nothing but hurt others.

[SturmChurro]

Ironically Zenos finally gets a positive impression from me in this duty.

I've made it known before that I am actually one who likes Zenos, and I particularly enjoyed the end with him, "that I cannot deny".

So much so, I even took screenshots of the encounter, though I'll have to view that scene again to get proper ones (and change the hairstyle/outfit due to clipping).

We have Estinien, a guy who could instantly kill people, but he is never allowed to do so and is always blocked, which is aggravating.

Estinien is no match for Zenos, or Meteion. I do appreciate him trying though.

[van_arn]

I've made it known before that I am actually one who likes Zenos, and I particularly enjoyed the end with him, "that I cannot deny".

So much so, I even took screenshots of the encounter, though I'll have to view that scene again to get proper ones (and change the hairstyle/outfit due to clipping).



Estinien is no match for Zenos, or Meteion. I do appreciate him trying though.

You're just glad you got to punch Zenos as a whm.