Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[Velnora]

Honestly the time travel was the least of my issues. I don't honestly care that we did it as lazy as a plot devise that it is. What I care about is how it undercut the tensions the story was dealing with to the point of satire.

So you're on the moon and you just got told the world is going to end and you can't stop it. So you know what you need? Jar Jar Binks levels of comedic relief. Really just throws a brick at the tension.

Or were gonna shoe horn in the solution to this literal sadness/bad thoughts driven zombie apocalypse. Here's Hermes love doll now go Gurren Lagann fight Zenos at the edge of space.

It's like they fired whoever did all the clever writing we got during Shadowbringers. That or it was a fluke.

Trying to end the saga during 6.0 did no service. They spent 10 years to introduce Dynamis and the "final boss" all within two zones.

Also, enough with game devs trying to cleverly write their way through time travel. It doesn't work.

[Irzephyra]

Trying to end the saga during 6.0 did no service. They spent 10 years to introduce Dynamis and the "final boss" all within two zones.

Also, enough with game devs trying to cleverly write their way through time travel. It doesn't work.

Not defending this, buuuuuut...

FF3, Cloud of Darkness (I believe?)
FF4, Zeromus vs Golbez
FF8, Ultimecia vs Edea/Adell
FF9, Necron vs Kuja
FF10, Yu yevon vs Seymore

The sudden final Boss change happens quite often in FF. Yes its a stretch, but something to consider.

[Atreides]

The sudden final Boss change happens quite often in FF. Yes its a stretch, but something to consider.

A common occurrence in JRPGs the big bad is usually not the one you expect or even know about until the end.

[Burningskull]

I wouldn't say it was perfect but I wouldn't say it was a mess necessarily. Comparing it to the other expansions or even the main game it's no where near the worst written. Emet was better as a main villain but a being that is pure emotion after encountering so much despair would become despair incarnate.

Also time travel is a horrible narrative mechanic. It always causes time loop issues, pocket dimensions and paradoxes. Yes even in Shadowbringers.

I enjoyed getting to see the unsundered world in Elpis tho and appreciated the characters for what they were, fan service because everyone loved them in Shadowbringers.

Also don't slowly kill off your main cast only for Y'stola to tell you "there is a way to bring them back but don't do it" cause immediately that tells the player, "oh so none of you are dead for real, ok all emotional attachment to deaths that come after is gone now thx."

All in all it wasn't as good as Shadowbringers, ignoring time travel anyway, but better than Stormblood, Heavensward, or even A Relm Reborn. For me anyway and everything is subjective.

The areas are beautiful if not a little to big. The music was good, tho I liked Shadowbringers better. Except for Ultima Thul I love that area music. Fights were fun.

Only thing I would say I'm overly disappointed on is job abilities seem underwhelming when you realize you don't really get anything other than upgrades till level 90 but that's more to do with the fact we are lvl 90 and can only really have so many abilities at one time.

[Neotempest]

This is a bit rude tbh. It might not be a relevant question for you but doesn't mean that they are just nit picky questions for people that aren't truly curious. Sometimes certain aspects of the story aren't relevant for you but are for other people.
Even if it doesn't affect the overall plot, something can still be poorly explained and wanting an answer for something isn't "looking for plotholes", it's part of being curious and enjoying the lore.

Is it rude? Sure, but based on how reddit is in general, not the person who posted the question themselves, reddit tends to have rude community in it in general. Regardless of what fan base is involved. I don't see reddit or twitter as a bastion of people who are honestly curious versus people who want to just be rude.
Let me add more for why I say what I do. During that Media tour, the ffxiv community in reddit decided what questions to post to Yoshi P. One of those questions was to increase the punishment on harassers or create more ways to punish harassers, without explaining much on what that person considers harassment. At the moment, everyone here knows that we are still feeling like we are walking on egg shells since punishment was increased in a vague way a few years back. So this feeling of, "You never know what will get you're account banned" isn't enough for the ffxiv community in reddit? Those kind of demands on the Dev team effects everyone in the community outside of the reddit bubble. I don't trust reddit, I don't trust twitter to make good or honest questions.

[Neotempest]

Never make stories about time travel, period.

No, seriously, don't.

No, you having an original idea doesn't change that fact.

No.

Stahp it.

It wont make sense.

YES, you should care!!

Fine, do it, but don't complain later...

Cool, then Dr. Who is a terrible series since the beginning. You know what other show was terrible? Quantum Leap. Yes, lets limit our imagination and trying to make something interesting about any idea another person doesn't like.

[Irzephyra]

Cool, then Dr. Who is a terrible series since the beginning. You know what other show was terrible? Quantum Leap. Yes, lets limit our imagination and trying to make something interesting about any idea another person doesn't like.

You know thats a common joke among writers, right?

[Atreides]

I don't like the LotR books/movies, also Star Wars is not my thing... Did I mention I don't like Harry Potter?
So that means they are bad right? I am sure there are people who agree with me. But this does not make my opinion a fact because there are more than enough people that like it.
Same with the Endwalker story most people don't even visit the forums, you always see the same names.

[ApolloGenX]

I am a bit curious about (edit) three things:

1. Now we have a moonship.... I guess we can start colonizing those other worlds?
2. We used the giant crystal for fuel.... is that a problem?
3. Will we have a job based on dynamis?

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's like they fired whoever did all the clever writing we got during Shadowbringers. That or it was a fluke.

I think the problem is, and i said this awhile ago and got basically crucified for it, is that Ishikawa feels like a very same-y writer. A lot of her writing feels the same. It’s typically give everyone sob stories, make everyone sympathetic, even characters who would be better off without it. Make the main cast completely invincible and overpowered. She did this with ShB. She did it with her post patches of ShB. And now she did it again with Endwalker. It all just feels so same-y the difference is it semi-worked for ShB. But for EW, it’s like they inserted Necron from ff9, but then she said here, let’s give Necron a personality and try to make him sympathetic character. Thus we got Meteion. She seems to also like her time travel stories but can’t actually properly explain them half the time .