Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[Akiudo]

After playing through the story I felt it was rushed they could have easily used the patches to help conclude absolutely everything. Rather than use the patches to set up a new story, it would have helped with the pacing.
Saying that though the story isnt bad, and I cant say I didn't enjoy it, I just felt after Shadowbringers and the amazing storytelling there it just wasn't as good.

I think the best bits were the ancients and fleshing out the characters there.

how the story ranks compared to other entries is subjective so i won't argue on that, using the patches to flesh out the story more instead of setting up a new story however would be problematic in the long run, because it would mean the next expansion would basically be guaranteed a start that people coming from endwalker would consider way to slow.

[KizuyaKatogami]

how the story ranks compared to other entries is subjective so i won't argue on that, using the patches to flesh out the story more instead of setting up a new story however would be problematic in the long run, because it would mean the next expansion would basically be guaranteed a start that people coming from endwalker would consider way to slow.

It’s always been like the former though. The first 3 patches of an expansion would be finishing the expansions story and the .4 and .5 patches would be leading up the next expansion. In this case though i don’t think it would be very problematic but would actually benefit the story as there are so many questions that weren’t addressed this expansion that will most likely end up ignored since we’re starting on a new story now, so it just makes it seem like 0 damns were given.

[Anya_Synia]

how the story ranks compared to other entries is subjective so i won't argue on that, using the patches to flesh out the story more instead of setting up a new story however would be problematic in the long run, because it would mean the next expansion would basically be guaranteed a start that people coming from endwalker would consider way to slow.

Oh absolutely, this is definitely a personal opinion of mine and not something I'm stating as fact, apologies if it came off that way.

That is a good point about the expansion starting too slow. How about just some of the patches then, I just felt it needed a bit more.

[Ririta]

for one she is pretty much the embodiment of despair, saying "baby had a nightmare" is ignoring that she is literally supernaturally empathetic and got pumped full of the despair of an untold number of civilizations all at once. however, even if that wasn't case, why do we need "a villain" ? first and foremost we are an adventurer, what we "need" is a problem so we can solve it, that is a role easily fullfilled by what meteion has become, villain or not.

Not having a proper villain is boring.

It all went downhill for me once Fandaniel and Zodiark "died" (were written out of the plot). There was nothing to carry the story anymore. Zenos was only fun because Fandaniel was there to annoy him. Meteion is a non-character. Hydaelyn is a Mary Sue who couldn't do any wrong according to the plot the writers tried to tell, thus, couldn't be an antagonist.

There was nobody to carry the plot anymore, to provide interesting moments and character development (I also blame the scions for this).

Meanwhile, Zenos, people might hate him, but he together with Tsuyu and Fordola antagonized us all the way through Stormblood. To drive him to suicide was satisfying. Emet-Selch and Vauthry, we knew were villains, and they too antagonized us and moved the plot forward. It was satisfying to break Vauthry's delusions of godhood and shove into Emet's face the fact that this was our story, not his. In Heavensward Nidhogg provides the first half and then Thordan the second, both sides of the same coin, both with their own reasons for promoting the war.

It's always fun to have that "justice has been served" moment. Such moment never happens in Endwalker. I swear, it feels like they added Zenos as the actual final boss just so players could have that moment.

Ra'la would've been more interesting as a main villain, they could drop all the "bathos" and provide us with a character that can't be reasoned with, he's from another world with a completely different set of morals.

Finally, I have to say, "embodiment of x" stuff stayed in the 90s/early 2000s for a reason. If such "characters" ever have the opportunity to talk more than a few lines before dying, everybody gets to see how one-dimensional they are. For example, Necron works because he doesn't have such opportunity and Kuja is allowed to move the plot forward until the very end. If the Endsinger appeared right at the end, after Fandaniel Zodiark's level 59 trial together with the "Final Days", that would be much better as we wouldn't have so much time to sit on a stagnated stale-mate plot.

[Akiudo]

Oh absolutely, this is definitely a personal opinion of mine and not something I'm stating as fact, apologies if it came off that way.

That is a good point about the expansion starting too slow. How about just some of the patches then, I just felt it needed a bit more.

it's fine, you didn't come of as pushy as far as your opinion goes or anything, and in the end its a fair opinion to have. just wanted to point out why i would ignore that aspect in my reply.

on needing "a bit more", i think it's a tricky situation to find the right balance here, as Kizuya above you allready pointed out they allways (well, since heavensward but semantics) used the patches up to x.3 to finish up the story and than set up the next expansions storyies and obviously they could have done something like that again.

what i believe it comes down to though is that up until endwalker we had this one big overarching story, so using the last third of the expansion to set up the next one worked out fine, that however was with escalating stakes and the next expansion allways heavily building upon the foundation of what came before. as it stands however right now we seem to be in deescalating mode, so only doing that for say the last two patches would still leave us at either pretty high stakes or would mean the expansion needs a "flat" start. one also has to consider just when the time would be "right". at least to me ending the story in 6.1 would feel even weirder than it does now, basically the same for 6.2 leaving 6.3 as the soonest "realistic" final for the story, but at that point i fear it would be to late to properly set up the next expansion, yes they did pull this off the last 3 times, but this was moving forward in an entirely different direction than we seem to be doing right now.

[Akiudo]

Finally, I have to say, "embodiment of x" stuff stayed in the 90s/early 2000s for a reason. If such "characters" ever have the opportunity to talk more than a few lines before dying, everybody gets to see how one-dimensional they are. For example, Necron works because he doesn't have such opportunity and Kuja is allowed to move the plot forward until the very end. If the Endsinger appeared right at the end, after Fandaniel Zodiark's level 59 trial together with the "Final Days", that would be much better as we wouldn't have so much time to sit on a stagnated stale-mate plot.

you are saying "the problem" being the embodiment of despair is boring yet advertise for having something that is either just evil for the heck of it or a quite literal giant space flea from nowhere, sorry but if you truly think a villain coming out of bum **** nowhere at the last second adds literally anything to the story i don't know what to tell you aside from "if the endsinger just popped up randomly out of black mist leaving zodiarks body" or something like this than we would have a lot more threads complaining about that aspect, and if we didn't have anything beyond zodiark that would still leave the question of why the frick the ascians ever summoned their dark god so something, anything, quite literally had to be there.

[Avidria]

...

See I felt totally different about almost all of this. My only odd note where I kinda agree is that I do think we took out Zodiark too soon - even if you consider that teeeechnically we fought the "real" Zodiark when we fought Elidibus, as his heart, so what Fandaniel took over was really just the leftover shell of a primal with no real sentience or direction left. At least as far as I can tell.

And Hydaelyn... she's kinda in the same boat as G'raha, where they both made some extremely morally gray decisions, and Venat actually imo did a better job of acknowledging that than G'raha did. She made the active choice to rip the world apart to guarantee that every generation following hers would come to know suffering, and to accept it as an inevitable part of life, to prevent them from making the decisions the ancients made that could (likely would) have led to an unending cycle of blood sacrifice in exchange for maintaining their lost paradise at any cost. That's... I mean that's pretty freaking dark actually, imo, and while I struggle to think of a better solution when we're talking actual cataclysmic, world-ending consequences and weighing probably millions of lives in the dark here, that's like... I mean she is very clearly not any kind of saint for what she did. And she acknowledges that.

I also absolutely do not think we need a single "villain" to move the story forward. Sometimes there is no villain. Sometimes the thing you're fighting is vast and unknowable, sometimes it's disease and sometimes it's darkness and sometimes it's an endless pit of despair. The entire message of the story, as I understood it, is that suffering is inevitable but does not have to be the only thing there is, that even knowing that everything will end, there are still things worth fighting and living for and that those things can fuel a hope strong enough to carry you through even the darkest pit of despair.

I mean it sounds a bit flowery, and maybe it's a little cheesy at times, but I dunno. I kinda like that. I liked that our goal wasn't necessarily to defeat some big bad evil villain - our goal, at the end of the day, was to save and protect the things we love and care about. To stop despair from drowning out hope.

That's also why I kind of don't mind Meteion not being much of a character - even if the one we talk to did get to show a little of her own personality, briefly, she was never really her own character. She was a result and a representation of Hermes' despair. She was his last ditch effort to find meaning in a world he couldn't find any in. Hermes was already on the edge of despair, he was already losing hope and faith in the society that he was a part of. Meteion's discoveries, and her ultimate decision that nothingness is a gift preferable to the inevitable ugliness of death and despair, were ultimately the result of one man's desperate grab for an answer that he was never going to get and never going to like. And that's far more interesting to me than some evil dude we had to stab at the end of the day tbh. We do enough big bad stabbing.

Even if punching Zenos in the face was IMMENSELY satisfying.

[Dewslam]

Yu Yevon and Ultimecia aren't surprise bosses. Yu Yevon in particular is thoroughly discussed throughout the whole story, with more layers of lies peeled off as you get closer to the truth, and the ending of the game. While Ultimecia doesn't show up until the very end, she is pointed out as the villain very early in the game and her actions are repeatedly central to the plot's focus.

Except he isn't. They talk about Yevon a lot, and how sin was formed. But the only times Yu Yevon is actually mentioned is a vague reference by Yunalesca to "her father" and at the end of the game, when you meet Mika on the high bridge, where literally out of nowhere you have the dialogue option "to defeat yu yevon!" a character who's name you have literally not heard of up to that point. I played through X recently in the lead up to end walker and I talked to most NPCs I could find and there genuinely weren't many, if any at all, direct references to yu yevon in the game.

Ultimecia, meanwhile, is only relevant to the plot because the game tells you she was after she shows up because she has time powers. That isn't being a mastermind behind everything. That's bad writing. If she hadn't existed at all and the game's main antagonist had been Adel or Edea the entire time not much would have changed.

[Ririta]

mean it sounds a bit flowery, and maybe it's a little cheesy at times, but I dunno. I kinda like that. I liked that our goal wasn't necessarily to defeat some big bad evil villain - our goal, at the end of the day, was to save and protect the things we love and care about. To stop despair from drowning out hope.

Personally I'm fine with such themes as long as its background, like the Flood of Light was a background. I think it works best when we still have a colorful cast of characters such as Ryne, the Crystal Exarch, Ranjit and Vauthry moving things forward in a natural way, each with their own emotions, needs, personality and so on. In fact to be honest I think that Shadowbringers did such themes better as we saw the two opposing factions (Eulmore and Crystarium) and its people representing each side, with Eulmore people giving up and just living in luxury while Crystarium people did their best to help out their world... we're never "told" what we should feel, we were always shown via the characters doing their thing.

snip

It's not like the Endsinger would come from "nowhere"; we just wouldn't actually interact with her (Meteion) until the very end, just like how you don't interact with King Thordan (the primal) until before the final trial even though everything else built up to that moment.

[ReynTime]

Thordan's build-up precedes HW. We as players build our expectations of him since the first visit to Coerthas in ARR where he's already mentioned in the context of the MSQ and Ishgard's situation at the time. Meteion is introduced in the last 1/4 of an expansion and how she leads into the most important catalyst in XIV's ascian saga plot is dumped within 20 minutes.
Emet-Selch wouldn't have been anywhere as interesting as he ended up being by the end of 5.0 if he just showed up to us for the first time after we cornered Vaultry into Mt. Gulg.