What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[BaconBits]

Justice for our boy Brodiark.

[Stachiko]

I was told FF14's story was the greatest thing around. That if I would spend time on it, I'd come out happier than ever. Friends would ask me time and time again "Are you loving it?"

In the end, all I learned is my opinion is not wanted. I get it, no one likes to have something they enjoy spoken ill of. That's fine.

If you love the story, more power to you. I don't, and I'd honestly rather not be forced through it. I just want to play the game. And that means not being errand/postal service boy for hours of my time.

[Neotempest]

Where exactly did I write that there can't be a good story without character deaths?

I still can criticize certain aspects and think that they cheapen a story while liking and thinking it's good overall.

I get that many people want to play a flawless hero in shining armor saving the world power fantasy but I never felt FF as a whole was about that. At least in the the FF I played there were always loses and sacrifices on both sides.
Worst of all the writers are constantly using characters deaths as bait. The huge amount of fake deaths during the course of the game has become a meme at this point. For me and I'm sure many others supposed deaths of scions don't even trigger any emotion anymore (which kinda defeats their purpose) because I know that they will be fine and surprise , surprise....that's exactly what happens every single time after Hw.

It also doesn't make sense sometimes. Let's get back to the Zenos scene again. All that Zenos want's is our attention, our rage and anger. And yet he is trying really hard to avoid doing something that would give him exactly that, like killing one of our friends.
He, one of the most powerful beings in the body of the WOL get's stopped and knocked over by a level 10 paladin who could barely defeat tempered soldiers earlier.
That scene was so absurd that the whole body change part felt pointless and cringe. I didn't even expect him to kill a scion as everybody knows by now that they have a ridiculous amount of plot armor but not even a B character? What was even the point of that whole scene? Showing that Zenos is incapable of getting what he want's even if it's served on a silver plate?
Or take the ending in Ultima Thule and all the "sacrifices" accompanied with emotional speeches from the Scions only to return 30 minutes later. What kind of sacrifice is that?
Emet's look when Hythlodaeus left to be sacrificed to Zodiark has a way bigger emotional impact on me then all the fake sacrifices of the scions during the Ultima Thule arc. Because the former had consequences even 5000 years later while the latter was forgotten after 30min , as if nothing happened.

Who ever said the WoL is flawless? You can only ever come to this conclusion is if Endwalker was the first part of FFxiv you ever played. This also throws everything the WoL and his friends faced, did and lost before endwalker right out the window just because it doesn't fit the point you are trying to make of the expansion. That nothing ever bad happens to the WoL and he or she has never made a mistake. Hey, lets use this broken logic and use it in other stories like Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and just say the same thing you did here. Nobody dies and Luke Skywalker is flawless based on Return of the Jedi story alone. Let's ignore every other movie before this, just focus on Return of the Jedi.

[DBriggs304]

I was told FF14's story was the greatest thing around. That if I would spend time on it, I'd come out happier than ever. Friends would ask me time and time again "Are you loving it?"

In the end, all I learned is my opinion is not wanted. I get it, no one likes to have something they enjoy spoken ill of. That's fine.

If you love the story, more power to you. I don't, and I'd honestly rather not be forced through it. I just want to play the game. And that means not being errand/postal service boy for hours of my time.

The story is the game. That's never going to change. Nothing wrong with not liking it. No different than a movie, music, or food.

Some people like it, some don't. It's ok either way.

[HappyHubris]

I disliked the reuse of time travel, especially mixing the "multiverse time travel" of ShB with "closed loop" time travel the very next expansion.
I disliked shoving Zenos in our face for literally no reason.
I disliked how we finally visited the Garlean empire and it was...an empty zone. With no Gaius.
I disliked how our benevolent goddess apparently purposefully doomed her entire world and countless others, because the WoL was like really, really cool when they chatted, once.
I disliked wasting so much time in the pointless zone of Thavnair.

Basically, if you killed Thavnair, wrote out Zenos earlier (or tasked him with something to do), gave us a fully fleshed Garlean campaign, and made the time travel an echo instead of a kludge, it would have been a really strong expansion. Instead it was a muddled mess.

[Neotempest]

"Venat doomed the world by not telling her people about Meteion" This has to be one of the most sheltered, lives in their own bubble response I have seen constantly in this thread. I could easily look at any social media, see how people who don't take the poke are seen as evil for having an opposing opinion. Then the people in this forum just assume that the odd personality, former Azem crystal holder who is known to be quirky, is being super cereal about Meteion. There is nothing in the game that can support the theory that they will accept this information and is literally created out of thin air based on their head cannon alone. The ancients lived sheltered, they acted sheltered when the world wasn't perfect. They didn't hesitate to sacrifice lives to keep their security blanket. Maybe have some actual info that supports the claim that the Ancients would of believed Venat before jumping to your own conclusive head cannon info.

[ApolloGenX]

"Venat doomed the world by not telling her people about Meteion" This has to be one of the most sheltered, lives in their own bubble response I have seen constantly in this thread. I could easily look at any social media, see how people who don't take the poke are seen as evil for having an opposing opinion. Then the people in this forum just assume that the odd personality, former Azem crystal holder who is known to be quirky, is being super cereal about Meteion. There is nothing in the game that can support the theory that they will accept this information and is literally created out of thin air based on their head cannon alone. The ancients lived sheltered, they acted sheltered when the world wasn't perfect. They didn't hesitate to sacrifice lives to keep their security blanket. Maybe have some actual info that supports the claim that the Ancients would of believed Venat before jumping to your own conclusive head cannon info.

Didn't Venat show us magic that would show what happened in a particular place (kind of like the echo?). How hard would it be for her to show Emet and Hyth what happened at several locations to prove what she said was true? She had a tracker on Metion. There had to be research records on Metions design. People keep acting like it's just Venat's word against everyone. There is evidence and there are witnesses... we spent our whole time in Elpis finding it. The memwipe was a cheesy gimmick, imo. Emet and Hyth believed us... why wouldn't they believe Venat? Heck... wouldn't a cursory look at the Krono or whatever it was called show there was no malfunction?

Let's also not forget the warning could have come BEFORE the final days even started, lending credibility to the claim.... it's not like she had to wait until catastrophe hit to tell anyone.

[Jybril]

Annoying bait post.

This is actually annoying, can you stop? Not every single person is gonna like the games story.
Stop thinking every single opinion is a troll/bait post.
I don't like EW story almost at all.
I stopped caring with Zodiark at being level 83, so I highly agree with OP.
I don't like how we were neck and neck with Garlemeld for years, only to be patched up within 2 hours of gameplay.

This game in EW suffers pacing issues, bad. Just like it did in SB. Instead of chumming everything into ONE SINGLE PATCH.
It shoulda been spread out until the VERY end. The Moon was massive disappointment. I love the bunnies as much as the next
person but it's just really odd, hanging with bunnies then turn around 3 seconds later and Zodiark who "isn't at his full powaaa"
is a boss. Inb4 they bring him back at 100% and we fight him at the end. I just hate this all wrapped up in one patch then let's
do some rando side stuff at the end. If they stopped rushing the story, it'll be tailored better.
I don't care about Herme's and his tiny goth birb waifu who turned evil because reasons.
Besides Zodiark, Garlemeld was the biggest disappointment, really wish they did more with it but alas.

[Araxes]

• The true cause of the Final Days is a pet-project from an ancient which goes mad after observing countless dead world and possibly causing the death of several world by projecting negative emotions unto them, and is thus dead-set on bringing despair to every world, upon which said ancient goes mad and is now letting her run her course to test humanity if they can withstand/fight despair

Yeah i kinda couldnt believe that this is the cause of all our Troubles. Who would ever think it a good idea to send a child like entity with all those powers the ancients barely understand themselves into the Galaxy. It is no shock that a Child like Being would go totally mad at the sight of whats going on in the universe but somehow Hermes thought it a good idea. This in turn makes me question the sanity of the ancients in the first place.

EW was okay, but is no match for Shadowbringers. The Devs just managed to get a lot of emotional bits into the story so a lot of people claim it to be good for the lack of being able to see things in a neutral or analytic way.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

This is actually annoying, can you stop? Not every single person is gonna like the games story.
Stop thinking every single opinion is a troll/bait post.
I don't like EW story almost at all.
I stopped caring with Zodiark at being level 83, so I highly agree with OP.
I don't like how we were neck and neck with Garlemeld for years, only to be patched up within 2 hours of gameplay.

This game in EW suffers pacing issues, bad. Just like it did in SB. Instead of chumming everything into ONE SINGLE PATCH.
It shoulda been spread out until the VERY end. The Moon was massive disappointment. I love the bunnies as much as the next
person but it's just really odd, hanging with bunnies then turn around 3 seconds later and Zodiark who "isn't at his full powaaa"
is a boss. Inb4 they bring him back at 100% and we fight him at the end. I just hate this all wrapped up in one patch then let's
do some rando side stuff at the end. If they stopped rushing the story, it'll be tailored better.
I don't care about Herme's and his tiny goth birb waifu who turned evil because reasons.
Besides Zodiark, Garlemeld was the biggest disappointment, really wish they did more with it but alas.

....You had this much to say about a "This is Bait" Picture?
You took a Joke This Seriously?