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

[Miiu]

While I was fully expecting not all of the scions to make it over the finish line I have to ask does a character's death really make a story more meaningful/better?
I'd argue that in a lot of stories killing of main characters during the final moments of a story is usually only done to create a reaction or go for a cheap emotional impact.

[Kaurhz]

No one is saying they should kill them off for lulz -- we are saying that there are enough Scions with completed story arcs where an impactful death to SELL the story of the expansion is a useful tool (see Papalymo, Ysayle,). You build the story to this moment and pay it off. You have an entire narrative built around "anyone could transform and die" with no one of note doing either.

At this point I'm not even entirely sure if we're disagreeing.. My point was inferring the very point in your post (emboldened). On the latter point, Any given character can transform and die, but given the history of each individual scion I hardly find that the scions would just simply roll over in the face of despair. People only transformed in the face of despair. This narrative works well for less substantial characters, but for characters such as the scions? It's very anticlimactic

[Garet]

I quite like the story of endwalker even though it does seem a bit short. The music and ambiance of the last zone and dungeon is sooooo nice. Meteion voicing over on top of the awesome music and awesome dungeon of Dead End is just perfectly done. So excited for the new arc to start in 6.1

TBH I was hoping Meteion would come back with us and become a developed character in the future like they are doing with the twins. Maybe in the future they do bring her and Zenos back.

Zenos is I think one of the character that was severely underutilized this xpac. He basically did not do anything except at the end lol. So hopefully they flesh him out more in the future. After building him up to be that super competitive person that even gained the power of an ascian I did not feel the end justified the end of his character. It's like it was just all thrown away haha

[KizuyaKatogami]

While I was fully expecting not all of the scions to make it over the finish line I have to ask does a character's death really make a story more meaningful/better?
I'd argue that in a lot of stories killing of main characters during the final moments of a story is usually only done to create a reaction or go for a cheap emotional impact.

When an expansion is advertised with the main dev constantly saying things like “no one is safe, anyone can die,” It sets a precedent. The problem here is this is an apocalypse that once decimated the entire planet and not even the god-like ancients could escape from unscathed. Yet somehow this time everyone survives. It reduces the impact significantly. I’ll ask you a question as well then. Does major plot armor really make a story more meaningful/better? Does dropping a major plot point really make it better just so a character can continue living?(Yshtola). As for cheap emotional impact this was literally Ultima Thule. With them using emotional manipulation with the scions despite most people knowing they weren’t going to die lmao. The problem here as well is, their decision on not killing off any of the characters but in fact, resurrecting them literally goes against the themes of this expansion. People like to preach about the themes that the writers put forward, yet don’t seem to acknowledge the contradictions that the main cast faces with that die to their unwillingness to kill anyone off. The main song is literally “loss,fire,and faith.” Yet where’s the loss here? There’s a reason they have to keep reusing the same 3-4 characters every single expansion. It’s because it’s been 3 expansions since we lost anyone substantial. Now i’m not saying btw, that they just need to randomly kill someone off, and i think that’s pretty apparent. But considering this expansion was probably as high stakes as this game is ever going to get, there wouldn’t have been a better tie to do so. Both in this expansion and shadowbringers. We’ve lost characters to far less than that of say, two unsundered beings or a literal end of world apocalypse. When you prattle on about how dangerous this event is, and how no one is safe, but then everyone survives with literally no consequences whatsoever. That’s when it’s a problem.As far as the despair goes, i do find it a bit unrealistic that none of the scions gave into despair for even a second. Especially the twins, considering they’re younger. Even if it meant no one dying, at least seeing one or two of them struggle with despair, struggling with their feelings would’ve been interesting. At this point they all feel like cardboard cutouts.

Y’shtola does not need plot armor, she has marketing armor. She is the FFXIV mascot used in other SE games and in advertising. She is just as immortal as us and the only thing that will happen to her is a nice cozy retirement when the time comes, no death, no harm.

Tbf, this rings a bit hollow considering Noctis is the ffxv mascot for marketing and uh...you know.

[ApolloGenX]

It kind of would have been cooler that instead of everyone else pointlessly dying- we died.

Maybe they could have brought us back in the end...but it would have been interesting for once to watch an encounter as a spirit with the Scions fighting and us giving them Aetheric support somehow.... and maybe Azems crystal shattering and us coming back, or who knows? (Isn't that the point? We cheer them on and keep them from losing hope?- Maybe Metion could even bring us back)

This is the end to our whole "Chosen by Hydalyn" arc... so a symbolic death of our character might have been interesting somehow. It also shows how we didn't do it alone. Could have also been a cool ending fight cinematic. Plus it reminds me of the line from Answers:

In the same fleeting moment thou must live, die and know

[Stachiko]

This is the end to our whole "Chosen by Hydalyn" arc... so a symbolic death of our character might have been interesting somehow.

I half expected everything to fall to absolute sheit and Hydaelyn say something along the lines of "Maybe 300th time is the charm" I'm glad they didn't go that route.

I do like your example though. You pay the ultimate sacrifice to end everything. It'd be cool to watch a [game redacted] type scene where the main character dies and the scions work to bring you back. It's cliché but I'd take it over all the barriers Endwalker thrashed through.

I wouldn't mind if you die in the past to prevent it all from happening. Then everything Endwalker- is a historical time loop, and the next expansion lets them start all over with familiar faces.

[Lauront]

To add insult to injury Hermes is the head of testing facility that determines if their creations are suitable to be release into their world

A project with no peer reviews,
Have little knowledge in that field,
Not to mention Hermes have not equipped/trained meterion for the mission
The whole Elpis/Hermes plot is one of the biggest let down in EW for me

I shared your dissatisfaction with that. It's not like these sort of processes or considerations went unheeded in their other facilities, e.g. they had a Bureau for reviewing creations, the Anyder facilities were overseen by the city authorities, and Pandaemonium has stringent security features to destroy it in the event anything goes wrong. Emet rather quickly notices Hermes wasn't well suited to working there, so doubles down on recommending he accept the nomination to get out of that environment. I almost get the impression that they didn't want such things interfering with the narrative they wanted to go with, and so just hope people look past it.

I mean, i disagree, i think it should be measured that way because why have a character who has no plot relevance? All for a "maybe in the future"? Like how maybe in the future theyll finally bring back her life draining plot?If a character isnt doing anything for the plot, then at that point theyre stale and need to be replaced. Its just another part of the whole plot armor bias situation. She did nothing for the plot this expansion, why have her continue to stick around when that position can be given to another character that could actually have some worth and relevance.They did it for lyse. She did what she had to do and they wrote her out when she wasnt contributing much. The same should go for yshtola. She contributed very little.

Her popularity is also a bit less pronounced than it used to be if the recent JP fan poll was anything to go by. Other than the twins, Urianger and, for whatever reason, G'raha, the Scions aren't even foremost amongst the most popular characters anymore, so we might see less hesitation to have them take a backseat or even die, although if that was to have an impact, EW probably would've been a more pivotal point for it.

[Ronduwil]

Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

When she sacrificed herself to make Hydaelyn, she gave up all the research capabilities that Venat had. Hydaelyn was not Venat. She was a single-minded primal imbued with some of Venat's memories and the strongest aspect of Venat's will (which at the time was to pave the way for future generations to permanently end the threat). There's a huge difference there. She was under a pretty big time crunch, with the world ending, and all. All she did was to set some wheels in motion and hope for the best. Hydaelyn wasn't capable of doing the research that you're suggesting she should have done.

As you said, she decided that rallying the other ancients to fight Meteion was futile for whatever reason. I, too, wish that they could have provided a better explanation for that, but if nothing else, we can chalk it up to sheer panic.

[Awarewolf]

If Meteion was introduced in an earlier expansion, I would have liked EW’s story a bit more. As it is, it’s been my least favorite story of all of FFXIV since 2.0. That opinion has not gone off well with a couple of friends, not that I particularly care in the long run. I can see how they rushed a bit with this expansion, and I understand why, but that doesn’t change how I felt about the story. It didn’t suck, but it wasn’t the best.

[Rolder50]

While I was fully expecting not all of the scions to make it over the finish line I have to ask does a character's death really make a story more meaningful/better?
I'd argue that in a lot of stories killing of main characters during the final moments of a story is usually only done to create a reaction or go for a cheap emotional impact.

To me, it's not so much that I need a character to die to feel invested in the story, it's more like they are so unwilling to do so, that if a scion is put into a threatening position later, I won't feel as much about it because I know they aren't going to actually kill them. So it dampens the mood / dampens the stakes later on down the line.