Can confirm that Endwalker was pretty bad. It had its good moments for sure but they didn't last and for some reason the dev team really chickened out on doing anything that wasn't cute or fanservicey.

We're far away from Heavensward or Stormblood where actions had consequences. I am not one of those people that wanted deaths in the cast -- I'm fine with everyone surviving. But I don't like that the main cast was essentially Mary Sues that simpered their way through out the entire expansion without a scratch on them. This has been a consistent problem for years now where the dev team is absolutely terrified of doing something permanent to the main cast. And the thing is, I don't think the Scions are actually beloved enough to warrant that kind of fearfulness so I don't understand where it's coming from.

Really atrocious story quality and Ishikawa and Oda are supposed to be good at this. I'm really disappointed if this is the quality of story we can expect from them going forward, where the threats are pointlessly neutered before they even begin and we're supposed to be focusing on sitting around in Sharlayan having a tea party while the apocalypse is supposedly happening.