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

[Merrigan]

Welcome to a video game.

This post has one defined goal. If you don't want to be here to critique the story, by no means do you need to be. You're free to counter argue anyone you'd like, bearing in mind everything in here is an opinion. Even yours.

Oh, come on. You know how this works.

You create a positive post to counter the 10 negative posts. You'll get a collection of a few dozen responses. And the post will sink, because people are much more excited about complaining and debating (and I include myself in that) than they are about being happy.

Don't see how it's childish. You are paying for a product in the end with certain expectations of quality in mind. Some of us here don't think the expansion met it and are discussing how it factors into whether (or how) we continue to play the game, where it goes from here etc. You're perfectly welcome to go to a thread praising the game, or even make one.

For me there are three cases when you buy a product of this type (I am exaggerating, including the question of refund):

1. The product is good. You don't ask for a refund.

2. The product is bad and it's a catch. You curse the writer/producers and ask for a refund.

3. The product is average. You have doubts about some decisions, but the effort is there. Which is, it seems to me, the case with Endwalker. Without saying it's the best expansion ever produced, there is a real work done; especially to answer all the questions, to close all the acts of an almost ten year long adventure.

In this third case, yes: asking for a refund is for me a capricious act. Because the player forgets that you don't just pay to please him, but also to consume something that is the result of the work of many people. This is a very individualistic point of view, in my opinion.

(I hope I am clear. I'm not an English speaker and I don't know if I'm transcribing my thoughts correctly on the last point).

[EmpyreanHelios]

C'mon y'all, my forum privileges haven't been revoked yet and there's already people coming in to derail the thread?

If someone engages you in bad faith and/or resort to personal attacks, please pretend they don't exist. Curating your experience is important.

I'm not saying people can't come in and say Endwalker is good. Many people have done just that and have provided/sparked some good discussions so far.
However, if someone wants to come and bash people for their critique then I have to say the good people of reddit and twitter can better accommodate you there.

[DevonEllwood]

People have mentioned how Hydaelyn sundering her own people is akin to genocide and I honestly don't care to argue that point. What I want to argue is that she sundered the world, knowing very well that the shards would be kindling for the fire. That makes her no better than the ascians. They wanted to save something, she wanted to save something. She kept her memory and that was the problem. I would have rather fought something I could be sad about, a mercy killing. It's the way the writing presents it that makes seem a certain way and that just feels manipulative. I felt the same way about certain characters such as Hythlodaeus who I found to be one of the most depressing characters in the game. He feels his contribution to the world isn't anything and thus considers his friends' work to be his lifework. He thinks so little of himself that he lives through other people. Painting him as a happy person doesn't change that for me.

As for Hydaelyn's backup plan, the escape to another planet, was also a complete gamble. Even the rabbits had identified only a few suitable planets and even they were not sure if if they would be able to sustain the life they put on it. After you get to such a planet, what then? Are we sure people would get along? That the planets native inhabitants would just be okay with aliens there? Midgardsormr called Hydaelyn(planet) the "last bastion of hope". A giant dragon had already flew through space looking for a place he could bring his eggs. Even after we stayed and defeated Metion and Alphanaud making his speeches about a better tomorrow, that sounds like history is just going to repeat itself. Man will always want world peace, and will always seek a paradise. Absolutely no change.

There were people asking about Ishikawa and I don't remember what interview it was but she will not be returning as a lead writer. I don't know if she will be returning as a writer at all for the game or is just moving on completely. I don't think she's a bad writer at all. I think she has a lot of growing to do in not making "safe" one sided stories. She also had a lot on her plate with Endwalker. She didn't know they were combining the last two expansions into one. That coupled with obvious last minute changes that she had to re-work in, it's no wonder Endwalker ended up in such a mess. I don't know if she made the decision to step down or that it was Yoshi P's decision. If I had to guess it's the former. I've seen it happen to writers put under pressure. So I don't blame her for how Endwalker ended up, I blame Yoshi P. A story made to be unpredictable will start to not make sense. A predictable story is not necessarily a bad thing and it shows that the story has cohesion.

I also don't know what "loose ends" Endwalker was supposed to tie up. We had the origins and deaths of both Hydaelyn and Zodiark, the source of the final days, and I guess the sound? All I got was more questions.

Just to tack on, 5.3 made me feel like crap. Y'shtola said something along the lines that maybe Elidibus's love for his people will reward him. Then they celibrate and have their tea break. I liked the Scions before, 5.3 made me care less about them. They could have died in Endwalker and I would have felt nothing.

For rating wise, I'm putting the second half of Endwalker under ARR. ARR may have been badly paced and plenty of problems, but on paper and if it were created today I feel I would have enjoyed it a lot more than Endwalker.

I also forgot about the age old question, how does the Japanese forums feel about Endwalker?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Just to tack on, 5.3 made me feel like crap. Y'shtola said something along the lines that maybe Elidibus's love for his people will reward him. Then they celibrate and have their tea break.

Don’t forget when she also somehow randomly hypothesizes that Emet helped us because he wanted Elidibus to be free….which i don’t understand how she even comes to that conclusion considering we literally trapped him in a tower with his sorrowful memories, and then now in endwalker he gets killed off. How exactly is that free? I swear it’s like no one proofread anything.

[Kaurhz]

Don’t forget when she also somehow randomly hypothesizes that Emet helped us because he wanted Elidibus to be free….which i don’t understand how she even comes to that conclusion considering we literally trapped him in a tower with his sorrowful memories, and then now in endwalker he gets killed off. How exactly is that free? I swear it’s like no one proofread anything.

If you're referring to Azem's Crystal and the moment in the encounter then I'm pretty sure that could be free of his burden and his 'responsibility'. In this circumstance there is freedom in death. There's a lot of questions remaining here, but it's perfectly plausible that in the end Emet-Selch simply wanted to relieve him of this burden, or at least attempt to help us in our endeavour of doing so. Without the other unsundered to aid in that goal he's effectively completely and utterly alone. With our escapades of preventing the calamity which would have brought about our deaths that's potentially many millennia of planning to bring about his ultimate goal - Alone

[Rise-chu]

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This is silly. If we didn't care about the game then we wouldn't criticize it. We wouldn't bother forming opinions on it. I don't care about WoW because I played it for two weeks back in 2009 on my brother's account. I don't know the lore, I don't know the characters, I don't have an opinion about the gameplay. I don't really talk about it in depth because it does not matter to me and doesn't have an impact on me except when I'm drawing comparisons like this. So I don't criticize it. The biggest problem with WoW is the behind the scenes behavior of the devs, not the game itself.

In contrast, FFXIV is a fun and engaging game with devs that don't participate in bad behavior behind the scenes. The story is reasonably well told, at least until lately. That means if we see something we don't like and are concerned about how it could impact the future of the game, we're going to voice our criticisms and concerns and frustrations.

It really is that simple. It is quite ridiculous to insist "loving something means that you cannot ever criticize it and if you do then I don't think you loved it at all!"

Why do people keep telling me this story is amazing? Why am I supposed to blindly accept their viewpoint and keep my opinions to myself?

Because of the bizarre and concerning attitudes surrounding the devs, particularly Yoshi-P and Ishikawa.

I respect Yoshi-P and Ishikawa but I'm not one of those weirdo twitter people that makes their entire personality about performatively yelling about loving them. These people make loving the game a central part of their identity, and so they have to go around telling everyone else that we must love it, no matter what. Because if there are players who don't love it, or are unsatisfied with what we see, then these types of people feel like our discontent is an attack on them personally.

FTR this is why I like the OF despite its reputation. Because long form communication is the only way to fight these strange attitudes re: parasocial relationships.

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It sounds unimaginably difficult to be the lead writer on such a huge game and to have so many eyes on you all the time, so tbh I'm glad that she's getting out from under it. That kind of pressure sounds like a nightmare so hopefully she's leaving the position under her own power and with a sense of relief.

If she really did have the "we're combining two expansions into one, SIKE" thing sprung on her at the last minute then uhhh yeah, that is a very questionable decision made by Yoshi-P. At best. I'm not sure that Endwalker could have powered two whole expansions but I do think it would have benefitted from being spread out over multiple patches as per tradition. I have not read or seen anything that gives me any insight into why this strange decision was made to jampack so much story into one patch and put unnecessary stress on everyone involved. Sheesh.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I sincerely doubt that a thread on an MMO forum can be representative of the quality of anything.

If the forums have taught me one thing - one thing only: complain about everything, all the time, whether it is justified or not.

And please, enough with the "we pay" point. We already had too many of these during the difficult launch. Childish attitude.

You're free to have an opinion, and free to state your own points, but i would really rather you not denote people's opinions in here simply because they are posted in a forum thread, if you want an example of childish attitude, its that. It seems your gripe with this is the fact people are actually critiquing a story and you disagree with all of it so youre trying to write off peoples opinions and statements. Thats the opposite of a debate and plain and simply a hindrance. It's especially interesting to me because where else then would critique be valid for you? The toxic cesspool that is reddit or twitter? Where a majority of people hate and send death threats to anyone who critiques the story?

Im genuinely tired of seeing people coming in here and downplaying peoples opinions in here, no matter if they agree with me or not, its childish and outright rude to downplay posts. As ive stated previously, yes, you are going to see more complaints on the forums. Why? Few reasons. Main one being they are the official forums for the game, people critique so that hopefully the devs see it and will take the feedback and do something with it. Secondly, as ive stated the other two places that are typically used for social interactions, they are extremely toxic, especially to anyone offering criticism for the game. This is a much better safe space to hold conversations and debates than either of those.

As for the "we pay" comment....its the truth. We're paying for a game and a service, we are allowed to have our opinions and express our concerns with the game. Yes you heard it during the launch, because people took off time from an already delayed expansion to play and couldnt even log on. If this happened to any other gaming company like blizzard, people would be raging all over and preaching for a cancellation.

If you're referring to Azem's Crystal and the moment in the encounter then I'm pretty sure that could be free of his burden and his 'responsibility'. In this circumstance there is freedom in death. There's a lot of questions remaining here, but it's perfectly plausible that in the end Emet-Selch simply wanted to relieve him of this burden, or at least attempt to help us in our endeavour of doing so. Without the other unsundered to aid in that goal he's effectively completely and utterly alone. With our escapades of preventing the calamity which would have brought about our deaths that's potentially many millennia of planning to bring about his ultimate goal - Alone

To be fair, kwwp in mind this is before we learned of Meteion, he would have killed us there and would have succeeded in the rest of the rejoinings. The thing is too, at that point was Emet really dead? The short story seems to confirm he was as close to alive as could be in the lifestream. Why didnt he just... talk to Elidibus. The thing is how would Emet know Elidibus would be killed? That didnt happen until this expansion. Before his death again, he was trapped inside of a tower with the memories of his people and his failure to bring them back. All he did was make his burden worse until he sacrificed himself.Elidibus was working alone for most of it anyways after Lahabrea died so im not sure that holds much merit.Emet didnt seem to care back then because he was quite literally sleeping during the events of arr,hw,and most of sb. And even before then.

[Kaurhz]

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Our deaths wouldn't result in the immediate succession of his rejoinings. Our own death is just the removal of a fairly obstinate obstacle. Our deaths could result in our next incarnation being more powerful, and seemingly how the rejoinings work his goal would only become more and more difficult. Still, many millennia of planning. Our death isn't just an immediate rejoining. The whole purpose of our trip to the first was to prevent the flood of light in combination with black rose. We effectively took that flood on ourselves and used it against Emet-Selch. All of that abundance of aether. Have fun recreating that calamity. - Otherwise by your self-same argument we could just hypothesize that the best course of action for Elidibus to take would to simply sit on the sidelines and wait for our inevitable death in a hundred years.

The whole point is he didn't know Elidibibus would be killed, nor would he know that we would defeat him, or stop his calamity entirely. That's just creating contingencies. If the events of everything leading up to his entrapment in the tower, Elidibus himself was borderline crumbling. Up to the events leading, all he knew was his obligation. Emet-Selch saw his obligations of rejoining the first to the source as complete; and the only natural course of events would be to simply play spectator sport. him being asleep and letting what should have been the natural course of events playing out is entirely different from him actually being dead or borderline dead, and given he could no longer sense Emet-Selch it'd stand to argue that he'd be pretty hopeless in conversing with Emet-Selch. Elidibus didn't really (to our knowledge) have an real affinity or capacity with the lifestream, or the ability to 'see ones soul', comparative to say, Emet-Selch, and equally to the best of our knowledge, our unsundered self is one of few ancients that could 'summon the stars to their side'.

So yes, all things considered the "He probably wanted to relieve Elidibus of his burden through death" is still perfectly reasonable, especially if Emet-Selch was coming to realise that we were worthy of carrying their legacy. In this regard, many of the gripes would actually be more related to Shadowbringers than with Endwalker itself. The pacing of Shadowbringers completely and utterly dropped after the base expansion itself.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The pacing of Shadowbringers completely and utterly dropped after the base expansion itself.

I can strongly agree with you on that lol. Part of me wonders if it was that way due to the expansion change thing although, it just seems like they had so many revisions done to the story. We know that Eden was originally supposed to be the final boss of ShB…so how would that have affected 5.3+? Would emet have been the 5.3 boss and Elidibus the main focus of 6.0? Is that why he feels so shafted. And if so i wonder how all of that would’ve affected what is now Endwalker. We also know they had thought about doing a partial rejoining on the first…So many revisions and changes.

[Kaurhz]

I can strongly agree with you on that lol. Part of me wonders if it was that way due to the expansion change thing although, it just seems like they had so many revisions done to the story. We know that Eden was originally supposed to be the final boss of ShB…so how would that have affected 5.3+? Would emet have been the 5.3 boss and Elidibus the main focus of 6.0? Is that why he feels so shafted. And if so i wonder how all of that would’ve affected what is now Endwalker. We also know they had thought about doing a partial rejoining on the first…So many revisions and changes.

The problem is from the initial inception of the game right up until now they're still bound by many of those narrations set earlier in the game. That includes the whole light vs dark, or Hydaelyn good Zodiark bad nonsense. It's difficult to get around stuff like that. Personally, I'd have been happy with us not facing Emet-Selch whatsoever but instead having him as the guide or sorts on our journey and acting as a true sacrificial lamb towards the end. Continually deciding our worth. To be frank I think he thought we were 'worthy' pretty early on, with the missive comment he made of our soul and all. But just carrying on his condescending attitude. Equally I've said many times that I personally think Endwalker needed to be longer (I like the world building and I don't want that sacrificed), at least given how post-shadowbringers was handled. To be frank I think Post-Shadowbringers had a lot of consequences on how Endwalker was told. It left a few questions which ultimately should not have been left unanswered.

I'd have been happy if our budget Emet-Selch (Fandaniel) never existed to begin with. Or at least have him introduced in Endwalker and then left post-Shadowbringers dedicated almost entirely to flushing out Elidibus. Speaking of Fandaniel; I don't think we ever found out more about the telophoroi.