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

[Nilroreo]

Much like how, despite the Warrior of Light travelling to the First, conveniently none of his enemies made a move to successfully sow chaos and destruction back on the Source.

You know, something that never quite sat well with me regarding our mission in ShB is that were attempting to prevent the 8UC by preventing the light wardens from finishing off the First, but back at the Source, Zenos was acting out on his own and successfully regained his body and proceeded to assassinate his own father, thus preventing him from issuing the order to deploy Black Rose. If he was going to do this anyways, what exactly was the point in going to the First at all?

[TaleraRistain]

You know, something that never quite sat well with me regarding our mission in ShB is that were attempting to prevent the 8UC by preventing the light wardens from finishing off the First, but back at the Source, Zenos was acting out on his own and successfully regained his body and proceeded to assassinate his own father, thus preventing him from issuing the order to deploy Black Rose. If he was going to do this anyways, what exactly was the point in going to the First at all?

We got pulled there by the Crystal Exarch, but he wouldn't have any way of knowing what Zenos was doing on the Source at that time, just the information from his own timeline and whatever the Scions could tell him. I don't think we knew what Zenos was up to while we were on the First, either, so we couldn't tell him. Black Rose was released in the Crystal Exarch's timeline so something different had to have happened there.

[Nilroreo]

We got pulled there by the Crystal Exarch, but he wouldn't have any way of knowing what Zenos was doing on the Source at that time, just the information from his own timeline and whatever the Scions could tell him. I don't think we knew what Zenos was up to while we were on the First, either, so we couldn't tell him. Black Rose was released in the Crystal Exarch's timeline so something different had to have happened there.

To be a bit clearer, I'm questioning why the 8UC happened at all. Zenos went on his quest shortly after his own death, so it's safe to assume he would've done the same thing in G'raha's timeline. Estinien and Gaius weren't doing anything we wouldn't have done, and yet, something still happened differently that resulted in the other timeline falling victim to Black Rose.

I attribute a lot of it to the 'missing' expansion. Supposedly the finale was meant to be in 7.0 or even 8.0 which suggests that large swathes of territory would need to be traversed to get there - and unfortunately, Garlemald appears to have drawn the short straw on that front. Which is a shame, since I found the Russian and Roman influences to be pretty cool and it would have been nice to explore some of the provinces that didn't want to break away from the Empire.

Same. the Ilsabard segments were Imo by far the best thing to come out of this expansion. Hope we get more of that.

[TaleraRistain]

To be a bit clearer, I'm questioning why the 8UC happened at all. Zenos went on his quest shortly after his own death, so it's safe to assume he would've done the same thing in G'raha's timeline. Estinien and Gaius weren't doing anything we wouldn't have done, and yet, something still happened differently that resulted in the other timeline falling victim to Black Rose.

No real way to know. The catalyst to his doing that seems to be the rematch he wanted with us, since he had no love for the power of the empire, so maybe we never met there. Or maybe he didn't come back after death. Maybe Varis killed him instead of his killing Varis. Only thing we know for sure is things lined up in a way to let Black Rose be released.

[Theodric]

You know, something that never quite sat well with me regarding our mission in ShB is that were attempting to prevent the 8UC by preventing the light wardens from finishing off the First, but back at the Source, Zenos was acting out on his own and successfully regained his body and proceeded to assassinate his own father, thus preventing him from issuing the order to deploy Black Rose. If he was going to do this anyways, what exactly was the point in going to the First at all?

I attribute a lot of it to the 'missing' expansion. Supposedly the finale was meant to be in 7.0 or even 8.0 which suggests that large swathes of territory would need to be traversed to get there - and unfortunately, Garlemald appears to have drawn the short straw on that front. Which is a shame, since I found the Russian and Roman influences to be pretty cool and it would have been nice to explore some of the provinces that didn't want to break away from the Empire.

[Melorie]

I attribute a lot of it to the 'missing' expansion. Supposedly the finale was meant to be in 7.0 or even 8.0 which suggests that large swathes of territory would need to be traversed to get there - and unfortunately, Garlemald appears to have drawn the short straw on that front. Which is a shame, since I found the Russian and Roman influences to be pretty cool and it would have been nice to explore some of the provinces that didn't want to break away from the Empire.

Yeah, I love how different Garlemald and Thavnair feel from what we have visited so far, however... Their representation inside the history is quite bare-bones. A pity.