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?

[van_arn]

No, lol. Venat was interesting.... I am talking about "Nothing to Hydaelyn" For some reason when Venat powers up, her clothes fly off and she's in a bustier/unitard.

To be fair, zodiark is pretty nakie too.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Caurcas]

Once again, how they wrote the ancients was flawed and backed them into a corner in ShB. Maybe another expansion could've fixed it, but probably not. It's all a victim of power and narrative bloat. Reject ShB and EW, return to SB.

[MagiusNecros]

Shadowbringers had much better pacing. Endwalker pacing is horrible and the plot poorly written. Action requiring agency then filler that makes the previous events lose their agency. It's a bad fiction novel with timeskips.

Final Days only occurring in 2 zones and only one at a time was pretty garbage IMO especially when you see monsters flooding the skies in Thavnair. You see a bunch of NPC's all having despair auras so logically every zone should have been affected across the globe.

Poor execution in the long term. But how else are we going to know if Odin popped in Gridania?

How they handled the Final Days was definitely a low point of the xpac. Is the xpac bad? No. But is the story as impactful as ShB? Also no.

Too much Greek influence too.

[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.

[EmpyreanHelios]

I started as healer coming from WoW and this was my first complaint. Especially as AST.
The worst of it was I started zoning out. I was so bored pushing 2 > 1 > 1 > 1 > 1 > 1 that my mind would linger. I stopped paying attention to health bars, mechanics, everything. I became a worse player over time.

Yeah, you peak as a healer so early in the game and not just gameplay-wise. After you understand that you should use your “free” healing stuff first before casting GCD heals, you find out that the game doesn’t do enough dmg to even warrant GCD heals most of the time.

People talk about how intricate and smooth WoW healer gameplay is so I do intend to try the game out at some point. Not sure if I can do that right now with all the hubbub going on behind the scenes, but definitely in the future.

I genuinely don't understand how people enjoy it. I like healers (esp WHM) in PVP, but in PVE in anything that isn't one of the harder game modes, it seems utterly braindead. Not sure if it's any better in the harder content.

I agree. Healers are fun to play in pvp, especially frontlines. I just love how chaotic it is and how you have to ration your healing kit.
I was told to do harder content when I talked about how awful 111111ing is. So I went and cleared savage and it was mostly the same. Then when I told people that they called me a toxic raider so…. there’s no winning, I feel like.


On Topic:
I do think that I would have enjoyed Endwalker if it was split into two expansions. Pacing issues abound, especially with the Loporrits. I honestly thought they were going to reveal the moon plan with the Forum members first, but they went around and showed the bunnies first? Weird. So when they announced it I was bored.

[Stachiko]

Yeah, you peak as a healer so early in the game and not just gameplay-wise. After you understand that you should use your “free” healing stuff first before casting GCD heals, you find out that the game doesn’t do enough dmg to even warrant GCD heals most of the time.

People talk about how intricate and smooth WoW healer gameplay is so I do intend to try the game out at some point. Not sure if I can do that right now with all the hubbub going on behind the scenes, but definitely in the future.

If you have a PC, please do. It runs on potatoes and it's worth experiencing. You can play for free up to level 20 on any class, any character, anywhere except the final area. It's worth having something to compare to that plays as well as WoW does.

(Should also note, unlike FF, you get a good number of abilities at level 20. You also get to try all three specs of your character. Leveling is kind of stupid fast though. And the quest stories aren't anywhere near FF's level.)

I agree. Healers are fun to play in pvp, especially frontlines. I just love how chaotic it is and how you have to ration your healing kit.
I was told to do harder content when I talked about how awful 111111ing is. So I went and cleared savage and it was mostly the same. Then when I told people that they called me a toxic raider so…. there’s no winning, I feel like

Ugh, I don't want to derail the thread but I so do. I doubt the larger populace would want this conversation. I haven't tried FFXIV PvP and I'm hesitant to. Right now WoW PvP is a nuke fest so I can't really talk on either or. I've heard only bad things about FF though.

On Topic:
I do think that I would have enjoyed Endwalker if it was split into two expansions. Pacing issues abound, especially with the Loporrits. I honestly thought they were going to reveal the moon plan with the Forum members first, but they went around and showed the bunnies first? Weird. So when they announced it I was bored.

The whole Loporrits thing aggravated me to the next level. It was so... embarassing. Venat really thought a moon escape would work?