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

[Abomination713]

The story was fine for the most part, but my biggest complaint about the whole thing was the waste of potential and sloppy events from Garlemald and the giant plot holes of Hydaelyns plan.

You're telling me that we have a spaceship (which was most likely built using the help of the Loporrits) and they couldn't have found a way for us to get Garlean air ship tech to help build it? Garlemald had the most advanced air travel BY FAR on the continent. Have you seen the size of their battleships?! One of those babies would have been able to save everyone in one trip! What should have happened is Zenos and Fandaniel went to the moon not by some deus ex machina teleport pad, but they should have had their own spaceship that Fandaniel helped Zenos build (he was the smartest person of the Allagan empire so of course space travel would have been something they knew about since they most likely helped with Dalamud). We could have boarded the ship before they took off and that's how we got to the moon. Look at how fast they built those towers and the "giant laser" of a castle. It would be believable that they could have made a spaceship too. Would have been a better explanation of how Zenos came back from the moon. It should have been a plot point to get the blueprints of their spaceship and some of the tech to help finish our spaceship since even with the help of the Loporrits, Sharlayan couldn't get the engines small enough for the ship since the Loporrits only knew how to create giants ones that could move a planet.

[Abomination713]

Was really disappointed with how Anima was handled. Expected him to at the very least be a trial...not a dungeon boss...especially considering how powerful she is in FFX

I was too, but from a story telling standpoint it made perfect sense. The story knows we are absurdly strong. Things that used to be trials are now mere dungeon bosses to us. Even the Magus Sisters were nothing more than a dungeon boss in our eyes (although they were the wrong color. They were normal color, but should have been Lunar color because of the tower, but I assume they did this to not confuse people from their first appearance, but it's still an oversight and would be nice if they fixed it). Lunar Bahamut was just a dungeon boss. The only things that could be considered worthy of a trial to us now (from a story standpoint) is beings who could have destroyed planets. I really like that detail.

[Lauront]

Dynamis was foreshadowed by the Omega raids.

Bearing in mind Omega is a mechanical construct created by a race of beings that essentially digitised away their entire existence, soul included, you can read it any number of ways. Basically, anything with "emotions", "prayer", etc. can be argued to "foreshadow" it, because it involves those concepts/is tangentially linked to them.

It'll be interesting to see if they address any of the criticism of the story in the upcoming Live Letter(s).

Or in the interviews which we're supposedly getting. If they just double down on some elements, it will be unfortunate, to say the least.

[KizuyaKatogami]

They do kill off characters in previous expansions. The Scions heavily followed in Endwalker were the core members that everyone stans. If any one of them died you two would be writing an essay in a different thread about how that's bad writing according to this Youtube channel you watched or just being mad your favorite character died. The last major Scion they killed off (Papalymo) made a lot of people seethe.

Not everything has to be grimdark or GoT style where characters die left and right, eventually the shock wears off. For example, Avatar: The Last Airbender manages to be mature leaning while having every main character make it through to the end and most of humanity loves that show. I always got the feeling FF14 had a similar tone to that show. I'll admit when I started the xpac I thought some of the Scions would die, but after Garlemald I realized they're probably all gonna make it and I accepted it because it means I can commission more lewd art of my WoL and Y'shtola.

We haven’t had a prominent character killed off since HW…that was 3 expansions ago. Not everything needs to be grimdark, but when you have two expansions now that are essentially end of the world apocalypses with the stakes higher than they’ve ever been before, there really needs to be some level of consequences for the main cast. Just as too much death or grim dark themes can ruin a story, so too can too much safety and plot armor and power of friendship styled mechanic, which unfortunately both shadowbringers and endwalker had plenty of.

I also don’t think anyone is asking for character to be killed off left and right. That didn’t really happen in the past ff games either , but they did at least kill off a character or two and gave consequences for the main cast, something that has been lacking since, again, Heavensward, three whole expansions ago, effectively 3 games ago. Also no, i wouldn’t be writing an essay on how a character died so long as it was done well and justice. Personally i don’t care for any of the scions however, and i would be perfectly fine with any of them being killed off. Especially Yshtola since she has served little to no purpose especially in this expansion.

[Kozh]

Dynamis was foreshadowed by the Omega raids. Omega says there's some kind of energy it can't detect fueling you and hints it's willpower based.

Except it's basically robot versus human where the robots are surprised by human emotions, not necessarily about dynamis. Prayers (primal summoning), memories, limit break, things that are influenced by emotions, have always been explained as aether based since ARR. It's only in EW that they said "no, it's actually a completely different type of force".

I do have to give it to the writers that they always do a good job in adding new lore that feels natural and not contradictory to existing lore, but that doesn't mean the new thing is "foreshadowed". And frankly, out of anything, dynamis feels the most forced and deus ex machina-ish.

This game (and most of the series) is first and foremost marketed towards Japanese players, Final Fantasy just happened to be the JRPG series that blew up in the west during the 90s on the SNES and Playstation. Maybe on this forum a lot of people will have played it but you'll be hard pressed to find people in the general western populace who have ever heard of or played Drakengard, Xenosaga, Yakuza, SaGa, .hack, Ogre Battle etc.

Not only that this is very wrong considering how big the fandoms are outside of Japan, but this is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Wanting a story to be well written isn't "cultural difference". If people who play this game are no stranger to FF/jrpg style, then why does it matter if they're from western or not?

[EaraGrace]

The flower may not change all the time and only be affected by strong enough emotions. But what I'm saying is: the ancients are aware that the flower reacts to emotionS. Plural. In order to observe such a behavior it must have reacted to something else. Not just "default white - black when Hermes is brooding." They speak about changes in hue and vibrancy. They're describing a spectrum. How can they claim that if they only ever saw it change for 1 person and 1 emotional state?

We learn that tidbit from Hermes, when asking the other researchers all struggle to comprehend how Meteion even works. In fact we knew more about Dynamis and the flowers then they did.

And that's why I told you about "creative solutions". They didn't need to go and fight Meteion as we did. Dynamis is an energy. They could have chugged on that same dynamis and make her dry on it so she's less powerful (think of Eureka, for example, and how the original plan was to reverse the flow of aether so the primal was cut short of it until it was completely dry). They could use that energy to create something or power up something.

I guess I’m just a skeptic.

Or another idea: how about instead of making a shield around the planet they just went and make an aether prison encasing Meteion? Remember, dynamis gets drowned by aether because it's far weaker (Hermes says so himself). Sure, Meteion had a head start towards the end of the universe, but like I said, she's a mere pet project, made by Hermes alone in his spare time. A whole team seriously devoted to the study of dynamis could have come up with more efficient ways to use it and create better, more efficient entities and devices to catch up with her before she became too powerful or have exploited the fact that aether > dynamis anyway.

It’s only drowned out because aether is more common in Etheirys. Dynamis however is more common than aether and thus such a solution wouldn’t work. And any plan would have to contend with the inability to reach her. Remember, it took millennia for Hydaelyn to collect the Aether necessary to reach Ultima. Any plan would be facing her at that strength.

[Theodric]

Etheirys was always rich in aether and would have had even more of it to work with before the Sundering with the benefit of an even stronger and longer lasting Zodiark serving as a shield against the return of the Final Days.

Given that Venat, seemingly alone and in a Sundered state herself, was able to create not only a huge prison for Zodiark but a giant spaceship and an entire race of useful servants in which to run it...one can only wonder what the entire might and minds of the Ancients working together might have accomplished had Venat simply sat down and told them everything that she knew before the Final Days even manifested.

Much as how wiping out the Garleans because they couldn't easily manipulate aether wasn't acceptable in the eyes of many, so too is it not acceptable to wipe out the Ancients just because they supposedly could not manipulate dynamis easily.

[Sicno]

We learn that tidbit from Hermes, when asking the other researchers all struggle to comprehend how Meteion even works. In fact we knew more about Dynamis and the flowers then they did.

We were arguing whether the flowers would react to them, not if they knew about how to manipulate them to get a desired color. Dynamis knowledge is not a requirement for having emotions. As for the topic of knowledge of dynamis manipulation by the ancients in general, Hermes says that it's "a truly esoteric thing, known to but a select few scholars". There were more people who know about it. We just may not find them inside Elpis, which remember, it was only a research facility. What we saw wasn't the entire ancient world but a tiny fraction.

It’s only drowned out because aether is more common in Etheirys. Dynamis however is more common than aether and thus such a solution wouldn’t work.

Yes, they say there's more dynamis than aether in the universe, but do they explicitly state anywhere that this is the reason for aether prevailing? Or is it just a supposition? Now I'm the skeptic. Even with all the dynamis available in the universe Meteion couldn't get past Zodiark's barrier which used only the aether present in Etheirys. If it was a mere matter of quantity she would have broken that barrier long ago, especially when the Source was only a 1/14th fraction.

And any plan would have to contend with the inability to reach her. Remember, it took millennia for Hydaelyn to collect the Aether necessary to reach Ultima. Any plan would be facing her at that strength.

And that's why I keep bringing the point that they could have engineered better, more efficient entelechies than her in every aspect. Our spaceship did require ridiculous amounts of aether but it seems that just using aether for such a travel is inefficient. It took the Meteion sisters mere days to scout the entire universe. This was an entelechy made by a single guy during his lunch breaks. There would be no "inability to reach her" if they had devoted seriously to a solution. If only someone would have warned them so they could implement such a solution.

Edit: Even bloody Zenos was able to reach Ultima Thule using leftovers from the mothercrystal, which shouldn't be that much aether in total. It didn't take him that long either.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Etheirys was always rich in aether and would have had even more of it to work with before the Sundering with the benefit of an even stronger and longer lasting Zodiark serving as a shield against the return of the Final Days.

Given that Venat, seemingly alone and in a Sundered state herself, was able to create not only a huge prison for Zodiark but a giant spaceship and an entire race of useful servants in which to run it...one can only wonder what the entire might and minds of the Ancients working together might have accomplished had Venat simply sat down and told them everything that she knew before the Final Days even manifested.

Much as how wiping out the Garleans because they couldn't easily manipulate aether wasn't acceptable in the eyes of many, so too is it not acceptable to wipe out the Ancients just because they supposedly could not manipulate dynamis easily.

It's almost like it was a force they couldn't contend with as they were.

Like trying to stop a bullet with a sheet of paper.

No one was wiping them out because they couldn't interact with dynamis. Dynamis was the cause of them being wiped out.

[Theodric]

It's almost like it was a force they couldn't contend with as they were.

Like trying to stop a bullet with a sheet of paper.

No one was wiping them out because they couldn't interact with dynamis. Dynamis was the cause of them being wiped out.

The Final Days did not wipe out the Ancients. It decimated them, certainly, though there were enough survivors to work at preventing Etheirys from being destroyed by summoning Zodiark to serve as a barrier against the return of the Final Days and also restore life to the planet.

It was Venat who wiped out the Ancients through the horrific act of genocide that was the Sundering.