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

[EaraGrace]

There’s multiple inferences that they were advancing, especially with the various breakthroughs we see, in pandemonium for example with Phoenix or even the Guardian Forces they were studying.They didn’t stop striving to do better i’m not sure where you’re getting that from.

But the question is what is better? When Hermes asks what’s the point, what answer do the Ancients have? If they say for the betterment of star, the question is why care? Why care when your mentor is dead, when you know the betterment of the star means nothing more than the constant creation and killing of creations with souls and feelings of their own?

You’re trying to apply our real world logic to this which just doesn’t work.

They’re human, they’re living beings with thoughts, feelings and desires. You certainly can.

Pandemonium also shows that there were some creations that weren’t just killed off for being dangerous. They sealed them in there and would study them instead of just getting rid of them. If something is useless…then there’s not really a reason for it to exist is there?

No life's existence should be based on arbitrary utility should it? And sealing them away is indeed more moral, but the fact was they sealed them for nothing more than study. Quality of life wasn’t exactly a concern.

They kind of did show they could think outside the box time and time again. especially when the final days hit. Also again. not getting this weird headcanon you have that they stopped progressing when we’re shown numerous examples of their progression and developments. It seems like some people just like to argue ancients bad and get headcanon twisted into the narrative.

Let’s see how great their progress was when we reach deeper into Pandaemonium. They left it’s teleporter overgrown and abandoned for a reason.

Because that's just the way the game presents these societies. A very basic caricaturization of different perceptions of "perfection" or "the peak" because they're not meant to be working societies, they're just hero fodder. It's "mustache-curling laughing villains" levels of caricaturization. They themselves believe their designs to be perfect but the 5 year old audience can easily point at the flaws in their plan and then cheer when the heroes do just that.

The game offers answers that the character fee gives their lives meaning. Their not meant to be answers in themselves, but examples of people establishing why they want to exist. The Ea are free to find their own path, as are the dragons and the Omicron. All the answers we see are just part of the larger answer.

Thy life is a riddle,
To bear rapture and sorrow.
To listen, to suffer,
To entrust unto Tomorrow.
In one fleeting moment,
From the land doth life flow.
Yet in one fleeting moment,
For anew it doth grow.
In the same fleeting moment,
Thou must live, die and know.