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

[MagiusNecros]

Endwalker suffers from severe pacing issues. It's Stormblood all over again. Seems to be a pattern. HW/ShB were good while SB/EW were bad.

Doesn't help they screwed over job balance and it favors Melee/Tank over ranged. Casters are ok? But Phys ranged feels gimped. There's also the Healer issue with not being required to heal anything unless you get paired with a DRK or bad players.

I feel like things were fine in ShB but given the stat squish a lot of stuff just feels meh.

I think it's to appeal to a broader audience but the immensely lowered skill floor doesn't sit well with me.

[AnaviAnael]

As someone who enjoyed the heck out of Venat, it's interesting to see the takes of people who did not like her and in a lot of ways I can see where they're coming from. I liked how "messy" her character was. The gray morality was very appealing, but I'll agree it could have been done better. Perhaps if we got a more fleshed out retelling of the Final Days and its aftermath, instead of the pathetically truncated version we got, her reasoning would be less confusing. As it stands, we're supposed to fall in line and say, "Yep, the ancients were definitely going to fail like every other civilization in the universe. Gotta sunder 'em."

[van_arn]

The whole body swapping thing may have been a wasted opportunity, but I'll never get over Lalafell Zenos getting football tackled by a freshly revived Garlean corpse and the game taking it completely seriously.

The game does violent physical humor so well. Reminds me of the roundhouse kick to the sylph.

[FrightfulNight]

I think it would have done wonders for the pacing if the saga ended at 7.0 or even 8.0 as was previously the plan. Garlemald, the towers and such really feel like they should have been their own separate thing, perhaps ending on Zodiark. That way, we could have like a whole arc of being IN the Final Days, for a while, and really feel its effects across the wider world, not just Thavnair. I know people tend to enjoy Zodiark being early on, as it is subversive of our expectations and all, but when you build up to a character for 10 years, I don't know if being subversive is the really The Move™.

This, Garlemald was being built up to for 2 expansions now and it is sadly just one somewhat small zone, what's more it seems like it played only a small role in EW which is disappointing because it was easily the story I was excited for the most. I think 6.0 should have been been dealing with the towers and been Garlean focused maybe taking place in Ilsabard. with the actual nation being broken into 2 zones, one being a frozen outskirts and the other being entirely urban since we already have frozen zones in Coerthas and Garlemald is supposed to be a massive city, I do not care if it wuld have made it difficult to explore it would have been unique and we have enough wide open zones, having this more WW2 bombed out city as an entire zone would have been interesting. This would also allow Anima to be a trial instead of a dungeon boss.

I do think it would have been interesting for the Moon to then be the final zone and Zodiark to be the final trial and yeah just like in EW Fandainiel reveals that he just wanted Zodiark destroyed because that would be what would usher in the final days, and it just ends the 6.0 on that big cliffhanger to get ready for the Final Chapter kind of like an Avenger's Infinity War Ending. Then the 6.1-6.3 could deal with political situations like rebuilding Garlemald and then in 6.4 and 6.5 the final days begin to hit and we deal with them all the way to 7.0. It doesn't have to be flaming sky's until 7.0 but just something to make it feel like it is taking place all over the world and to raise the stakes. This would also give a better impression of all the world coming together to deal with this threat. Then 7.0 could have be the Sharlyan expansion and go to more fantastical and ambitious zones like Elpis and Ultima Thule. Sadly I just got the impression they just wanted to be done with this, and I do feel a little guilty because I was one of the people who wanted a new plot and antagonists.

[FrightfulNight]

I think that Garlemald would have benefitted from being more than one zone but as a big fan of the Garleans in general I found that many elements aligned rather well with their established lore. It was also neat to see more of the Roman and Russian influences upon their culture in play.

With that said, the Garlean story is far from over and there's a good chance that we'll be seeing some sort of Garlean themed reconstruction effort during 6.1 and beyond. I'm particularly excited to see more of Jullus who, along with Emet and Hythlodaeus, served to make the expansion tolerable to me.

I do hope with the twins being involved that they get started on that story right away in 6.1 since out of all the nation's added in EW I would say it is in the most desperate state, This would also allow them to introduce a resotration project in 6.1 and have it built upon throughout the expansion. Besides that the fact that with how big a role it has played in the story is and the fact that it only has one zone is why I am hoping 7.0 is an Ilsabard expansion and is not just us going to Meracydia or the New World right away, if that is the case then it will just feel like a more Garlean themed expansion that would have added Ilsabard was sacrificed at some point in the move to have the story end in 6.0.

Although personally I think it allows for more interesting story's to take place in Ilsabard now that are not just SB 2.0 since I like that each of the expansions have a unique theme and story. Also if I recall Ilsabard suffered the most damages with both the civil war and final days so it would be the responsible thing to help the people living there in 7.0 instead of being irresponsible and careless and instead of just going to Meracydia or the New World right away just because adventure. It would do a better job of giving people that European fantasy aesthetic that everyone wants and would do a good job of better wrapping up the Garlean storyline. Maybe the hub city or endgame zone will be Landis and we can also get a magiteck city that is not destroyed to see it in more civilian use since i kind of got the impression Landis was the Constantinople to Garlemald's Rome.

[Misutoraru]

As someone who enjoyed the heck out of Venat, it's interesting to see the takes of people who did not like her and in a lot of ways I can see where they're coming from. I liked how "messy" her character was. The gray morality was very appealing, but I'll agree it could have been done better. Perhaps if we got a more fleshed out retelling of the Final Days and its aftermath, instead of the pathetically truncated version we got, her reasoning would be less confusing. As it stands, we're supposed to fall in line and say, "Yep, the ancients were definitely going to fail like every other civilization in the universe. Gotta sunder 'em."

I got a very mix feeling about Venat
I like her more than Emet-selch (ShB Emet-Selch is a better Emet-Selch) in Elpis, she show a strong determined character in Elpis, but I starting to dislike her after the trial. The “final day in Ancients” make perfect sense of sundering (at least in her view) as she clearly lose hope in her people. Then the cutscene after trial stating it make us easier interact with dynamis feel very… “ vague” or “simple writer out of idea”. And we have no dialogue choice to question her choice feel the writer forcing it down on us

[EaraGrace]

...No. We can't say for certain because we barely know anyone outside of Elpis. You're trying to extrapolate WAY too much about the ancients from our brief visit to their crash dummy testing facility.

With input from the head of the Bureau managing creations and the greatest sorcerer to living. Both were amazed.

Edit: as a research facility they should, but since dynamis had no practical applications in their society it's very likely those who did anything with it kept it as personal projects (like Hermes did) and not as "a product of the facility", so they wouldn't be submitted to the Bureau and they wouldn't get tested in Elpis either.

Even children toys were submitted though. Creations as a whole are very tightly controlled in Amaurot, especially as it was one of the few things that the Ancients had creative control over.

For starters there's a difference in treatment towards our character. Remember when I mentioned how she keeps calling us "my child", "my champion", "beloved children", etc.?

But to the contrary She repeatedly refers to us with reverence and admiration, to the point that She saw us as an inspiration. Being maternal as well doesn’t denote viewing anyone as lesser. Mothers all the time respect who their children become, and indeed remain maternal even if they feel they’ve been “surpassed” by them. My point is that the faith she had when she sundered the world was not in some nebulous unconnected group in the future, but rather in the people she sundered and their descendants. That when she says,

Venat: In spite of, or perhaps because of this. I choose to believe. In mankind’s potential, in his ability to find a way forward.

She’s talking about the Ancients. That they, despite being molded by a harsher world, would overcome despair and find meaning for themselves. That’s the point of this disagreement and the reason I’m arguing over it. Not that there’s no difference at all, but that even with those differences they are still members of the same overall group, humanity.

Indeed, but it kinda kills it when you say "yes, it's as you say" and then follow with a completely different reasoning for your actions.

That doesn’t preclude the both at all. Sundering the world to diminish Zodiarks power can simply be the biggest reason and the thing that made the act necessary, with the other potential benefits being that it would allow better control of Dynamis, and that it may prepare humanity for the struggles ahead. The
last two can simply be “this isn’t at all what I wanted and if Zodiark wasn’t here I wouldn’t do it, but these are benefits that may help in our fight.”

I suspect people insist on reading more in the lore at certain points than there is, is because if he was not strictly necessary, as that entire Watcher sequence very strongly suggests, her plan also no longer becomes the only available option. My own take is that it wasn't and that she simply committed to that path because of the vagaries of time travel to which she bound herself; at least, in the sense that they're keen on narrowing her available actions in that way to avoid an outcome such as creating an AU where things ended differently while also not making her come across as totally unreasonable... but IMO that comes at the expense of having to invoke time travel yet again in a very muddled way and constricting her agency.

Perhaps this cuts to the core of the disagreement. I simply do not see much evidence to suggest that Hermes could’ve been easily replaced, or replaced at all without compromising the Ancients ability to respond to the Final Days. The conversation with the Watcher reads very different to me, heavily focusing on Hermes’ contributions as it did. Combined with the conversations with Elidibus, the researchers at Elpis and Venats own perspective, Hermes is clearly special, dare I say one of kind.

[Conundrum]

On the drive to work today I had a bit of an epiphany as to why so many of us dislike the Hermes and bird girl ass pull.

I think its because we don't really see Hermes as Fandanial. We know they are one in the same at a basic level, but it's like our subconscious hasn't accepted them as the same character...so we unintentionally see them as new characters introduced out of nowhere.

[Theodric]

I think a large part of the problem is that the story will, elsewhere, insist on putting every little flaw within a particular character in the story under a microscope.

This is the case with pretty much all of the antagonists and most of the City State leaders. So it comes across as very jarring when Venat, despite being indirectly responsible for the Final Days and directly responsible for the genocide of her own species...is given a free pass.

As I make my way through the healer role quests, meanwhile, Fordola is still suffering the consequences of her decision to betray her own people in favour of Garlemald.

I guess it's why Hydaelyn conveniently died after her 'test' - despite how much the story arguably compromised itself to try and make her actions seem benevolent and necessary rather than monstrous...I do think the writers knew that one way or another they needed to kill her off.

It's just a shame that - conveniently - only Hermes (as Amon) is subjected to a torturous demise whilst both Meteion and Venat somehow avoid swinging from lampposts for their crimes. Yet if someone dared to betray one of the Eorzean City States they would be locked up at best or executed at worst.

[MagiusNecros]

Venat is like Mcdonalds. Food tastes good and makes you happy but is ultimately bad for you if you keep eating it.