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

[Tsiron]

Except Elidibus was Zodiark, just like Venat became the core of Hydaelyn... There was nothing there to talk to anymore, considering Elibidus got absorbed into the Crystal Tower

[Rosenstrauch]

Except Elidibus was Zodiark, just like Venat became the core of Hydaelyn... There was nothing there to talk to anymore, considering Elibidus got absorbed into the Crystal Tower

I mean, that's not necessarily true. Elidibus might have been gone, but there were plenty of souls still existing within Zodiark—souls Fandaniel had to squelch before he could take over the primal for himself. Any one of them, or even all of them combined, could have served as Zodiark's will.

[Lauront]

Fanfest Q&A with Yoshida and battle designer Nakagawa.

Oh god, lol. "Accept different ways of thinking", unless it's the antagonist's way of thinking. Because god forbid the WoL or the Scions made "evil" decision. Seriously, I hate how the story and the lore seems to bend over backwards a lot of time to either justify our actions, or so that we don't have to take the "lesser evil" path. Just like how in 5.3 apparently all the WoLs we fight are only projection of their will, in an expansion sold as "we are the villain".

It was very disappointing to me. And the linguistic tricks about becoming the WoD. Very meh. Not what I had hoped for.

This is what I've been thinking too. If Zodiark is a dnd character, he would be one who put 9 stats into defense and 1 into offense, considering his main thing is making a planet-size barrier and replenish the land's aether. If the Ancients already knew about the root of their problem, they could have make Zodiark more focused on offense (like hydaelyn). He could fly fly into Ultima Thule and blast meteion with concentrated aether, since she won't be as strong as her current version we fought. Besides, as Lauront had mentioned before, the dynamis:aether ratio in space isn't like 99:1, but 2:1 (though technically it's 6:4). That means their fighting chance isn't 0%.

Sure, summoning Zodiark still requires massive sacrifice, but that's proof that they have the strength to resist despair.

TBH, Zodiark is built to restore the laws of the star, so I suspect he can make very flexible use of his powers. A lot of it was channelled into providing a barrier to the star, that somehow remained even while he is imprisoned, suggesting his mere existence powered it. Whatever her focus, she could not defeat him without dragging the whole star into it (he stood in the way of her wiping out her people through sundering them), and this was without his heart even. Maybe she struggled with the platform mechanic, who knows. :`) We only got a glimpse of a weakened Zodiark driven by a suicidal lunatic. In any case, they had plenty of time to experiment with various techniques and methods (including selective and consensual sundering of a handful of their own) and in the end Venat did little to prepare the sundered to wield dynamis other than sundering way in excess what was needed to wield it. They didn't even know what it was until the last minute. So the idea that an ingenious civilisation that the ancients could not devise a method to deal with it, armed with the knowledge of what it was, is fanciful to me and the lore certainly hasn't even been written so as to close it off as possibilities, contrary to the protestations of some. It's probably why the time shenanigans were thrown in, to distract attention from that and remove those options in the story we got from consideration but without removing them outright as possibilities had things gone a bit differently.

But the option of creating purely offence focused primals, especially once the star was capable of producing aether once more, is there, and we saw the impressive use Elidibus could make of even a bit of primal/prayer power in SoS.

[AristocraticCorgi]

• The mighty Zodiark, which has been build up as this mighty(evil) entity over several expansions, turns out to be nothing but filler trash for the first Endwalker trial
• The true cause of the Final Days is a pet-project from an ancient which goes mad after observing countless dead world and possibly causing the death of several world by projecting negative emotions unto them, and is thus dead-set on bringing despair to every world, upon which said ancient goes mad and is now letting her run her course to test humanity if they can withstand/fight despair
• Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

Really?
This is the best SQ could do in terms of story after ShB?

Your take is cheap and lazy.

While EW is no masterwork of literature, it's also not the reductio ad absurdum you make it out to be.

[Theodric]

It was very disappointing to me. And the linguistic tricks about becoming the WoD. Very meh. Not what I had hoped for.

Likewise. What's even more bizarre is that, the expansion after Shadowbringers, we ended up getting Reaper as a playable job. So it's pretty weird to me that Shadowbringers pulled so many punches and wouldn't even deign to allow our character to wield Darkness in MSQ cutscenes in order to counter the Light.

[anhaato]

Except Elidibus was Zodiark, just like Venat became the core of Hydaelyn... There was nothing there to talk to anymore, considering Elibidus got absorbed into the Crystal Tower

So Zodiark was doomed to suck since 5.3. That’s not good… We could've definitely had everything in 5.3 progress the way it did without it being an excuse to neuter Zodiark for our future encounter with him. Like, what was the point in making Elidibus a primal instead of just a very devoted and insane ascian? Why was Zodiark’s existence tied to this singular killable man? The eldest and most powerful of primals, made into a vegetable because we killed the right dude. Sure that’s the literal reason that he became that useless but things didn’t have to be this way.

[Kozh]

I'm not sure why people liked venat, after she said she wanted to kill us to our face lmao.

After finishing EW, the only thing I liked from venat is the fact they finally give representation of ffxv through her "armiger". Straight up yelled when I saw that during our fight lol.

Plus, do you know that her "dodging"/phasing ability is called True Blink? The same as ffxv ability.

Sorry about this, just ffxv fangirl being happy XD

[kpxmanifesto]

I'm not sure why people liked venat, after she said she wanted to kill us to our face lmao.

She might as well say: "it was my intent to murder you, but clearly I'm too weak."

[EaraGrace]

But more importantly, these "possible solutions" I mentioned are just examples of "they could have tried stuff". I don't mean them to be perfect, I don't mean the ancients would have succeeded with a 100% chance, but that they could have at least TRIED something different. But no, instead Venat just sat on her high horse, let them fail the way she already knew they would fail and then pulled her act. That's the point you're missing.

Its not a point that I'm "missing" its a point the game directly addresses and gives no reason to argue with. If you don't like the reasons the game gives then fine, sure, but they exist and if we are going to discuss what the text is saying then we have to grapple with it. Either you have a good reason to believe that Venat was wrong and that she was so unwilling to abide by other solutions so as to commit to the sundering (an act we know she didn't want to do follow through on) or you don't. I've tried my best to show that the text gives reasons why these options wouldn't work and why the characters in the story don't act on them. But to me, the text is clear.

You're just not getting that a refrigerator doesn't need an AI to consume electricity.

I'm pretty sure my fridge doesn't run on me yelling obscenities at it.

...But the Final Days happened first on the regions where the celestial currents were stagnating, without their protection. And she still couldn't transform an ancient. "B-but she didn't have access to enough dynamis yet to unmake them!" So she was still weak enough then? So send a space mission to beat her.

With what ship and what aether. You think Hydaelyn sat in the aetherial sea gathering aether for shits and giggles?

If they had started on it right after leaving Ktisis she wouldn't have that much of a lead. Hell, why not make a Zodiark who would have traveled like Zenos did, beaten the hell outta her, come back and then restore the ancients from him? Zodiark's mission would be complete, he wouldn't be needed to remain like our shielding Zodiark did so they wouldn't need new life to take their place.

How would they get there. If there's a single piece of dialogue suggesting how they should do so, knowing the limitations of their control of dynamis and the fact that by this point she already has innumerable sisters on innumerable worlds, how would you even get to Ultima.

See, the more you think about it the more possibilites arise other than "let's flex tape the celestial currents".

"You don't need Frodo to carry the ring, just get the eagles to carry him! Easy solution you dumb old wizard!"

Oh right, my bad. I try to not think too much about that fight so I completely forgot that part. But like you said, that's besides the point. Don't forget Hydaelyn was highly taxed with "containing" Zodiark, so that limited how much aether she could divert to the mothercrystal. So don't take how long it took her as a measure of anything. Besides, even accounting for her primal form, she's just 1 ancient. Put all ancients together to speed up the process.

That wasn't Her power though. That was the aether that gathered in the aetherial sea, which She refused to partake of so we would have enough.

Yeah, from what I recall Mitron and Loghrif turning into Eden (and causing the flood of light) was an accident and not part of their original plan. Still, Elidibus was trying to fix it by bringing Ardbert and company and cause another calamity before it was too late. It was us who prevented that calamity from happening before Minfilia traveled to stop the flood.

So in summary, the Ascians manipulated a world too well, failed to cause a rejoining and led to a flood of darkness that consumed the 13th and an imbalance of light on the 1st.

I'm not sure why people liked venat, after she said she wanted to kill us to our face lmao.

I… I genuinely can’t tell if people think she actually intended to kill us there or not, you’re joking about it right?

Right?

[Xavier_Firbold]

She literally says she had aimed to sunder us. But failed. What from this single sentence do you not understand?