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

[Rosenstrauch]

Dude, I thought this was just going to be a Q&A, not a "the devs are going to go and personally confirm every single one of Teraq's worst fears about the story of Endwalker

That about sums it up for me. This Q&A has swiftly become FFXIV's Burning of Teldrassil—the event that convinces me I don't want to keep paying to play this game. And it's a shame, too. I really did enjoy Endwalker's story.

[Atelier-Bagur]

That about sums it up for me. This Q&A has swiftly become FFXIV's Burning of Teldrassil—the event that convinces me I don't want to keep paying to play this game. And it's a shame, too. I really did enjoy Endwalker's story.

I think this game has reached the point where due to its MMO nature, will no matter what wont please everybody in terms of how its story was handled. Me personally I have been enjoying it for what it is and the personal emotional journey between my WoL and the main cast. Obviously story beats throughout this big arc has been hit or miss with some folk. Some people didnt care for Minfillia, some people really got attached to Ishgard and its plight, others didnt care for Ala Mhigo, others made the First their new home and others couldnt care less for the final Zenos fight. Certain moments that occur everyone will have their own interpretation for their meaning and its just difficult to gauge everybody's expectations, especially due it being an MMO story. Its clear that the writing team while they had a set end goal for this story, they didnt have every single detail set in stone from the beginning (that would honestly be too ridiculous to believe) and perhaps we should scale back a bit with how we should take the story presented here. Personally Ive been treating FFXIV as one of the best jrpg stories to date......but a jrpg story is still a jrpg story at the end of the day, you're going to have your usual tropes and themes.

Yeah it sucks that for some folk they wound up getting too disappointed for what was supposed to be the big pay off, although I think its a bit too much to think that we've gotten the next Burning of Teldrassil, thats being a little dramatic.

[Theodric]

That about sums it up for me. This Q&A has swiftly become FFXIV's Burning of Teldrassil—the event that convinces me I don't want to keep paying to play this game. And it's a shame, too. I really did enjoy Endwalker's story.

Heh.

I heard about that particular controversy. I had long since quit WoW before that point but for similar reasons. I was getting pretty tired of the characters and races I rooted for consistently being given a raw deal, often through increasingly contrived plot devices and a lack of meaningful consequences for the characters responsible for their plight.

[Teraq]

Heh.

I heard about that particular controversy. I had long since quit WoW before that point but for similar reasons. I was getting pretty tired of the characters and races I rooted for consistently being given a raw deal, often through increasingly contrived plot devices and a lack of meaningful consequences for the characters responsible for their plight.

I suppose I'm lucky in that while I've been playing Warcraft since I was a 6 year old girl who thought the Trolls with warpaint and big technicolor mohawks were cool (yes, I just played with cheat codes on and made my own maps), I've never really cared for WoW's storyline, I just find the lore of its world mildly interesting (or used to, anyway).

WoW lost me when it started to become apparent that they had stopped caring about entirely solo queue players like me, so around WoD. Thankfully, I turned to FFXIV, which to this day, still feeds me the weekly Valor cap through random queue faceroll instanced content I crave.

[Theodric]

I suppose I'm lucky in that while I've been playing Warcraft since I was a 6 year old girl who thought the Trolls with warpaint and big technicolor mohawks were cool (yes, I just played with cheat codes on and made my own maps), I've never really cared for WoW's storyline, I just find the lore of its world mildly interesting (or used to, anyway).

WoW lost me when it started to become apparent that they had stopped caring about entirely solo queue players like me, so around WoD. Thankfully, I turned to FFXIV, which to this day, still feeds me the weekly Valor cap through random queue faceroll instanced content I crave.

I favoured playing Blood Elves and Night Elves. I suppose if nothing else there's a certain irony in it. I left WoW due to becoming disillusioned with how the various Elven races were treated as an annoyance for doing everything possible in order to survive and for disallowing themselves to be subjected to genocide.

It took me a while to find another MMO that was to my personal tastes. FFXIV lured me in with what promised to be a more mature and consistent narrative. I liked both the Garleans and the Ancients as far back as ARR and yet here we are - with both the Garleans and the Ancients being treated as an annoyance for...doing everything possible in order to survive and for disallowing themselves to be subjected to genocide.

[Teraq]

Q: "What about all the Sundered Ascians that remain? We can count Zodiac signs, you know. We're still missing Altima, Deudalaphon, Halmarut and Pashtarot AT LEAST."

A: "Wow, I did not expect people to care so much more about Ascians than we did!"

I know. I've played through Endwalker as an Ascian fan, so I know.

I can't help but notice the /r/ffxiv Discord took down emoji/smiley reactions to the Q&A. I think they got tired of me reacting with :eyeroll:, :yawn: and :yikes:.

[Rosenstrauch]

I suppose I'm lucky in that while I've been playing Warcraft since I was a 6 year old girl who thought the Trolls with warpaint and big technicolor mohawks were cool

I mean. They are. I bought Warcraft 2 back when it released from one of those Scholastic catalogues, and I was blown away by how cool the Horde was in general, but especially the Trolls and their leader, Zul'jin. You could write out the entirety of his story on a sticky note, but it worked for me back then and it still does now. Even the part where he eventually became a raid boss in WoW: The Burning Crusade, where the Amani (Forest Trolls) were hit hard with the villain bat and Zuljin was made into a raid boss... it worked for me, because it was entirely in line with who Zuljin and his people were.

This, for me, is more like the rapid downward spiral most WoW characters take once they have any degree of prominence. It's not even a uniform drop in WoW's case, and this drop has been sharper and more painful than any of them. But to rattle off a few names: Tyrande, Vol'jin, Sylvanas, Lor'themar, Varok Saurfang, Thalyssra, Jaina, and Wrathion are all characters I once sincerely enjoyed seeing in the story. They were among my favorites. And invariably, each of them has been run into the ground in ways that defied explanation.

My favorite character in Endwalker? It is—or was—Venat. But from what I'm seeing of the Q&A, I was completely wrong about her character, and everything I did like about her was actually a carefully framed lie on the writers' part, made to convince me she was something other than what they intended all along.

[Teraq]

I mean. They are. I bought Warcraft 2 back when it released from one of those Scholastic catalogues, and I was blown away by how cool the Horde was in general, but especially the Trolls and their leader, Zul'jin. You could write out the entirety of his story on a sticky note, but it worked for me back then and it still does now. Even the part where he eventually became a raid boss in WoW: The Burning Crusade, where the Amani (Forest Trolls) were hit hard with the villain bat and Zuljin was made into a raid boss... it worked for me, because it was entirely in line with who Zuljin and his people were.

I'm not getting over Blizzard never including any Dark Trolls in WoW (save for one Twilight Hammer mob model in Hyjal... maybe?) and just telling us in BfA "oh yeah they all dead lol". I thought it would have been cool to include them as the bulky, dark purple/gray-skinned Trolls with primitive culture but cunning who made their home near one of the holiest landmarks of Night Elves but... nope.

My favorite character in Endwalker? It is—or was—Venat. But from what I'm seeing of the Q&A, I was completely wrong about her character, and everything I did like about her was actually a carefully framed lie on the writers' part, made to convince me she was something other than what they intended all along.

Oof. While I disliked her personally, I have to say I'm even more confused now over what their intent was. I had always thought they would make her more openly of a villain, kind of in-line with FFXII (Where's the iconic line, by the way? you can't include Venat and not have the line, or at least a XIV-lore-complying variant of it. I don't care how unsubtle it would have been. This is the Final Fantasy theme park MMO, I'm here to get my head bashed with cameos and references), but the game seemed quite intent on painting her as a hero, as your character drops any pretense of finding her suspicious after Elpis, and, well, the minion, Y'shtola and Emet praising her, etc. But now they've doubled down on making her responsible for everything, and... I guess we should just be okay with YoshiP saying she's morally ambiguous? I mean, yeah, I'd say that is putting it mildly.