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

[Kozh]

Yep. I am trying to be optimistic about the new plot but I don't think they're going to diverge too much from the formula they've now hit upon.

Honestly I hate the fact they feel the need to make the WoL to be as lawful good as much. This results in the Reaper job, which normally should at least be chaotic neutral, to be the "good" faction in the end. Apparently they are the garlean batman/punisher who punished oppressors. It was fine during the start when the reaper guild was a pure garlean mercenaries, but after the WoL joined it turned into "everyone oppressed can join our club now ".

Also, as someone who way prefer Thief over Ninja, I'm still pissed that Rogue turn into NIN because "Thief is evil and we can't have the WoL to be one".

Seriously, does Square enix has a rule where FF main character cannot be morally gray?

[LukaRoselia]

I'm right there with you. 80% of Endwalker story just completely bored or annoyed me and I've genuinely never had to force myself through an expansion before.

Follow this npc and don't get caught, they're going to frigging see you anyway once they get to their destination but there's a point to this we swear. Aww look at the cute kawaii bunnies aren't they adorable? No, their entire story arc is pointless when you literally know everything they're going on about is useless filler because you're going to save the world anyway. Over glorified fashion report. Oh noooo it's the cliche all of our friends are disappearing but is always totally obvious they'll come back immediately because who else would you have for the trust dungeon otherwise? /s. Legit I didn't think they could make Zenos more of an irrelevant useless clown than he was in SB but man they did it. Plz care about generic NPC no.2870 that you just met 5 minutes ago dying when we haven't had the balls to kill off a scion since 2017. Ascians? Nah mate, goth loli pigeon for all the lolicons out there and another generic gigantic goth lady for people to unironically call mommy. Killed two 'birds' with one stone, haha get it?

My biggest issue with it though? Our character has never had such a central role with so many lines in the story before and still its completely mute, ruins the entire scene.

[Kozh]

It's impressive how they manage to actually make me hate venat in an expansion that supposed to explain her reasoning. I'd rather she sunder because she opposed the third sacrifice, rather than "oh my, the future sounds beautiful. This guy from the future is my ideal vision of what mankind should be. Brb gotta introduce despair to my (previous) people".

At least it's funny to see how venat's stan is so desperate trying to defend her though, lol.

[Caurcas]

We all should've just ate burgers. It would have been a better plot.

[Raoabolic]

Honestly I hate the fact they feel the need to make the WoL to be as lawful good as much. This results in the Reaper job, which normally should at least be chaotic neutral, to be the "good" faction in the end. Apparently they are the garlean batman/punisher who punished oppressors. It was fine during the start when the reaper guild was a pure garlean mercenaries, but after the WoL joined it turned into "everyone oppressed can join our club now ".

Also, as someone who way prefer Thief over Ninja, I'm still pissed that Rogue turn into NIN because "Thief is evil and we can't have the WoL to be one".

Seriously, does Square enix has a rule where FF main character cannot be morally gray?

Square Enix has an "ethics" department. Just putting that out there.

[Simple_Barghest]

All I gotta say is. I started playing towards the beginning of Shadowbringers, and all I would hear from both my own friends playing this game and from a massive fucking HOST of other players?
"Hydaelyn is 100% going to be the final boss that's how FF always works."
"She's evil, calling it now."
"Look man Emet-Selch STANS always know."

I was basically the one in my group who kept suggesting that maybe Hydaelyn was legitimately trying to be good, but the writing quality of ARR and Heavensward prevented this. Multiple times, it seemed like she should've had relevance in more of ARR -> HW and patch content that didn't revolve around Minfilia being sacc'd -> SB -> ShB, but was never allowed by the writers to actually DO anything.
We get to Endwalker where we finally get to see Venat and Hydaelyn, and it's more piss-poor writing coupled with a veneer of Big-Good over a picture of "Holy shit how can this person be anything but an antagonist in any other Final Fantasy game."

So I tell my friends.
And now I tell you people.

Congratulations. You got a villainous Hydaelyn.
You got your Mommy Crystal Genocidaelyn. Your big evil angelic mommy milker crystal of sundering.

Was it worth it?


Edit:
And also, friendly reminder that the Live Letter Q&A outright stated that trailers are made before any plot is established.
So yknow.
The story was never going to make any fucking sense following that logic.

[Theodric]

Square Enix has an "ethics" department. Just putting that out there.

Yeah. Which is unfortunate, given what 'ethics' usually translate to in 'current year'.

As for Hydaelyn/Venat I was very much in the camp of wanting Zodiark and Hydaelyn to work together to defeat a third party that had manipulated the Ancients. I was hoping for some sort of alien parasite burrowing into the planet like Jenova or Lavos rather than what we ended up getting as the cause of the Final Days, though.

I've never liked how Hydaelyn was handled because, conveniently, all the Scions adore her with paper thin reasoning. Even their supposed 'crisis of faith' feels forced and doesn't amount to anything nor does the game even bother to give the player the dignity of calling out the lying and gaslighting that Venat engaged in.

I think the most efficient route would have been to just...make her an antagonist. She ended up becoming one in all but name due to now being tied to every 'bad' thing that happened in the story.

She'd come across as a lot more sympathetic to me if the story wasn't awkwardly trying to defend absolutely everything that she did as a 'necessity'. It's alright for characters to have a lapse in judgement. I think it'd work better if the story simply highlighted that although she meant well, her route wasn't the only route that could have been taken.

[Skyborne]

It's impressive how they manage to actually make me hate venat in an expansion that supposed to explain her reasoning. I'd rather she sunder because she opposed the third sacrifice, rather than "oh my, the future sounds beautiful. This guy from the future is my ideal vision of what mankind should be. Brb gotta introduce despair to my (previous) people".

At least it's funny to see how venat's stan is so desperate trying to defend her though, lol.

Some of the posters, with the way they describe her, make her sound like the most abhorrent jRPG villain in the world, too. Like a fem-Zenos who was bored and wanted to make the world more exciting, at the expense of the previous world. And I'm supposed to believe that this is worth it for The Greater Good (tm), legitimately distressing and feels like I am in some nightmare clown dimension. Reminds me of games where the main protag unwittingly plays along with the villain's plan the entire time... though this time, it all works out in the end for her and she gets what she wants, with none of the protags going against it. It'd be like if in FFX, everyone just shrugs and goes along with Yunalesca's plan for the Greater Good of the temporary Calm.

I can enjoy villains that are awful people as long as they are fun and entertaining, but there was no fun or entertainment, merely preaching about 'ummm sweaty, this was all for the best, deal with it'. TBH... I should probably stop paying attention to anything XIV lore-related, but it's just too fun to read other peoples' well-writen takes on it.

brb, taking another hit of my industrial giga-copium canister, as I imagine all those released Unsundered being reborn as super cool 9 foot tall Echo-users... ahhhh...

[Caurcas]

From an in universe point of view one could understand backing Venat, considering her action led to the existence of them and theirs. Although, once again she is a victim of the writers who thought meteion was a good idea.

[RoroCookies]

Seeing the QnA and reading everyone else responses only makes Venat seem even more questionable than before.
It’s like she’s been waiting for an chance to force people to her ideals and her ideals only. She just needed an excuse and the power to finally do it without direct consent of the rest of the world. No wonder she was so adamant about becoming Hydalyn’s heart.