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

[Lauront]

The traveller's ward thing is strange, because they do make it clear that she is pumping power into the WoL and to a degree that taxes her (so much so Midgardsormr has to disable it, and then she reinforces it later), and that it also allows them to manipulate light more readily (hence being integral to the Exarch's plan in 5.0.) They didn't explain it particularly well, tbh. As for Zodiark, my assumption is they just left the part about the laws of creation unsaid, since it was covered by the second set of sacrifices, and because they never showed the aftermath of those (=restored Source), they never ended up showing or covering that part and just focused on his shielding power. A big issue is they do too much telling, too little showing (especially when it comes to the sundering itself...), and sometimes don't tie things together nicely.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Looking back, Hermes and Meteion having more time dedicated to them than Zodiark and Hydaelyn was so absurd that I can hardly believe it. Not even 30 minutes with Zodiark and a similarly rushed experience with Hydaelyn. Instead, we had to swallow hours on end of Hermes and his ridiculous "despair."

There were better ways to have resolved some of these plot threads so I'll go ahead and list them below:

Zodiark: rather than encountering "the Watcher" we encounter one of the last remaining Convocation members who opposes Fandaniel's plot and we go with them on a journey down to the moon's subterrain in order to protect Zodiark against Fandaniel and Zenos, possibly failing but still obtaining a "blessing of darkness" to grant us immunity from the Final Days. 75% of the moon's MSQ quests would revolve around this, with the minority remaining being devoted to the Loporrits. Zodiark would display some kind of affection towards his people despite his monstrous appearance, and it is accepted that although he was flawed, he is nevertheless the reason that the star was originally saved.

Hydaelyn: Venat's role is expanded to encompass that of a "fallen angel" in terms of rebelling against the way the ancients behave and would roughly be on par with how Ryo behaves in Devilman Crybaby-someone who is trying to be your friend, when in reality they are harboring the deepest evil inside them. In her arrogance, she grants the ancients something akin to the curse from the fruit of knowledge, triggering the Final Days due to the new emotions stirring in them like despair. Zodiark is summoned to stop this and restore order, and in doing so banishes Venat and her followers, who sacrifice themselves to create her angelic "goddess" form. The two battle in a conflict akin to the Biblical Celestial Schism, resulting in Zodiark's defeat and Hydaelyn being left with a broken world, over which she rules knowing that should Zodiark ever break free that she would undoubtedly be destroyed, but instead of Zodiark it is the WoL who puts an end to her.

Hermes and Meteion: do not exist.

Simple as that!

The fact they hyped up the moon so long and so much only for it to quite literally be the zone we spend the least amount of time in is….disappointing to put it extremely lightly.

[Kozh]

Wow I didn't realize so many people were dissapoint with endwalker story lol. Did people get too hyped or something? I feel like everything was very fitting and of course a lot of the characters have some holes, especially venat... but I think from what I've read here people are being way more critical of the story than with shadowbringers? I don't know honestly but it feels to me like even if the story has geniune issues xiv msq always had genuine issues that people would look past from and still enjoy the story.

Dunno about others, but too hyped? It's actually the opposite for me. I went in EW with a "idgaf" mindset. Even though I had been enjoying the story from arr to ShB, I never blind to the story flaws.

Besides, I've come to despise ShB with all my heart, since the writer threw minfilia under the bus just because of the fandom's hate meme. More proofed with that one Fate called "pray destroy the walking sands" and argos looking like her. With how much attention and plot armor given to a certain red-head, to the extent that he did what the story tried to frame as a bad thing for ryne (but apparently it's okay for him to do it), it's apparent that they play favorites. Even worse than previous expac imo.

So, back to EW, yeah I definitely not overhyped. I have to admit that estinien joining the scions and thancred becoming some sort of cop duo with him is making me enjoy the start of EW, but it just went downhill from the badly paced lopporits section. And then.... The biggest atrocity in ffxiv is introduced, dynamis. Dynamis, time travel, time loop, kairos, hermes, those are things that made me stare dumbly at my screen while questioning "Why?". All of them just reeks contrived and dumb writing.

While I've been criticizing venat, I actually never really care about the character's "morality", both emet and her. It's just that her excuse for her actions is pure dumb.

[Lauront]

While I've been criticizing venat, I actually never really care about the character's "morality", both emet and her. It's just that her excuse for her actions is pure dumb.

Agreed. The morality aspect of it is something I can take or leave, since SE do admit it is perspective-based in the end (although the doublethink when it comes to people who were loudly proclaiming the rejoinings to be genocide, but then try pretend the sundering isn't does sit poorly with me), but take all those plot elements together to try justify giving her a glowing appraisal at the end, and it's just too much contrived nonsense for me by the end of it. I do wish my character did have some input on it, though, even if the scions were all cool with it. If they had written it so that the rejoinings were all necessary instead to deal with Meteion, and you had no option but to thank Hades or Elidibus by the end and praise them for it even as they lamented the cost of it by the end, I am sure many people wouldn't've liked it, even if it were presented as justified. This is no different to me.

[Rulakir]

I liked Shadowbringers story it was both good to play through and felt like it was laying the groundwork for something, Endwalker doesn't feel like it built on that and just feels like it was written by someone bored of the story. It also did a really bad job tying up long running plot threads like Hydalin and Zodiark, the writer clearly didn't care about the the long running plot threads and only interested in the few characters they had written them and having to push them hard

This. The problem is that the Hydaelyn & Zodiark saga is the foundation of all the lore in FFXIV, but it seemed like for whatever reason they wanted to sweep it under the rug and be done. Despite nothing in ShB and little in EW supporting that the Ancients were incapable of change, we end up getting a cutscene with a group of strawmen and told that's how everyone was and they were never going to be any different. This also conveniently ignores the "no small number" of those who were in opposition of the third sacrifice, including Venat's own followers. Clearly there was a substantial number of Ancients who could change, but we're meant to believe they all only wanted a return to "bliss". The unsundered world wasn't even presented as being free from problems or sorrow, just better than an apocalyptic world (understandably).

I've seen people say that Venat is the voice of the writer and if that's the case I had no idea Ishikawa viewed the Ancients so poorly. As much as I loved Emet & Hythlodaeus, going back in time and not being given an option to spare them the Final Days felt sadistic. I am an unabashed Ancient fan and, like many others, EW was probably the worst case scenario I could think of in terms of what I'd least like to see. I don't consider "fan service" watching your favorite characters get effed over, while your character has no power to do anything about it, and then treats the person responsible as some sort of benevolent goddess. At the end of the day, she was an ideological extremist and I'm not about to praise her for that.

I hope whatever new story we're getting was worth it, but I have my doubts.

[TMW001]

While I do agree Zodiark was a let down he sadly wasn't at full power but then again it was said he dwarfed Hydaelyn in strength so should he have been much stronger even not at full?

[Kyohei]

If anything, doing the side quests in Elpis doesn't help seeing them as "unable" to learn, grow and change quite the contrary...Most of them were eager to see and try news ways of doing things and thinking. What they needed wasn't obliteration but matter to grow from. Things grow with and according to the soil it's given, not from nothingness. Presented as they were, if they had knowledge of not only what caused the final days but how many civilisations ended, there's no doubt they would have re-evaluated their ways.
It's quite a disservice when the story tries to kind of force onto the player that the ancient humans were doomed anyway as they had no room for growth unlike the sundered humans. Even going to length as putting Ra-La civilisation as a direct mirror, which I saw as a desperate attempt to be convincing. Moreover, it didn't seem like they lacked purpose either. Each ancient we interact with in the msq had different aspirations, each of them already had a personal purpose for their lives, so this argument falls flat too on my end.
They ended up painting the ancients as many things that are sometimes opposite, which ultimately make Endwalker hard to go along with.
I can understand what Yoshida said about Venat's actions as very ancient, but at the same time this too clashes with their depiction. They were a scholarly civilisation, where no one would be encouraged to take drastic measures by themselves, but rather discuss together before taking a decision. I can only think of Venat and Azem as people who'd regularly decide and act without the consent of the many.
It might be a personal view on it, but the many contradictory details might be why some aren't satisfied with Endwalker's story, and why it leaves so much place for argumentation.
Somehow, instead of leaving a feeling of hope as intended, Endwalker struck me with fatalism.

[Lauront]

100% agree with all that. That method of taking unilateral action is very much shown as frowned upon in Ere our curtain falls (even if they tolerated it to an extent), and given what we saw with Hermes, for good reason; they had protocols in place to avoid such things. Unfortunately with dynamis being this elusive power, Hermes's muck up was both much harder to predict or contain, but it was still doable albeit at a great cost.

At most I could accept Yoshi is saying that the ancients could conceptualise stuff to a more abstract degree, but again her approach is anathema to their general beliefs as a society, so when he says it's just her being an ancient, nah, sorry. Not buying it. As I've said before, we've also seen sundered characters do this kind of thing, for no less abstract reasons, be it Thordan, Vauthry, Varis, Ilberd, Yotsuyu, Zenos, the Ironworks in the 8UC (willing to imperil their timeline for the hope of a "brighter tomorrow" in the original timeline, even if that risk ultimately never materialised), etc. Had he said it was something an Azem might do? Could maybe buy it, although I'd like to think my one would never lose hope in their people to that degree and would've presented them with the information at the right time. I suspect he just wanted to move past the question in all honesty and leave it at that.

[Anxin]

The ending would've been better if the writers took a page from Final Fantasy 6's midpoint. Have all the worlds converge into one, genocide and all, kill off all the Scions, and leave our characters as the survivors in a shattered, but whole, world. The fallout of such an event, and with us pinned as the cause by the other survivors, would make the next story arc a truly interesting reboot. Not to mention our characters would have to live with the knowledge that our actions caused the death of all their friends. The surviving city states from all the old, sundered worlds would quickly vie for power and limited resources.

Plus it could allow the designers to change all the classes and dungeons in a fresh and interesting way. There's really no reason a post-merging game couldn't have different class designs branching off of the "previous world" magic and martial systems.

[Kyohei]

Indeed, being an ancient isn't the reason one is compelled to act that way for sure.
It falls to reason that when possessing such tremendous power, it has to be kept in check for the society to not run amok. Powers that can change the state of the world, destroy it, create things that can have equally great impact shall be used with restrictions for obvious reasons.
That being said, because the ancients seemed not so homogeneous afterall and far from a one-mind hive, I'd argue that the hazardousness of mindsets and individuals along with such powers set them for awry events. It would only take one individual to use their powers wrongly. Since they seemed to each have very different personalities, the apparition of such individual was more a matter of "when" than "if". That is what we end up seeing with Hermes and then Venat.
With that in mind, if the reason for Venat's action was around this subject I'd be more inclined to "believe" it as sound and logical. Removing the ability of mankind to do whatever they want with the world, including the destruction of everything, is a fairer explanation. Although still debatable.

There are many questions Yoshida seemed a bit annoyed to answer to, for example the one about Azem's whereabouts during the final days. I can't bring myself to think he was doing whatever the player can imagine, including "playing mahjong"...definitely feels like there was a need to sweep some topics under the rug.