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

[kpxmanifesto]

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.

I remember when I first got to the moon, I thought I was already at the end of the game. The way the game was advertised in addition to the events leading up to that point, I thought the moon and Zodiark were supposed to be the finale. Very confusing.

[Silvarer]

I remember when I first got to the moon, I thought I was already at the end of the game. The way the game was advertised in addition to the events leading up to that point, I thought the moon and Zodiark were supposed to be the finale. Very confusing.

They were just using misdirection is all. Make us believe one thing in order to keep the real final area a secret until the end. I thought it was quite effective.

[ReynTime]

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.

Such is their disdain for 1.0 material.
Notice they essentially swept Garlemald under the rug too, instead of a proper final battle against them in their homeland they just had them implode in 1 patch, off-screen.

[KizuyaKatogami]

They were just using misdirection is all. Make us believe one thing in order to keep the real final area a secret until the end. I thought it was quite effective.

It’s not even really just misdirection though. Why continue hyping up the area for years(he has always teased it constantly), why advertise it all as some big area and then just release it being an area with honestly probably the least relevance in the expansion ironically. I guess you can call it subversion but, i think as many people will agree, subversion isn’t always good and sometimes “simple is best.” I can argue them completely dropping/contradicting plot points or ignoring them are misdirection/subversion. Are they good? Objectively no they aren’t.

[aveyond-dreams]

Man, I sure do love it when they decide to "subvert expectations!" It always has an interesting result.

I remember back when they subverted all of our expectations so much back in 2019 when they surprised the anime-loving playerbase of FFXIV with Hrothgar instead of the male Viera people were expecting and the JP fanfest crowd proceeded to actually boo the trailer. Similarly, they strongly teased the moon only for us to get no more than a half-hour with Zodiark who people have wanted to see since forever and instead made it into a Looney Toons cartoon with the loporrits.

Can we pretty please return to the Heavensward era back when twists actually paid off in the end and characters were actually believable? Or is Heavensward too simple of a story? Because fighting dragons sure sounds a lot more appealing than another war of morals right about now.

[Theodric]

At this point, 'subverting expectations' would be actually having the stones to kill off a prominent Scion or one of the City State leaders. Ever since Heavensward the established trend has been to only kill off characters who are either outright villains, sympathetic antagonists or throwaway characters temporarily promoted into the spotlight. I guess you can count characters who were already written off as 'dead' only to be brought back to be killed for a second time. Such as Minfilia, Ardbert and Emet-Selch.

It's a predictable model and arguably insults the intelligence of those of us who don't buy into attempts at emotional manipulation. The story plays out very differently for those of us who know full well that the likes of Aymeric are never going to have any lasting consequences.

[seraf]

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.

You literally could not save the Ancients and even if you could it would undo everything that happened after the Final Days which would have meant the Source and even all the shards wouldn't exist.

[jameseoakes]

You literally could not save the Ancients and even if you could it would undo everything that happened after the Final Days which would have meant the Source and even all the shards wouldn't exist.

There doesn't seem to be a reason why we couldn't try to stop it and the End of Days being averted would have been a great thing as it would have lead to a world without the sundering and apparently a lot less suffering

[KizuyaKatogami]

You literally could not save the Ancients and even if you could it would undo everything that happened after the Final Days which would have meant the Source and even all the shards wouldn't exist.

Why couldn’t we? Graha and Ironworks were able to create a split timeline. Funny how it just coincidentally works out for them there but now all of a sudden it’s impossible to have a split timeline for the ancients or it’s impossible to save them.Whats your logic on that we wouldnt be able to save them?

[aveyond-dreams]

At this point, 'subverting expectations' would be actually having the stones to kill off a prominent Scion or one of the City State leaders. Ever since Heavensward the established trend has been to only kill off characters who are either outright villains, sympathetic antagonists or throwaway characters temporarily promoted into the spotlight. I guess you can count characters who were already written off as 'dead' only to be brought back to be killed for a second time. Such as Minfilia, Ardbert and Emet-Selch.

It's a predictable model and arguably insults the intelligence of those of us who don't buy into attempts at emotional manipulation. The story plays out very differently for those of us who know full well that the likes of Aymeric are never going to have any lasting consequences.

As bad as FFXV was, there were at least key moments whose consequences weren't undone and had a lasting impact in the rest of the game. I'm using it as an example specifically because it is considered one of the weaker plots in the series, though it didn't contort itself in the strange way that Endwalker did.

The beginning saw King Regis die and then Ardyn straight up murdered the game's waifu right in front of our eyes. This shook up the cast to their core and they proceeded to behave differently as they experienced these defining events. The darker the story got, the more we saw the cast grow more mature. In stark contrast to most games, there was no "final boss transformation," instead it ended with Noctis and Ardyn duelling each other as human beings. However, in order to fulfil his destiny, Noctis had to sacrifice his life and only received his happy ending in death.

The pain that all these characters had gone through was real and grounded, and I remember how strongly it all gripped the fandom during the time the game released. In Endwalker, almost no one talks about how impactful the Scions' sacrifices in Ultima Thule were. People don't care. You could see them coming back from a mile away, and it cheapened the ending more than if they had simply remained alive. While I was playing through that part of Endwalker, all I could think to myself was "Really? Are we seriously doing this again?" because it was just too direct.

They need to realize I think that a good chunk of the playerbase isn't...actually no even if I was still a teenager I would've been largely unamused by how Endwalker played out. This was a story that looked great in their heads, but whatever was in their heads didn't make it into the game we played, and the result was something that was too hastily put together.