What was your favourite expansion stories, ranked in order?

[kaynide]

Maybe this is just a 'me' thing, but I actually think I like a story more if it has some interesting wrinkles and imperfections, because that lets me think about and explore how it could do better. Like, if I encounter a story that is effectively perfect for what I want from it (Metroid Prime comes to mind), all I can really say about that story is 'it's good, I like it'. But if there's things I think they didn't do well, or things they didn't explore as much as I wanted, then I could have fun asking 'how would I do it'.

If I liked every single part of Endwalker, I would probably be talking and thinking about it less.

I hear you; it's all good. It was fun to play through for the bite sized moments- really well done story telling, even if the story itself wasn't to my liking. Ignoring the overall plot, Elpis was engaging. The scene with our favorite Matanga boy and baby was excellent. Garlemald in total was excellent . Just, all together..it felt...off.

For me, if the devs truly had a roadmap set and the major events of Endwalker were truly decided upon ahead of time, then there should have been more setup. Like the memory eraser thing would be MUCH easier to swallow if there were incidents in Stormblood AND later Shadowbringers of memory tampering. Pre-Endwalker, make a major point that no one can remember what happened after Carteneau.

THEN, the reveal in Elpis would be a "oh crap THAT'S what it is.. and oh gods, someone is now using it in current time!? Why would they erase Carteneau!? And Who is using it!? Are we going to end up going to modern day ruined Elpis!?"

As is, it's just not a very tight story. Lose things I like if there's actual things to dig out and put together (a la 5 nights at Freddies), or if there's a later payoff for things that feel odd at first (like Biohazard Village's reveal about the nature of the main character..or Bioshock's "Could you kindly").

[Brightamethyst]

For me, if the devs truly had a roadmap set and the major events of Endwalker were truly decided upon ahead of time, then there should have been more setup. Like the memory eraser thing would be MUCH easier to swallow if there were incidents in Stormblood AND later Shadowbringers of memory tampering. Pre-Endwalker, make a major point that no one can remember what happened after Carteneau.

THEN, the reveal in Elpis would be a "oh crap THAT'S what it is.. and oh gods, someone is now using it in current time!? Why would they erase Carteneau!? And Who is using it!? Are we going to end up going to modern day ruined Elpis!?"

As is, it's just not a very tight story. Lose things I like if there's actual things to dig out and put together (a la 5 nights at Freddies), or if there's a later payoff for things that feel odd at first (like Biohazard Village's reveal about the nature of the main character..or Bioshock's "Could you kindly").

Pretty much this. In previous expansions, Shadowbringers especially, all the new and crazy revelations felt like natural expansions of existing lore. Where we learn something new and go "Oh, of course! It all makes sense now!" Endwalker didn't have as much of that. The new ideas mostly sat apart from the existing lore rather than fitting nicely inside it. We learned about dynamis and Meteon and instead of being "Ooooooh, that explains everything" it was "Wait, what? Huh? Seriously?" As a concept dynamis fits incredibly well into the existing lore, but it came so late and with so little setup that it's hard to see it as anything but deus ex machina.

[EaraGrace]

Friends, we are ranking the expansions, not arguing over which is best. There are many others threads for this.

[PawPaw]

1. Heavensward
2. Shadowbringers
3. Endwalker: Pre-Elpis
4. A Realm Reborn
5. Stormblood
6. Endwalker: Post-Elpis

Heavensward still holds as the best stand-alone experience I've had with the game yet. I still get chills when I zone into Foundation and many of my best memories and feelings are attached to that EP. The story was satisfying and I felt a real sense of achievement. Characters were well-written and the chance was very real that everyone wouldn't make it out alive. It was a close race though with Shadowbringers. Love, love, loved the addition of Emet-Selch and getting all of the delicious lore surrounding the Ascians, the Ancients and Azem.

The only thing that knocks Shadowbringers down to second place for me is the way the story of the Ancients was explained and resolved in the second half of Endwalker, which is the absolute bottom of the list in my opinion. Getting to Elpis was amazing for me as someone who loves the story threads involving the Ascians and Ancients the most; but seeing how the writers chose to explain how and why the world actually ended and the impetus behind it all was quite upsetting and nonsensical to me. Time travel is very rarely a good idea for good reason, never mind the idiocy of memory-wipes. From that point on I have just more or less checked out. I wanted nothing more to do with Hydaelyn, this fight she had subjected me to, the eleventh-hour villain, the emotional manipulation of the writers, the fake deaths. Over it. They even managed to ruin my favorite character in Emet-Selch by having him come back from the dead for a sec just to praise the person who destroyed the world to begin with. Does not compute. Was also not a fan of the way the dreaded Final Days seemed to only affect the new zones we'd visited while we sat sunning in Sharlayan having drinks. Where was the urgency? Where were the stakes? How did no one of consequence die? Really? The plot has more holes in it than swiss cheese.

Pre-Elpis was fine for me. I enjoyed Thavnair and Garlemald especially. The moon was pretty cool for the Watcher parts, but way too much time spent with rabbits otherwise.

For the rest of them, ARR will always be special to me because it lays the foundation for everything to come. It's not the most exciting but it has some great story beats and that ending was a complete shocker (in the best way) for me back in the day. Good memories. Stormblood was never high on my list, probably because I disliked the Ala Mhigan side of the story but it had some amazing encounters and some of the best dungeons, so it has that going for it.

[Eriane_Elis]

1. Heavensward because it saved me from abandoning this game after the 999th fetch quest

2.Shadowbringers because they were able to fully deliver the hype and the storytelling was excellent

3. Endwalker because it was satisfying and the camera work was great

4. Stormblood because of HoH and the primals. Anything that involved lyse can just disappear from my memory tnx

5. ARR but it wasn't bad. It's just that the other expacs were just that much better and that's a good thing. Games should get better with every new update right? It was just the fetch quests that were bad imo. The rest was good.

I don't know if 7.0 will be great but it will be interesting to see what they decide to do. Keep your expectations way low so you can be impressed no matter what they create! lol

[ReynTime]

1. Heavensward
It was the most balanced between the shounen troupes and borderline low fantasy levels of mature writing. It also had the best depiction of a journey with allies style story that classic FFs like IX had. Patch stories were still consistent with the quality of writing, mostly.

2. A Realm Reborn
It's plagued with padding in the base expansion, but I'll take a story that barely tries to innovate at all over a story with super pretentious writing that is less than what it tries to convince you it really is like in the last two expansions. I also love the few remnants of being just an adventurer making a name and Gil for themselves that 1.0 used to have. The patch stories are what really elevate ARR though. The writing was actually befitting of the age rating, and it was great having a focus given to the darker side of the nations because no matter how good the intention of the chatacters and leaders we know, the internal cons of each nation adds a way more realistic dimension that is part of what makes each unique. The Crystal braves were also a very good sparking point for Alphinaud's reality check.

3. 1.0-1.23
The story gets disjointed and takes a sudden shift anyone can tell was not part of the original plan even without the context of the development and design team transfer. Even so I like how much more grounded it was aiming to be, and how the character progression was actually directly tied to their role in the story. Of all versions of XIV, despite the unfinished 1.0 plot points this was the one expansion where story and gameplay flow felt like they were hand in hand for better or for worse.
I also think it does the city states introduction vastly better than ARR. The Meteor Project arc is also very good and the sense of dread it brought was decidedly more effective than the sorry excuse for Final Days from EW despite having a vastly more simple presentation, even before the 1.23a patch.

4. Shadowbringers
Only marginally above Stormblood. The base expansion story and up to 5.2 were good. Its very unfortunate that the sense of dark hopelessness was extremely short lived and the tease from the trailer was far more interesting out of context. It quickly falls apart with the power of friendship nonsense it perpetuates through pretty much 70% of it and ends up feeling a lot more tropey and positive than any past expansion (even considering's 2.0 cheesy moments) rendering any sense of dread the plot asks us to feel completely moot. Oh no look how dreary this strange new world is... Oh nvm they have essentially a self sustaining massive safe haven with tech and magic that exceeds every non Garlean part of Eorzea as we knew it by then. Nevermind that the Crystarium was even bigger than Elmore which is meant to be this overpowering antagonist force... This is the point in the writing of XIV where they put the final nail in the coffin of protagonists' vulnerability to serious danger. From. 5.0 to 5.3 we get a laughable amount of predictable fakeouts. And a powerful emotional clímax gets completely shat on mere minutes after it happens.
To make matters worse in order to rush a Disney ending for the following expansion they have all nations of Eorzea solve their well known internal struggles in a single patch or off screen. It becomes evident the lead writer is more concerned with sending a message straight out of Ono era Jon Lennon to please people who are incapable of separating RL moral pursuit from fictional world context. (hence why the ridiculousness of rabid fans attacking anyone who likes so or so antagonist chatacter or force unless the story does a forced tragic backstory for them) 5.4 was when I lost all hope for the writing going forward. XIV has since clearly been having its writing decisions based on fanservice and fanservice alone. Specifically from twitter and reddit style echo chambers.

5. Stormblood
I wanted to rank this above ShB but I simply can't. It has good highs and can definitely be mature at times. The problem is, specially in the 4.0 MSQ, all the moments we lose to the empire attacks are extremely forced and unconvincing. Otherwise it feels like Garlemald is a freaking joke and all Ala Mhigo and Doma needed were a few DBZ characters such as ourselves, Hien, Lyse and the Scions to obliterate the imperial forces. The style of the writing was a weird mishmash of serious war themes with Bleach fighting and power creep fanservice.

6. Endwalker
The only good part in the entire expansion was the first half of the Garlemald arc and the farewell to the Scions. Other people have already expressed everything I hated about Endwalker again and again so I don't feel like repeating. Everything from Elpis onwards has got to be the worst writing I've seen in FF history.
Endwalker also has nearly ARR levels of padding. The difference is the padding in ARR had an actual purpose moving me towards the real goals while stuff like helping Loporrits with their ultimately useless chores could've been cut entirely from MSQ and not make any difference. Even Urianger's temporary absence had no point in the end.

[Skyborne]

...

Pretty much 100% my opinion as well; especially the critiques of Shadowbringers and the fluffy Disneyfication/preachiness of everything. That, and I didn't play 1.0. I'll give Stormblood some credit, though, for introducing a bunch of colorful characters -- people like Hien, Magnai, Sadu, the rest of the Xaela, Fordola, Gosetsu, Yotsuyu, Grynwaht (pity the guy even if he was a meme), Asahi, Soroban, Hancock, Maxima, etc. Ala Mhigo, which had been gone on and on about for so long, seemed to get shafted. I also liked that one cutscene where everyone was sieging the gates of Ala Mhigo -- the Ul'Dahn thaumaturges hurling fire and ice in an organized manner was cool and very 'Final Fantasy' to me.

Part of me wonders if the reason why they went 'okay, the city-states solved their issues and now we are all Alliance besties' was to have it dissolve back into squabbling now that the Final Days is no longer a threat and the Garlean Empire is essentially dead. The rest of me doubts this...

[ReynTime]

Pretty much 100% my opinion as well; especially the critiques of Shadowbringers and the fluffy Disneyfication/preachiness of everything. That, and I didn't play 1.0. I'll give Stormblood some credit, though, for introducing a bunch of colorful characters -- people like Hien, Magnai, Sadu, the rest of the Xaela, Fordola, Gosetsu, Yotsuyu, Grynwaht (pity the guy even if he was a meme), Asahi, Soroban, Hancock, Maxima, etc. Ala Mhigo, which had been gone on and on about for so long, seemed to get shafted. I also liked that one cutscene where everyone was sieging the gates of Ala Mhigo -- the Ul'Dahn thaumaturges hurling fire and ice in an organized manner was cool and very 'Final Fantasy' to me.

Part of me wonders if the reason why they went 'okay, the city-states solved their issues and now we are all Alliance besties' was to have it dissolve back into squabbling now that the Final Days is no longer a threat and the Garlean Empire is essentially dead. The rest of me doubts this...

I doubt this too. I think they couldn't wait to wipe their hands clean off legacy from 1.0 plot threads and cannot wait to send us to their completely original nations and lands with little or no ties with the Illsabard stories. It shows in how half assed their "cause Calamity" excuse for abandoned threads like the Woodsin, in how they essentially kill the garlean empire off screen in one patch, how they made the final bad be a kawaii bird girl OC that gets introduced in the last hour, and how they completely ignored the fact the Echo we had would have sufficed to let us witness the time in Elpis instead of whatever that time loop memory wipe ex machina arc was.

I get it they had a terrible time turning the game around but their contempt towards even 1.0 lore is something else.

[kaynide]

I doubt this too. I think they couldn't wait to wipe their hands clean off legacy from 1.0 plot threads and cannot wait to send us to their completely original nations and lands with little or no ties with the Illsabard stories. It shows in how half assed their "cause Calamity" excuse for abandoned threads like the Woodsin, in how they essentially kill the garlean empire off screen in one patch, how they made the final bad be a kawaii bird girl OC that gets introduced in the last hour, and how they completely ignored the fact the Echo we had would have sufficed to let us witness the time in Elpis instead of whatever that time loop memory wipe ex machina arc was.

I get it they had a terrible time turning the game around but their contempt towards even 1.0 lore is something else.

Re: Final Boss of EW

It would have been much much better if they could have found some other thread from previous expansions. Like, why not the thing responsible for Omega’s race going full war machines, or some kind of thing hinted at from the void. Even give us a glimpse at what “Sabik” is.

Nope, had to be a borked familiar that could travel the entirety of the universe and assess it was all doomed in what… a week? Did we ever get a timeline on how long it took the bird girls to make that decision…?

And for someone who is so empathetic to living things (Hermès), how/why could he have even made something with the capacity to decide NOT living was better? And how did oh god my brain is melting again.

[Cleretic]

Re: Final Boss of EW

It would have been much much better if they could have found some other thread from previous expansions. Like, why not the thing responsible for Omega’s race going full war machines, or some kind of thing hinted at from the void. Even give us a glimpse at what “Sabik” is.

Nope, had to be a borked familiar that could travel the entirety of the universe and assess it was all doomed in what… a week? Did we ever get a timeline on how long it took the bird girls to make that decision…?

And for someone who is so empathetic to living things (Hermès), how/why could he have even made something with the capacity to decide NOT living was better? And how did oh god my brain is melting again.

Hermes was a bad scientist and ran a poorly-conceived experiment. Endwalker is actually an extended metaphor for the importance of peer review in academic studies and experiments.

I'm only partially kidding. The situation with Meteion was born of Ancients being bad at understanding the problems of others, and just because Hermes noticed those problems doesn't mean he wasn't above them. Emet correctly observed the flaw in his method, but that also doesn't mean Emet would've been any better at it, it's just that he had a different blind spot.

I agree that there could've been a better way to link up the final boss with previous themes, but I don't think the Endsinger itself was incapable of reaching out on that. I think there's a good seed in the fact that Thavnair overcomes the End of Days with falling back on faith and cultural lessons, I'd have brought that back and had a primal (that isn't Shinryu, who was a great add but doesn't work here) lay a decisive blow; if the Endsinger was a manifestation of existential dread and fatalism, I think a great counterpoint would be to hit it with a figure of a religion built out of finding meaning in life.

Like I mentioned before: EW's in part my favorite because it's just flawed enough that I can think of ways to spice it up without having to throw anything away. Meanwhile, changing what I don't like about Shadowbringers or Stormblood would be... a more structural job.