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

[Lauront]

Same. It's disappointing that the writers themselves don't think about the finer points of the lore they're crafting. (Are they new to fandoms? This is what people do!) Plus, Yoshi-P's response of "come up with your own theory" to some fairly important questions. I also don't understand their treatment of Azem. I'll be honest, they've painted Azem (and the WoL by extension) as someone who has the polar opposite personality that I do, that's apparently fine, but we can't know what they were up to during the Final Days or have a glyph design for them because that's stepping on headcanon toes?

I've gotten the feeling with EW that they have an image in mind of an MMO player. Specifically that we're all travelers at heart who enjoy challenge just for the sake of it. The 4th wall breaking encounters, where we're not allowed to answer in any meaningful capacity, further emphasized that with Venat you've loved everything about your journey, with Zenos you want to fight him no matter what, or with Thancred you loved joining the Scions. I would say maybe I ask for too much, but I still remember at the beginning of SB when Alphinaud asked me if I'd help them with Ala Mhigo I was able to say it's not my problem. He was disappointed, and it didn't change anything, but at least I got to say it! EW was like, if you don't have anything nice to say you don't get to say anything at all.

You've hit on some of the parts of it I really didn't like. I almost get the sense that they weight some sources of feedback (e.g. reddit) too much when considering their "fan service". Ordinarily I just brush that sort of stuff aside, as I find it a little cringeworthy, but EW had too many issues combined for me to do so.

I'm hesitant to be angry at the writers because I still think there's a possibility Ishikawa was pressured to change the story. I can't be mad at her if it turns out it's someone at corporate who would've gotten their knickers in a twist if Hydaelyn was portrayed as anything but good. Or, gods help us, if it was the ethics committee who had a problem with it. I'm reminded of when the writer of AoT wanted to kill Sasha and his editor was so distraught over it that he let her survive what was supposed to be a fatal encounter.

Aye, I'm not too sure it's either her or Yoshi to blame. I have a feeling his heart is more in XVI and that with XIV it's just a case of keeping the bills paid, hence the indifference and blasé attitude to the lore questions, and that this was more so calculated based on what they thought would get the best audience response, albeit based on the tastes of a specific audience.

The Elpis story arc was really the only part of Endwalker that hugely disappointed me in hindsight because it betrayed my expectations and not in a good way.

The Twinning dungeon having us go in and break the time machine in the Crystal Tower felt like the writers not-so-subtly saying "Okay, there isn't going to be any more timey-wimey nonsense." then they doubled back on that and made it have much further reaching implications/effects then any of the prior instances of it did.

There was so little foreshadowing or build-up to the twist it just felt really...cheap compared to every other major story beat in XIV overall.

I completely forgot about that.