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

[Puksi]

The DRK questchain I enjoyed, as it was an interesting psychological take on the trauma the whole MMO was on our otherwise "silent protagonist". If Ishikawa was responsible for Ysayle, Ysayle's arc was my favorite thing about Heavensward, even if they did have to retcon that opening scene of her attacking Ishgard directly. (Moogles were "so fluffy", so that may have indeed been her writing.)

But I haven't had confidence in either Ishikawa or Yoshida since Stormblood, which seemed so much more concerned about the colonizers rather than the colonized, and while Doma was thoroughly explored, Ala Mhigo seemed just a rushed prop to make Yda--er, Lyse relevant in some way, killing every experienced officer in line to command until it somehow fell into her lap because of her name. (They brought back Meffrid only for a shock killing, that lost me extra.)

It also highlighted an odd narrative style that feels very much like certain characters were being shoved in your face, the writers saying "Do you like this character yet? How about now? Now? HOW ABOUT NOW?" It was Lyse and Fordola, then. Gaius got that treatment in Werlyt later.

It only got worse with Shadowbringers, which relied on despicable stereotypes for half of the story arc, and the trailer made sure their intent to show "fat is lazy/evil" was on full display. If I had a nickel for each person who didn't know Dulia-Chai was the Stoneworks bookkeeper because all they had her talk about is cakes, I'd be rich--and the hypocrisy of Alphinaud's judgements on Eulmore versus our buddies, the Allied city-states, was unreal.

The nobles of Ishgard, not lifting a finger to invite in the shivering poor of the Brume? Our besties. The Crystarium, stating if we expected to stay, we'd be expected to work? Our besties. Doma, using the Xaela tribes as meat puppets for a war otherwise not their own, and quietly hushing over sex traffickers? Our besties.

Eulmore, not letting in "the hopefuls", who left their homes and farms and families for a lotto's chance at something they were never promised, and self-inflicted squalor? Eulmore, the place that provides bouncers to protect dancers, the place that paid workers so well they were unhappy when it switched to capitalism in 5.1? The height of evil. "Bones of the poor", even though only the free citizens were guaranteed "Ascension". The evil rich, even though rich people were made to give up their wealth to get into Eulmore in the first place--in order to make everything free for all living there, including workers, who outnumbered the free citizen by far. (Sure, a lot didn't like that and left immediately in 5.1, but they weren't getting in before that otherwise.) And as soon as we learned Eulmore was the main fighting force against the Sin Eaters for 80 years until all the loss broke them, the writers promptly forgot it again to condemn them as a "perverted paradise" (which bought all their produce from outside settlements). Funny, anguish over loss was a perfectly acceptable excuse for Emet-Selch.

This doesn't even cover the DBZ-grade character that is Ran'jit.

And then there's Vauthry, Ishikawa's take on Yoshida's request that the last-minute midboss be "Jabba The Hutt". The narrative had so much worse to say about that character than the one who made him, in utero. There was never a believable chance for that character to be anything else by the game's own lore, because even the WoL can't fight a Lightwarden's corruption, let alone a baby groomed from birth to do the Ascians' bidding. The "truth" about the Ancients was of paramount importance, but the truth of what happened to Vauthry was never told. In fact, the dialogue options in 5.1 let us blame him for the misdeeds of the free citizens, even though Alphinaud previously preached taking responsibility for your own actions.

As excited as a bunch of people were at the prospect of the "thicc'qote" rig, in the end they were only made to push those lazy tropes. We will likely never see those rigs used again. This attitude tracked clear back to Fanfest 2014, where a cosplayer tried to give Yoshida one of their props only to be told "real ninjas should lose weight/work out more" in front of thousands of people. Imagine doing that to someone who loved your game so much they made a cosplay and paid to be at your convention. (And when they placed third in the cosplay contest, many of this "great community" said it was out of pity.)

Endwalker, I'd be disappointed in equally, as it made just about as much sense with even a little critical thought--if I were supposed to pay attention to the story. According to Yoshida, that's not the case. Just stop thinking about things, and give $quare your money--which I guess is the best he could say, given the absolute mess of a story Endwalker proved to be.

[Brinne]

I would generally consider myself a fan of Ishikawa's work - so much in Shadowbringers and the enjoyable parts of Endwalker impressed me so much, both in terms of emotional resonance and in craft, that I think it's sort of a minor miracle we got something as wonderful and thoughtful as Shadowbringers out of a commercial product-driven MMORPG. I've already gushed about Hermes and Zenos in EW in this thread, I think, so I won't relitigate. Many of Ishikawa's comments in interviews and panels solidifies that she is a genuinely incredibly skilled and insightful writer.

I do think she has her strengths and weaknesses, like anyone else. While I thought the twist on Elidibus's character in 5.3 was "classic brilliant Ishikawa," so to speak, the plotting and mechanics of it were pretty muddled, and there was a self-indulgence and overcompensation strewn throughout the patch as a whole in terms of being "the big finale!" which also carried over hard into EW. Ishikawa is absolutely wonderful when it comes to sort of quiet, somber moments and reflections - she cut her teeth on the DRK quests, after all. I think she tends to lose me a bit as far as the "big epic stuff" goes - big war stories like in Stormblood, the big finale of ShB, the bigger finale of EW.

I remember one of the recorded Q&As where someone asked her about Shadowbringers's theme, and she actually said she doesn't really like thinking about stories in terms of themes or messages - if she had to sort of sum up Shadowbringers, it was "the story of a hero who saved the world." That's sort of telling and also reflective of what I appreciate about her style when I connect with it: the idea of conveying a description, a situation, rather than a directive of sorts to the player.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I was almost going to mention that my personal unpopular opinion about Ascians is that as soon as Emet-Selch entered the stage, the Ascian plot became the Emet-Selch plot. I'm thankful for getting my little crumb of Eli, but... yeah... I mean no disrespect to Emet, he's a fantastic character. But. You know?

A bit late, but yeah can’t say i’m surprised Emet is #1 on the polls, but i can’t help but say EW actually made me dislike him a bit. Knowing what we know now, he basically betrayed Elidibus, left him to have his soul completely destroyed, and then didn’t even mourn or mention it at all. All this on top of him just seeming to steal Elidibus’ role from him and everything now just feeling like Emet pandering, i’m pretty sour about him i have to say.

As far as this latest interview goes…let’s just say i didn’t think it could get worse and this interview basically told me nah it can. Just find it funny how a yoshi p can’t see the difference between Emet and Hermes, but also i find it humorous he’s gonna say he was surprised people took Emet at his word how he was biased but says nothing about Venat.

I’m a bit surprised the new merch stuff they have coming out will be for Emet and Zenos supposedly. Emet has already gotten stuff whereas the other two unsundered have like…a wine glass of merch, and Zenos is just a pretty irrelevant character overall.So much for it being the Zodiark and Hydaelyn ending. Even the merch has been stolen by the fan favorites.

For my opinions on Ishikawa, i thought she did good with base ShB, however i don’t really know what happened after that. 5.3 was a mess, and honestly a lot of her writing lately just all feels the same. Whether or not it’s sue to higher ups telling her what to write idk but i can’t help but notice a lot of this stuff happened when she got in the picture. No meaningful consequences for protagonists, constant slice of life anime stuff for them, sob story for every antagonist etc etc.And ofc the one antagonist she didn’t really do a sob story for is also one of the most worst/boring ones(Zenos).

Honestly we could use the break. Doesnt necessarily have to be exact ARR pacing but the low scale stories pre-waking sands massacre is something I would want to just setup back into just adventuring

I feel like we've already had a break tbh, i dont feel like anything substantial has really happened in EW. Despite it being an apocalypse it had numerous fluff and out of touch moments that made it feel more like a picnic than anything else. There was hardly any threat and now the threats are going to be even more downscaled? Doesnt seem like we'll notice a difference tbh. God-like and universal space entities cant harm us or the scions, what hopes do some normal inhabitants or monsters have.

[Rulakir]

TMI perhaps

My TMI is I suffer from major depressive disorder and, frankly, most of the messaging in EW sounded like a typical depression meme. Essentially, meaningless platitudes that are insulting to the intelligence and seem like they came from people who have no concept of what enduring suffering and despair is truly like. (The downplaying of the Final Days appears to play into this too as the characters act like surviving an apocalypse is no big deal and why can't everyone just move on from an extinction level event already?) Likewise, as was noted in a thread in Reddit (something I hadn't thought of until I saw others discussing it), if you had a mental illness you were absolutely screwed during the second coming of the Final Days. You'll turn into a blasphemy and your soul will be destroyed. It's only the mentally strong and healthy who'd survive. I doubt that was intentional, but it's just another thing they didn't take into consideration with their 'self help' narrative.

Saying that we have ten years worth of outlines sort of implies that Ishikawa won't be the one writing those stories directly, which does worry me. I'd rather hear we have ten years worth of outlines from someone like Maehiro and Ishikawa will be the one writing.

She's said in interviews she's stepping down from the MSQ and wants to leave it to the "junior writers", so your guess is as good as mine what that's going to mean going into the future.

[KageTokage]

I'm hoping they at least won't just brush aside the fallout from the Final Days and we encounter some places in seriously dire circumstances due to not being able to properly contain the threat of the blasphemies, whether via side content and/or future expansion areas.

Corvos and the rest of Ilsabard seem like they'd probably be an even bigger mess then before given that Garlean occupation and despair tend to go hand in hand.

While Thavnair did suffer, it's kind of easy for the events to fade from memory when no portion of the zones there were damaged or otherwise altered in a way that serves as a reminder of what transpired.

[Theodric]

Yeah, hopefully it's not another Sin Eater situation where the problem was effectively dealt with in the same patch that they were introduced in. One of the reasons as to why I really like Voidsent is because they're a persistent threat behind the scenes. FFXIV would benefit from more persistent threats that it isn't afraid to keep around. Everything being wrapped up in a neat little bow doesn't interest me much. It's hard for the world to feel dangerous when the player character is set to win at every turn.

[Lauront]

My TMI is I suffer from major depressive disorder and, frankly, most of the messaging in EW sounded like a typical depression meme. Essentially, meaningless platitudes that are insulting to the intelligence and seem like they came from people who have no concept of what enduring suffering and despair is truly like. (The downplaying of the Final Days appears to play into this too as the characters act like surviving an apocalypse is no big deal and why can't everyone just move on from an extinction level event already?) Likewise, as was noted in a thread in Reddit (something I hadn't thought of until I saw others discussing it), if you had a mental illness you were absolutely screwed during the second coming of the Final Days. You'll turn into a blasphemy and your soul will be destroyed. It's only the mentally strong and healthy who'd survive. I doubt that was intentional, but it's just another thing they didn't take into consideration with their 'self help' narrative.

The role quests show even those of strong mental fortitude eventually succumb, but yes those more prone to despair would go first and more readily, so they are screwed. Definitely agree on what was being shown in response to the grieving ancients as meaningless platitudes. Though I would also say the same of a lot of what Alphinaud says.

She's said in interviews she's stepping down from the MSQ and wants to leave it to the "junior writers", so your guess is as good as mine what that's going to mean going into the future.

I know she's said the latter in a tweet (here for those interested), but do we know where she's confirmed it in interview? I've got a similar feeling about it as tokinokanatae.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Bit of a random thing but, yesterday i was looking at my cards and i realized i had the Hermes card so i was interesting in reading it and…apparently Hermes’ staff could be used to commune with Meteion??? Is this mentioned in the story at all and if not why? That seems like such a vital piece of info especially considering that possibly could have been used to help avert the crisis lol.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Bit of a random thing but, yesterday i was looking at my cards and i realized i had the Hermes card so i was interesting in reading it and…apparently Hermes’ staff could be used to commune with Meteion??? Is this mentioned in the story at all and if not why? That seems like such a vital piece of info especially considering that possibly could have been used to help avert the crisis lol.

How though? The whole point was that Meteion's report gave birth to Hermes's sense of nihilism. In fact if he was able to use the staff earlier he would've heard the report earlier and without Emet, Hythlo and Venat's intervention we would've all just been screwed.

[KizuyaKatogami]

How though? The whole point was that Meteion's report gave birth to Hermes's sense of nihilism. In fact if he was able to use the staff earlier he would've heard the report earlier and without Emet, Hythlo and Venat's intervention we would've all just been screwed.

Couple things, 1.I’m curious on how he didn’t get his memories back after Kairos if his staff lets him commune with her, did he just never use it after that? And then 2)Just a spitball but if one of the others was able to get the staff perhaps they’d be able to get more info on Meteion that could help. I’m just mainly curious on something that seems like a really important piece of info is just never mentioned in the story afaik and just left in a card.