Endwalker vs shadowbringers story, which did you enjoy more and why? (spoilers)

[Iscah]

Stormblood in particular had several instances where I wish I could've said something like "This is a horrible idea, but if you insist...", but either didn't get a dialogue choice at all or could only offer unwavering support and confidence.

Oh goodness yes. I needed to be able to tell Yugiri that her plan to assassinate Zenos alone was a terrible idea and that's why I was coming along to save her when it went wrong.

[SugarPuff]

I enjoyed EW more but it's just a matter of personal taste. I felt the zones had more diversity, the beast tribes weren't obnoxious like pixies, dwarves and nu mou, and overall the story was more engaging.

There hasn't been an expansion I disliked but Shadowbringers spent a lot of time focused on character development within the scions and poignancy, throughout, and that's not my favorite style of fiction. I'm a fan of classic sci-fi authors, horror, and crime thrillers. Relatively fast paced and/or highly descriptive works, focused much more on outside events than internal conflict. I think that's why I found EW more interesting.

[Rulakir]

I feel the forced perspectives are pretty bad in all the game and I kind of really don't like it... but other games aren't better about it since you either have no personality or your character is completely different from you. I particularily don't like ardbert and would get upset when my character would look sad for him during the 5.x quests.

It was mildly irritating before, such as my WoL essentially being racist against Garleans despite knowing they're not all bad and never being able to express anything but adoration for Minfilia (who I hate), but neither of those things were particularly meaningful. EW was whole other level, especially when it came to Venat and the sundering. They essentially made my character an accomplice to omnicide. I not only wasn't offered a single moment of protest, but they made me BFFs with the person responsible.

[Minarisweet]

It was mildly irritating before, such as my WoL essentially being racist against Garleans despite knowing they're not all bad and never being able to express anything but adoration for Minfilia (who I hate), but neither of those things were particularly meaningful. EW was whole other level, especially when it came to Venat and the sundering. They essentially made my character an accomplice to omnicide. I not only wasn't offered a single moment of protest, but they made me BFFs with the person responsible.

Hmm I get it, I don't think the devs were gonna predict hydaelyn would be such a huge grey area for the community and I find that very very interesting.

[Stepjam]

Personally, I prefer Endwalker overall.

I would readily say that I think Shadowbringers had a tighter storyline. It didn't have any big downtime moments and kept going at a nice pace from start to finish. I don't remember any moments that particularly dragged save maybe the stuff with the mining people (but even that had good pay off with the widower). Endwalker on the other hand was more uneven, it had lower lows than Shadowbringers did.

But it also had higher highs too. Garlemald, Thavnair, and the two last areas to be unlocked all easily entered my top moments in the game. They were all really powerful. And for me that, at least with the acknowledged benefit of recency bias, makes Endwalker better than Shadowbringers for me. I think like ShB more is valid, but yeah EW is number 1 for me right now.

[IdowhatIwant]

I enjoyed EW more but it's just a matter of personal taste. I felt the zones had more diversity, the beast tribes weren't obnoxious like pixies, dwarves and nu mou, and overall the story was more engaging.

There hasn't been an expansion I disliked but Shadowbringers spent a lot of time focused on character development within the scions and poignancy, throughout, and that's not my favorite style of fiction. I'm a fan of classic sci-fi authors, horror, and crime thrillers. Relatively fast paced and/or highly descriptive works, focused much more on outside events than internal conflict. I think that's why I found EW more interesting.

I can agree, which is why when I was told that the last order given to the tempered by Anima before going to the moon was to kill everyone, and I come back from the moon and it was magically resolved already. I was very disappointed. Or when I went to Elpis so they could further develop some characters that were already dead.

[SugarPuff]

I can agree, which is why when I was told that the last order given to the tempered by Anima before going to the moon was to kill everyone, and I come back from the moon and it was magically resolved already. I was very disappointed. Or when I went to Elpis so they could further develop some characters that were already dead.

I liked the Elpis story alright. A lot better than the Thancred and Ryne story, anyway. The biggest problem I had with EW was just that it tried to set up suspense for something that I don't believe would ever happen in FFXIV. So, it wasn't suspenseful. My thoughts were, "well, worst case scenario everything will be "destroyed" but we'll still be able to travel back in time to adventure there" which I'm glad didn't happen. It's a well established franchise, so I suppose I cut it a lot more slack as far as not surprising me and not doing anything too disruptive, than I would other types of fiction.

[MagicalChase]

Stormblood

The true correct answer

[TaleraRistain]

If we're talking about expansions as a whole, it is entirely too soon to make an assessment.

I'd suggest tabling this discussion until the end of the expansion, and then we'll talk.

This. They said the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc would be resolved with 6.0. And it was. But we don't know what further threads are going to come from the events in the expansion so far. Anyone who's done the Studium quests has already seen the hints of what our actions may have caused in the world. Though I imagine that's something that will remain around for some time.

[Xeronia]

I will give it to ShB as I feel Garlemald really got the short stick in EW, sure patch content may help this but I at least expected to meet Nerva Galvus given he was name dropped in ShB patch content and would be at this point if he is alive the rightful heir to Garlemald. I also feel just in general the advertised expansion concept of the Final Days hitting Eorzea was far too little of the main story.