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

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's not too hard to see where you get that impression from. Voicing a contradictory opinion gets you dogpiled by the eight or so people treating these threads as their private discord. It's why they're largely irrelevant as 'feedback threads'.

Ah yes. denouncing peoples opinions as nothing but dogpiling and irrelevance. If im not mistaken, the above quote i posted is of you, dogpiling on peoples opinions and calling people stupid and worthy of being effectively killed. Practice what you preach.

[Rokke]

Having replayed through the entire game on my new Materia character, I'm going with Shadowbringers.

We're 4ish months post EA launch and my biggest issue with EW is the timetravel bit and how it warps the story I've long been attached to. Time travel can be a fun means to explore thinsg we shouldn't have access too but it needs to either be well thought out OR just played up for wacky hijinks. EW gives us an awkward fixed time loop that makes sense when you don't think too hard about it... but the more you do the more it deflates on itself. Having a fixed start/end essentially makes a timeline where two points are drawn on and everything in between is/was an inevitability because we need/needed those 2 events to happen exactly as they do/did. All victories happened because they had to happen, all failures happened because they had to happen.

Venat needed to let Emet through the sundering because Emet needed be unsundered and Emet had to drag Laha and Eli along because the trio needed to get the band back together because Iggy needed to poison the 13th because the allagans needed voidsent because Graha's ancestors needed to inherit royal blood because Graha needed to be locked in the tower because the tower needed to jump to the first because we needed to go to the first to absorb Ardbert because we needed to be 9/14ths to beat Emet because we needed Emet in the lifestream to counter Eli's magic because we needed to seal Eli in the tower because when the world was ending and Zodiark was dead we needed Eli to be used as Tardis fuel to go back in time to meet Venat/Hermes/Emet/Hyth and knock that first domino down.

EW's unintentional (?) big reveal was that life has been on rails like a ride at Disneyland ...and this simultaneously sucks the accomplishment of my wol's past deeds and the fun out of any ongoing multipatch content that deals with the past because both are just falling dominoes. Nothing we do in Pandaemonium really matters and Im worried the 24 man will be equally inconsequential by taking place in the past because the preview image doesn't look like any locale we've been to :c


edit to be more concise after rereading:
SHB is a self contained story with a handful of threads tying it to the past and leaving hooks for the future. It sags a little in the middle and Ranjit greatly overstays his welcome for being a whole nothingburger, but overall its a tidy little story. As an ending, EW inherently would be a bit bloated due to 10 years of stuff to wrap up, but maaaan. Sloppy time travel is such a disappointment and its actually hampered my enjoyment of the expansions sidecontent stories. If nothing else, I hope we're done with time travel for a good while.

[kpxmanifesto]

found it. Like just because people like what they don't means they're lesser human beings.

Lmao, while it's insulting, I'm not sure if 'demonizing' is the word I'd use. Lot's of people who like anime describe themselves as weebs.

[Lyth]

...

The FFXIV subreddit tends not to focus on 'discussion' in general, but when such threads take off, posters also tend to be pretty wary of groups trying to push an agenda. It's also just a larger portion of the playerbase in general, which just makes it harder for small external group to control the discourse. And that's a good thing.

What I find strange is that you seem to treat 'supporting the antagonists' as you put it as being equivalent to having membership to some faction, much like Alliance vs. Horde in Warcraft storywriting. I've really enjoyed many of the major antagonists that FFXIV has put out (less so the minor ones like Valens). I don't need to agree with any of their plans or philosophy to gleefully enjoy how well their dialogue is written, like when Zenos demolishes Jullus using wordplay alone. They're often written in a way that's less safe and more exciting than the protagonists, and that holds true for many works of fiction. Many of the more nuanced ones get eventually turned into protagonists, as was the case with Emet. That's why this 'faction' concept doesn't actually exist outside of what's been artificially created on these forums, and the story writing itself actually goes against it.

To be honest, that's part of the reason why I think that arbitrarily killing off a Scion to satisfy some storywriting quota doesn't 'raise the stakes' in any meaningful way. You wouldn't care about the outcome either way if it didn't feed into that faction thinking. You'd have to be invested in the first place.

I wasn't privy to your lore forums experience when Shadowbringers was active, but I suspect that many of those posters that you've previously feuded with have since moved on. I've encountered earlier posts of yours where you seemed genuinely interested in discussing lore as opposed to pushing an agenda, so it's unfortunate that your prior conflicts ended up pushing you towards such a tribalistic viewpoint.

[Skyborne]

Lmao, while it's insulting, I'm not sure if 'demonizing' is the word I'd use. Lot's of people who like anime describe themselves as weebs.

Meanwhile, I've had to accept that I am some sort of heartless unfeeling low IQ subhuman NPC genocide supporter who doesn't understand anything, including the concept of an abstract concept as a final boss, and am a problematic and bad at morals. I'll trade that for a bodypillow.

[kpxmanifesto]

We're 4ish months post EA launch and my biggest issue with EW is the timetravel bit and how it warps the story I've long been attached to. Time travel can be a fun means to explore thinsg we shouldn't have access too but it needs to either be well thought out OR just played up for wacky hijinks. EW gives us an awkward fixed time loop that makes sense when you don't think too hard about it... but the more you do the more it deflates on itself. Having a fixed start/end essentially makes a timeline where two points are drawn on and everything in between is/was an inevitability because we need/needed those 2 events to happen exactly as they do/did. All victories happened because they had to happen, all failures happened because they had to happen. EW's unintentional (?) big reveal was that life has been on rails like a ride at Disneyland ...and this simultaneously sucks the accomplishment of my wol's past deeds and the fun out of any ongoing multipatch content that deals with the past because both are just falling dominoes. Nothing we do in Pandaemonium really matters and Im worried the 24 man will be equally inconsequential by taking place in the past because the preview image doesn't look like any locale we've been to :c

A story that's on rails like a Disneyland ride is easier to manage, and the fact that SE was unwilling let go of those rails was very disappointing to me. If anything, it's convenient for the writer because they don't have to write additional material about an altered timeline, but it makes the story feel lacking in areas that you mention.

[hynaku]

I liked Shadowbringers way better. Had way more content to it and to me had a better story. Endwalkers story to me just seems to be lacking.

[kpxmanifesto]

Meanwhile, I've had to accept that I am some sort of heartless unfeeling low IQ subhuman NPC genocide supporter who doesn't understand anything, including the concept of an abstract concept as a final boss, and am a problematic and bad at morals. I'll trade that for a bodypillow.

Lmao, anime waifu bodypillows only, no exceptions.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Lmao, anime waifu bodypillows only, no exceptions.

Not even for Garrus Vakarian?

[kpxmanifesto]

Not even for Garrus Vakarian?

Ok, I retract my previous statement. Some exceptions may be made.