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

[anhaato]

In my maximalist fantasy for this game's storyline, we would've taken an expansion to cover Ala Mhigo and get a city state for it, then Doma, then the First, then Garlemald and Thavnair, and finally everything in Endwalker. I realize of course that by this time we would still be stuck in the same storyline, but if every episode is great then who cares? And I can tell you, selling a conclusion to a 15 year storyline is much more interesting than a 10-11 year one. Ala Mhigo would've gotten its chance to matter in the story and we'd have a city state for it, same with Doma as well as us getting a greater window into the Far East as opposed to just how tiny it feels now. And being there to have a hand in the true downfall of Garlemald would've been incredible! It also would've made us understand what exactly Zenos is aside from an OP enemy who's also part-Ascian. Why was Elidibus weak enough to his "echo" to give him his body back as soon as he showed up? Why is he a reaper now? Why was he having dreams of the Final Days? Being related to Emet is not a good enough answer to all of this. While I did come around to him at the end of 6.0 because of just how absurd in a good way it was for him to pop in out of nowhere, it would've been much better if that came after truly learning about him.

[FrightfulNight]

Would be nice to actually explore Ilsabard and deal with Garlemald in a way that isn't "lmao not my problem just move on sweeties, now you are part of the glorious global citizen Alliance and everything is great". However, it's pretty early to tell until 6.1 actually releases in a couple weeks. And even then, we may have to wait another 4+ months to see how things are going. My hopes aren't too high, considering how hard they want to just bury anything old and just immediately beat this "new adventure! new adventure! avenchur!" horse. While having afterschool club meetings and pizza parties with the Scions, of course.


Still 99% sure we will get some sort of Tales of the End where Venat is shown saving Amaurotine schoolchildren from a burning building or something. P-please like her... please...

Like i said, i can only hope it was moved to make the situation more interesting in Ilsabard, which it certainly is right now, but they need to strike while the iron is hot. Hopefully they can see that there are a lot of players who want to go to Ilsbabard and have the clouds remove and that there are a lot of players who think that the storyline in EW rushed a lot of long running plotpoints and stumbled at the end so they take the time to take a step back and do a better job of wrapping up some of theses stories in Ilsabard. If it is Meracydia or anywhere else however and we ignore the situation in Ilsabard to just go off and AdVeNtUrE and leave them to pick up the scraps after the final days then I may just unsubscribe (at least until Ilsabard) because that gives me little hope for a future story arch that they will just end it when ever they get tired of it or think what players want.

[Lauront]

My personal preference for the future at this point is to go explore the former imperial territories and perhaps going about restoring fallen monarchies/heirs to their respective thrones.

Agreed. I'd also like to see Garlemald transition to something like Archades.

[FrightfulNight]

Yeah, I was bitterly disappointed by the lack of an authentic Garlean expansion. We've been following them in the story since the days of ARR and many people liked what they brought to the table so to have them thrown under the bus struck me as very questionable.

It also makes me second guess the feedback being gathered and sent to the development team. Where are they getting it from? What voices are they listening to and which are they ignoring?

Where are our community representatives and why aren't they engaging with the community here, on the game's official site? I guess they must be busy changing diapers or some such...

With how much it was being built up in both Stormblood and Shadowbringers, with all the cutscenes and even the solo duty there it felt like it was building for an expansion set there for 4 years and I was anticipating it the whole time getting more exited only for it to be one mostly ruined zone. It felt like Chekhov's Gun with multiple people calling attention to it on the wall and such a big deal being made out of it but when it comes time to set it off it is just one of those fake guns you see Joker use in the old Batman Cartoons with a flag that says bam coming out except here it would say Gotcha, now enjoy the stupid moon bunnies instead.

[Theodric]

With how much it was being built up in both Stormblood and Shadowbringers, with all the cutscenes and even the solo duty there it felt like it was building for an expansion set there for 4 years and I was anticipating it the whole time getting more exited only for it to be one mostly ruined zone. It felt like Chekhov's Gun with multiple people calling attention to it on the wall and such a big deal being made out of it but when it comes time to set it off it is just one of those fake guns you see Joker use in the old Batman Cartoons with a flag that says bam coming out except here it would say Gotcha, now enjoy the stupid moon bunnies instead.

Yeah. I'm still annoyed that nothing of note came of Regula's sacrifice in Azys Lla. Why did it take until Endwalker for the Scions to realise that the situation with Garlemald wasn't black and white and that there were plenty of good people set to be screwed over if it all fell apart when a high ranking soldier selflessly took an attack meant for a child right in front of the Scions? To my knowledge, they never mentioned it again and the story decided to present the likes of Valens and Zenos front and centre instead from that point onwards.

[PawPaw]

Still 99% sure we will get some sort of Tales of the End where Venat is shown saving Amaurotine schoolchildren from a burning building or something. P-please like her... please...

I was joking about this same thing with a friend earlier but I feel as though it's guaranteed that we're going to get some sort of attempt at a retcon to convince the people who dislike her her to like her. I can smell it.

[KageTokage]

I'm honestly not sure they'll even bother with something like that because I've already noticed troublingly large amounts of people just rolling over and accepting what Yoshi claimed was "intended" by the writing.

He said he didn't expect people to "think so deeply" about the story, and many evidently don't if they're willing to just accept claims like "Ancient culture was scary" or "The Ancients were doomed to meet the same fate as the Plenty" without noticing/considering the myriad ways the narrative suggests otherwise or worse, making reaches to try to justify those claims.

At the end of the day, the people voicing discontent are still the minority even if there was enough of them to actually be noticed.

[Rulakir]

Regarding Zenos, my suspicion is Emet-Selch may have simply removed him from the equation if he posed a threat to their plans, if Black Rose itself did not, since he'd have little to keep him on the First. On the other hand, we saw how Zenos's motivation drained without the WoL as a sparring partner, so it's not inconceivable that, depending on the order of events, something similar happened in the 8UC, as well.

I can't help but feel Zenos got the shaft in the same way that Garlemald and the Ancients did. There were a lot of aspects about him that led to nothing or were hand waved away in the Q&A LL. It seems like for whatever reason they wanted to be done with all of the previous storytelling and move onto something new and it had better be worth it.

[FrightfulNight]

Yeah. I'm still annoyed that nothing of note came of Regula's sacrifice in Azys Lla. Why did it take until Endwalker for the Scions to realise that the situation with Garlemald wasn't black and white and that there were plenty of good people set to be screwed over if it all fell apart when a high ranking soldier selflessly took an attack meant for a child right in front of the Scions? To my knowledge, they never mentioned it again and the story decided to present the likes of Valens and Zenos front and centre instead from that point onwards.

It always did feel weird that they showed the more sympathetic honorable Garleans like Gaius and Regula first before showing the more unhinged ones like Valens and Zenos the closer we got to Garlemald proper before switching back to EW, especially since it seems the original intent was the opposite if i recall people talking about how the story would have gone. Just another way it felt rushed and could have used the original 6.0 plan to maybe show more of the other side before reaching the capitol, maybe even visit Rhitania's (i hope i am pronouncing that correctly) nation to see some where life either did not change much or benefitted. Maybe see some of the provinces where some of the citizens fled during the civil war like that one soldier who mentioned he was able to see his family safely to before the fighting got worse. maybe you also run into the wife of that one soldier you killed while acquiring the magiteck reaper in ARR who he said was with child at the time. Then after this buildup you go to the Capitol to help. As it stand right now going from Valens in ShB to going to the Capitol feels like such a tonal whiplash, it could have gradually built to that if they had a Garlean Focused expansion.

Then after this version of 6.0 when you have the actual world ending threat in 7.0 it can feel like the whole world is both in danger and coming together by seeing the entire three continents being effected by the final days but all the factions are working together to fight it back. Like I said I can only hope they salvage this storyline with an actual Ilsabard expansion.

[Brinne]

He said he didn't expect people to "think so deeply" about the story, and many evidently don't if they're willing to just accept claims like "Ancient culture was scary" or "The Ancients were doomed to meet the same fate as the Plenty" without noticing/considering the myriad ways the narrative suggests otherwise or worse, making reaches to try to justify those claims.

Once again, "I don't hate Endwalker, but I hate what Endwalker brings out in people."