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

[Lauront]

If I've played through a story in which a single character has managed to make decisions terrible enough to ruin the entire narrative to this point for me, then I am most certainly going to give criticism where criticism is due. EW has a lot of problems from start to finish, but my point of no return is and will always be Venat and her characterization and decisions. And I'm not going to shy away from saying that.

Indeed. Putting that aside, it's at worst somewhat goofy, rushed and a bit messy, a bit like 5.3 in parts, but not to a point of no return, as you put it.

[Caurcas]

Enough to beat that dead horse for a couple hundred of pages. All the blood is out of this vein, go tap another one.

[CrownySuccubus]

Think the argument of fair goes out the window when she refused to be fair and tell her people what was going on but to each their own. I simply point out the hypocrisy of her actions and the heavy bias that revolves around her.

Well one of the biggest issues is the time loop, and how they made use of it, which ties directly to Elpis and her decisions. It's difficult to ignore her role in events when she's central to them, but at the same time, you have other issues, like how dynamis and Meteion were introduced, which felt rushed.

Exactly this. Dislike for Venat's choice to not tell anyone can be more productively focused on the awful Time Loop. Venat chooses not to tell people because she knows Fandaniel will be instrumental in developing the plan to summon Zodiark. She chooses to sunder the world because she knows the people of the future (namely you) will be able to rise up and defeat Meteion, instead of trying to go back to their "perfect world" where they forget sorrow or sadness or whatever.

The entire Elpis storyline falls apart because you can see the iron hand of the writers forcing it to fit into the Time Loop.

Enough to beat that dead horse for a couple hundred of pages. All the blood is out of this vein, go tap another one.

I mean, criticism of the story is the entire point of this topic.

If that feels like a dead horse to you, you can always go to the many, many other topics either here or on reddit that praise it. There is no reason for you to be here and torture yourself just because other people dare to discuss a different opinion.

[SpectrePhantasia]

Emet's individual characterization was basically perfect (asides from him jumping on board the Venat apologism train in his last scene, unfortunately), and perfectly consistent with what we got in Shadowbringers

When Emet-selch was like "gg well played" to Venat in Ultima Thule I was actually about to become the Joker. My man, my beautiful fellow, she threw you into a MEAT GRINDER for 12,000 YEARS where you were miserable and lonely and that is all you have to say about it?! You staked your whole life upon an ideal that was doomed to fail because this woman did not trust you with vital information!! I would not be coy with theater speechcraft, the only proper thing to say is "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

[Skyborne]

Well, this was a surprise. Quite a long comment thread on Reddit criticizing EW with awards and upvotes!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mment/i3gbmig/

You linked the forbidden site! The brigades shall begin!

Anyway, still eternally sad that the prevailing opinion of a potential Garlemald expansion is that it'd be bad because it'd be 'Stormblood 2.0'. Being able to actually take part in the Garlemald conclusion instead of it just being dumped off-screen would have been nice. Also, Zenos doing something besides waddling around aimlessly, sitting on his throne, or trying on his new outfits (Dissidia outfit with the white coat obtainable when?).

[CrownySuccubus]

When Emet-selch was like "gg well played" to Venat in Ultima Thule I was actually about to become the Joker. My man, my beautiful fellow, she threw you into a MEAT GRINDER for 12,000 YEARS where you were miserable and lonely and that is all you have to say about it?! You staked your whole life upon an ideal that was doomed to fail because this woman did not trust you with vital information!! I would not be coy with theater speechcraft, the only proper thing to say is "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Lazy writing, basically.

We weren't supposed to think of that Emet-Selch as the one who committed 12,000 years of atrocities out of despair and loneliness. That was the same Emet-Selch we saw on Elpis with the memories of the one we defeated in ShB injected into his brain without any of the trauma.

Like I said, it's just lazy writing for turn-your-brain-off fanservice.

[Caurcas]

I mean, criticism of the story is the entire point of this topic.

If that feels like a dead horse to you, you can always go to the many, many other topics either here or on reddit that praise it. There is no reason for you to be here and torture yourself just because other people dare to discuss a different opinion.

I enjoy story discussion, however when every story discussion turns into pro venat vs anti venat and overlooks the myriad of other issues with the story it gets a bit annoying. I find the ancients (including Venat!) detrimental to the plot as a whole. I find the tribalism of the issue has hampered discussion since EW launched.

[tokinokanatae]

When Emet-selch was like "gg well played" to Venat in Ultima Thule I was actually about to become the Joker. My man, my beautiful fellow, she threw you into a MEAT GRINDER for 12,000 YEARS where you were miserable and lonely and that is all you have to say about it?! You staked your whole life upon an ideal that was doomed to fail because this woman did not trust you with vital information!! I would not be coy with theater speechcraft, the only proper thing to say is "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

It's also important to note that both Emet-Selch and Venat were alive after the Sundering. At any point during that 12,000 year time frame she could have pulled him aside and explained her motivations (and Meteion) to him. Depending on when she did it, I doubt it would have changed anything--as I'm sure Emet-Selch's reaction would have been to redouble his efforts to bring back his people so that they could meet the doom poised over their world and resolve it instead of trusting in the Sundered to do it--but at least it would have been an actual gesture of trust on Venat's behalf.

[CrownySuccubus]

I enjoy story discussion, however when every story discussion turns into pro venat vs anti venat and overlooks the myriad of other issues with the story it gets a bit annoying. I find the ancients (including Venat!) detrimental to the plot as a whole. I find the tribalism of the issue has hampered discussion since EW launched.

If this is happening over and over, then that means there's a genuine problem with the story.

Like I said, I've been playing a lot of Devil's Advocate in this thread for Venat, but I'm not blind to the fact that a lot of what's wrong with the story is directly tied to her and the plot's obsession with making her right. Even my main gripe with the story (The amounts of suffering fetishism, to the point of making laughable plot points like an advanced Alien race that kills themselves because of "perfection") only exists because the writers need to claim Venat was "right".

[Caurcas]

If this is happening over and over, then that means there's a genuine problem with the story.

Like I said, I've been playing a lot of Devil's Advocate in this thread for Venat, but I'm not blind to the fact that a lot of what's wrong with the story is directly tied to her and the plot's obsession with making her right. Even my main gripe with the story (The amounts of suffering fetishism, to the point of making laughable plot points like an advanced Alien race that kills themselves because of "perfection") only exists because the writers need to claim Venat was "right".

And I agree there are issues with the writing. XIV has a good world, but has struggled with narrative for awhile. Far before EW.