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

[anhaato]

Question for the thread;

If you were to take over Ishikawa or Oda's position in the story and rewrite Endwalker to "fix" the story, or an expansion pre-Endwalker, how would you go about it? I'm curious, this isn't even a "well if YOU know so much why don't YOU apply for a job on the msq team!?" type of drag, I just think a lot of people in here have interesting takes on where they would've liked the story to go, and I'd like to hear from anyone who feels like succinctly laying out their do-over plan.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I personally agree with the take on removing Meteion and cutting the fluff. I would've much rather had them go the Eldritch abomination route, a cosmic entity so terrifying and incomprehensible that we don't even fight it in a trial. THAT would've much better embodied the concept of world-ending despair than some bird. It would've been better still if this horror was something that came to be by no world's intentional creation, just came to be naturally by the negative dynamis released at a world's end amassing at some area in the galaxy. Speaking of which, keep it local to our galaxy while they're at it, instead of having to specify that every single world in the UNIVERSE is dead and that we're headed to the end of the UNIVERSE. That particular bit just didn't make sense to me, if it was the center of our galaxy around a supermassive black hole then I might have been like yooooooo astronomy.

But this is all predicated on there being a Garlemald expansion before, with adequate time to foreshadow dynamis to begin with through our escapades in Thavnair during that expansion, as we learn their theory behind akasha.

[Skyborne]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I personally agree with the take on removing Meteion and cutting the fluff. I would've much rather had them go the Eldritch abomination route, a cosmic entity so terrifying and incomprehensible that we don't even fight it in a trial. THAT would've much better embodied the concept of world-ending despair than some bird. It would've been better still if this horror was something that came to be by no world's intentional creation, just came to be naturally by the negative dynamis released at a world's end amassing at some area in the galaxy. Speaking of which, keep it local to our galaxy while they're at it, instead of having to specify that every single world in the UNIVERSE is dead and that we're headed to the end of the UNIVERSE. That particular bit just didn't make sense to me, if it was the center of our galaxy around a supermassive black hole then I might have been like yooooooo astronomy.

But this is all predicated on there being a Garlemald expansion before, with adequate time to foreshadow dynamis to begin with through our escapades in Thavnair during that expansion, as we learn their theory behind akasha.

Yep. Involving the entire universe was pushing things a bit too hard, as was essentially going "all the aliens are dead lol". I suppose the writers just really wanted to nail in super hard the idea of our planet being "the last bastion of hope" and "humans rule, yeah!!!! we're special!!!!". Whole galaxy is still pretty high on the crazy scale and gets the idea across, but not as hard as they went. Especially since in the Studium quests, they supposedly want to travel around space... the idea of them putting in all that work just to find skeletons and graveyards is something.

I suppose if they ever want to introduce some kind of alien threat (as we already stopped the Omicron in the Sigmascape), they'd have to go "uhhh actually Meteion didn't survey ALL the planets, lol".

Of all the things in the story I had a problem with, the birdloli was fairly low on my list, and I can't blame her for anything at all besides her creator's flawed approach allowing her to be corrupted so hard. Agree with the memory wipe being everyone but us if they really have to keep the timeloopmemorywipe (an easy out that allows a writer to do ANYTHING). Having Elpis as ruins that we find or put some work into having them float again due to aetherial balance degradation, and the flashbacks being us as Azem (completely shrouded and masked since trying to hyur-ize every PC would probably not work) was also something I would've liked.

[anhaato]

DISCLAIMER this is mostly me just musing, no need to respond or humor me.

But this is all predicated on there being a Garlemald expansion before, with adequate time to foreshadow dynamis to begin with through our escapades in Thavnair during that expansion, as we learn their theory behind akasha.

I've been thinking deeply about how a Garlemald expansion would have worked. Ishikawa said the final boss would've been Anima, which makes me think that the expansion may have been something like us engaging Garlemald in war on their own home turf, during which Zenos then assassinates Varis and THEN their self destruction begins, and they unveil Anima as the final boss (and being used for something far more nefarious than just traveling to the damn moon). All the while, Radz-at-han would serve as our hideout because of their neutrality with the empire. Keep our presence there private and then travel north to reach mainland Ilsabard. Radz-at-han in this case would be the large city with the marketboard and whatnot, what it SHOULD have been since the beginning because it's supposed to be a prosperous and bustling trade city. All of that said, I think the patch quests would need Elidibus' presence. Upon review I think it is reasonable to think that Elidibus was offed too soon, it would've been cool to get post-Garlemald conclusion patch quests that involve him going fully cray cray jumping back into Zodiark's core so we can fight him THEN for 6.3's finale trial, not as some throwaway trial on the moon. The "oh shit" reaction from the player realizing we just put the Final Days back into motion would've made INSANE lead-up to 7.0 Endwalker.

6.0 zones could be something like Thavnair, Garlemald's capitol (as a zone rather than a hub to express how huge and unsafe it is), the outer mountains (forgot the name), the Eblan Rime, Ghimlyt/Werlyt, and Nhalmasque. There's also possible room to split Thavnair into two zones, or throw Corvos in there (though I'd prefer saving that for later). The end hub would be an area within the capitol that's being reclaimed and rebuilt by the populace. This is just spitballing, the point is it would've opened up the opportunity to show way more of Ilsabard than we get now. Perhaps around level 83 there'd be a trial in Thavnair, maybe Ganesha based on the elephant god statue there? Or the Magus Sisters? Maybe there could even be a subplot about Radz actually being completely shady because of their dealings in death-cheating alchemy, like they could have secret communications with the empire which aided them in developing the Resonants, and they could be leaking our whereabouts to them. The eye motifs everywhere seriously had me suspecting that they were a surveillance state of some sort. So many missed opportunities...

Then we hit 7.0, the real Endwalker. With Thavnair, Garlemald, and Radz-at-han removed from the equation we now have room to throw in 2 zones in the unsundered world. Then we can develop an ACTUAL storyline about us going back to save their star from total destruction and create a better timeline for them, all while we pick up knowledge on Ancient magicks to aid us in our fight to save our own world. I'm thinking Elpis, true Amaurot, and something else I can't think of right now. A trial in the unsundered world would hit SO hard. Also, Sharlayan can be portrayed as an actual bastion of actually astonishing knowledge this time. I'm talking they know about every calamity (Gerun Oracles from 2015, anyone?), they know about the unsundered world, they know about creation magic but don't have the ability to harness it, and so on, because it was given to them by Venat who guided Nyunkrepf as her "prophet" to found the city.

Also, spend AMPLE cutscenes on a look into the past to see how things happened that lead up to the sundering, every bit of moral objectionability from Venat. Make it so that the Final Days turned her self in that timeline into someone stone cold and ruthless, make her nothing but gray, make her a presence you want to defeat, make her blessing feel more like a curse. But at the same time, give us the impression that it was actually a choice she was forced to make, not one she chose out of forcing her beliefs on everyone. She tried everything, and this was what had to happen in her eyes. It's such typical JRPG stuff, I know, but this is a JRPG so I expect the finest of JRPG ungodliness. Have us revive Zodiark from his post-defeat aetherial remains and communicate with him as close as we can get to how he was upon his first summoning, make us realize that he was not created to be a tool of evil but one of protection, and he can offer his protection to aid us in our battle against the Eldritch horror that is the embodiment of despair AND NOT SOME BIRD GIRL. Make Zodiark and Hydaelyn unite to empower us to, with the help of the Ancients we enlisted the help of by timeline-hopping, and any other superpowers, reach the manifestation of our galaxy's dead worlds' despair NOT THE WHOLE UNIVERSE at the center of the galaxy in the face of a supermassive black hole. Hydaelyn's gift of the power to give form to the formless would then be used not to bring our friends back but to give form to this abomination so we can defeat it. Hydaelyn and Zodiark unite for the final hit against this monster, and Zodiark finally dissipates for good, leaving no traces behind. It's then, after the manifestation of despair is finally ended by our combined might, that we challenge to free ourselves from her tempering once and for all. THAT would be the final level 100 (or 99 for JRPG tingz) of 7.0, the grand conclusion of Endwalker. As she fades, she tells us that we passed her test and the fate of the sundered star can be left in the hands of humanity. As much as we resent her for certain actions, we still thank her for all she did to keep our world safe. Then our happy little feel-good ending really does that, it makes us feel good. We actually feel like the world is saved and each of our encounters were meaningful.

Well, this is what I would have liked at least. I was hoping for this to be the story direction when it was announced, but I should've known there was no way they'd cover all of this in a single expansion, not even a large portion of all of this. This is just a very long way for me to illustrate what I would've done if I was in charge of the story direction. Agree or disagree with my vision, that's fine.

Edit: Meteion coming into contact with despair and being corrupted was not a bad idea whatsoever, she just shouldn't have been the final boss. If she could be a level 87 trial (I know trials happen at the second to last level in msq nowadays but Bismarck was level 57 so it's not unprecedented) instead of the final boss, and at that point she'd already have carried out her most important purpose of telling us what's happening in planets beyond our own and why there's so much destructive dynamis about.