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

[Gaido]

I like Endwalker story, and I was enjoying the plot. My personal criticism is only at these points:

1) Structure of plot is very similiar to Shadowbringers. Dungeons and trials are at similiar points, and Dead ends with expansion villian narrator was just the same idea like in Amaurot. If something is so much similiar, it becomes predictable. And this is something what as storyteller you want to avoid.

2) I was dissapointed with idea of Meteion as last boss. When we defeat Zodiark and it turned out that because of vanishing ambient eather world was in fire, to me it was so much better concept to stand against inevitable, nature caused, world ending catastrophe without specific solution. When it came down to killing one girl, for me it was just like "monster of the week" episode.

3) Second thing that I do not like in Meteion and what I do not like in dynamis that there wasn't nothing foreshadowing them in lore. One of many reasons why people dislike Jailer from WoW is that he was introduced at last moment of story that was talled since Warcraft 3, and he is responsible for everything what happened in game since that time. Much the same you can tell about dynamis and Meteion. of course she is much better wrote than Jailer, but for ending of 10 years ark, I would much more appreciate ending that would use plot points from everything what happened since ARR and use them in finale as checkhov's megaflare gun, than some emo girl and new nature force added to game at last moment as one of most important plot point.

If i'm wrong about this point and dynamis and Meteion were presented sometimes between ARR - SHB expansion or at some page of Encyclopedia Eorzea, I will appreciate if someone show it to me.

4) That is more of my wish than a true criticism: I hope that FF XIV will at some point break world record for the longest cutscene (currently hold by MGS4). Ending was good opportunity for that. But I know that many players don't want long cutscenes, so - as I say - it's only my, personal wish.

[Kozh]

Something I neglected to bring up here is that both Arenvald and Fordola were chosen to investigate a tower in 5.5 (I think?). By this point in development, the devs should've already settled on the Blessing being the source of our immunity, and yet, their immunity is still somehow attributed to the echo.

I guess both blessing and echo now protect again tempering (aether corruption). While echo seems more about soul integrity and memory, the blessing give strength boost aside from tempering protection.

[BaconBits]

Not gonna lie, when I read the live letter when they said that Hermes and Meteion characters were based on "social media (like twitter)", that I began to.......question the integrity of the writing team, lets put it that way.

Jesus Christ I was right.

[Theodric]

The whole "keening" plot point still stands out as strange to me given that we're never given any explicit confirmation about exactly what it is, just that it's dynamis-related.

Though something that bugged me even more was the sudden seeming retcon of the Blessing of Light/traveler's ward being specifically intended to protect against a primal's tempering as opposed its more generalized purpose of preventing aetherial corruption that was brought up in Shadowbringers. When that dialogue choice came up in Elpis, my first thought was "Why would I say that, the Echo is what protects against primals."

Yeah, so many aspects of the story and established 'rules' just seem to change on a patch by patch basis. It's genuinely difficult to keep track of things these days - and the cynic in me thinks Hydaelyn's blessing was changed purely as an excuse to keep her influence around somehow after someone on the writing team realised that with the power of the Echo, any other layer of protection was obsolete.

[Lauront]

lol looks like the forums dont like what else the game has to offer too. combat is either braindead or too button bloated, housing is a mess forever, Pvp sucks and apparently needs easyanticheat, new alliance raid is now too easy. lets all just unsub now

Well for me it's more that the game does many things to a passable level (the PVP in particular is now fun but still has some wrinkles), while up to SHB it did a good job with the story, and there isn't exactly an abundance of competitors at the moment, although that landscape's changing a bit. A lot of it is concerns about where the game might end up if certain trends continue, and not so much a point of view that it's already doomed. As for people still being mad about it, 1) new people coming to the thread to offer their thoughts, and 2) new patch which retreaded some of those issues. I'm not mad about it at this stage; just disappointed. I like discussing things, so I do. If the game becomes bad enough that I derive zero enjoyment from it, I'll cancel my sub.

The whole "keening" plot point still stands out as strange to me given that we're never given any explicit confirmation about exactly what it is, just that it's dynamis-related.

Though something that bugged me even more was the sudden seeming retcon of the Blessing of Light/traveler's ward being specifically intended to protect against a primal's tempering as opposed its more generalized purpose of preventing aetherial corruption that was brought up in Shadowbringers. When that dialogue choice came up in Elpis, my first thought was "Why would I say that, the Echo is what protects against primals."

It's also a point Zenos hammers into your head. There's no real excuse for not knowing it and making an error like that. Maybe he hammered it too hard? If it did not suffice, during 5.2, Urianger disambiguates the Echo from the Blessing, and Elidibus confirms that for you.

I sometimes wonder if they were going to go with a Lavos-style villain as the big bad behind everything......then one day Ishikawa was going for a walk in a park and saw a blue bird fly by and an idea suddenly struck her: "wouldn't be a cool idea to make a cute little bird the big baddie?" and just completely derailed the original idea and that's how we got Meteion and why Meteion doesn't feel like she was originally what they had intended.

It's particularly disappointing when they had established things like this in the lore with which they could've worked (I don't mean recycling her, just working with the fact that they have this alien being summoned from who knows where, with a very intriguing text description, particularly the bit about the threads of Creation):

I was initially under the impression that this was going to be the case based on how one npc in particular describes the event.

The worst part is that the SHB description refers to it wresting control of their creation magicks first, and then came the despair, rather than the other way around, so either there is a causal aspect they've not yet revealed, or they were hoping that no one would look too closely at that.

[Nilroreo]

I guess both blessing and echo now protect again tempering (aether corruption). While echo seems more about soul integrity and memory, the blessing give strength boost aside from tempering protection.

I was willing to accept that when Rulakir clarified a few comments later that tempering was an element incorporated into primal summoning only after the sundering. This might've been done in an attempt to retcon Emet's claims of being tempered himself making it easier to just suspend your disbelief and assume both have the ability to protect you... but then Hydaelyn's unending codex entry happened.

Tales of hydaelyn's call and the singular power it was said to bestow-the Echo- have been recorded throughout history. The nature of this power was not wholly understood, and it was often conflated with another of her gifts, the "blessing of light," which ensured one's aether would remain uncorrupted by primal tempering

They address the mix up, then once again single out the blessing as the source of our immunity. Can anyone explain to me why they HAD to be two separate things?

It's particularly disappointing when they had established things like this in the lore with which they could've worked (I don't mean recycling her, just working with the fact that they have this alien being summoned from who knows where, with a very intriguing text description, particularly the bit about the threads of Creation):

Damnit! they blew their Ultima load too early lol!

[Caurcas]

Wait, the blue despair bird and sad man are literally based off the blue bird app. Matsuno's work in XIV died for that. Disgusting.

[Lauront]

I was willing to accept that when Rulakir clarified a few comments later that tempering was an element incorporated into primal summoning only after the sundering. This might've been done in an attempt to retcon Emet's claims of being tempered himself making it easier to just suspend your disbelief and assume both have the ability to protect you... but then Hydaelyn's unending codex entry happened.

I'm just going to have to write off the in-setting author of the codex as a bedazzled fanboi, who's lost all touch with reality, especially given Zenos's research into the Echo. The lore book even states primals of all sorts confer blessings, and hers is quite explicitly similar in function to other primal blessings (have they forgotten SHB or something?)... the only reason I can think that would make sense for them to try (and I stress that word) rewrite it this way is so she could recognise you as a time traveller... but it still doesn't undo the fact that the Echo is why even individuals without a blessing, like Fordola or Arenvald, can withstand a primal without being tempered. So that lore stands.

[Rulakir]

Does Arenvald have the BoL? I don't recall that being addressed and given that Hydaelyn's 'call' goes out to everyone with the Echo, why wouldn't he have it? Even still, neither Zenos or Fordola* have it and they're both immune to tempering.

* I haven't done the role quests, but unless they've retconned it so that she obtained the BoL at the same time she acquired Krile's version of the Echo it should still be the case that she doesn't have it.

Frankly, this just feeds my theory that Venat/Hydaelyn was rewritten at the last minute to be 'good'. I can't shake this feeling that either 1) they went with sUbVeRtInG ePeCtAtIoNs, 2) it's a case of someone at corporate getting their knickers in a twist at Hydaelyn being anything but good, or 3) some combination of the two. Not to mention it's curious that Ishikawa would write Venat to be permanently gone when she doesn't like killing off her characters and uses any opportunity to bring them back. Maybe I'm just off in conspiracy territory, but it's like a "blink twice if this isn't the character you wanted to write" kind of thing. :P I've said it before, but if I didn't know better I wouldn't have guessed Ishikawa wrote EW, it doesn't feel like the spiritual successor of ShB. Given it's the same writer and back-to-back expansions there shouldn't be as many inconsistencies as there are.

The lore book even states primals of all sorts confer blessings, and hers is quite explicitly similar in function to other primal blessings (have they forgotten SHB or something?)...

Given that so much in FFXIV makes more sense if Hydaelyn tempers it makes me wonder if that was their original intention. I figured it wouldn't be the case because it would deprive the player character of free will, but they ended up doing that anyway so it seems like a technicality.

[AmpelioB]

why is this thread still alive?