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

[SpectrePhantasia]

After all, what happens after you save the whole universe? We need something exponentially bigger, apparently.

This is another reason why Ultima Thule and just the way Endwalker handled the other stars was so abyssmal. All in ONE area of an expansion (two if you count elpis) we not only learn about the existence of numerous other stars besides the Dragonstar and Omega's world (things that had so much mysticism to them), but that they all fell to despair and died, with no larger explanation of their cultures, values, or anything but extremely vague nothing descriptions of 'enlightenment' or 'perfection' while of course never expounding upon what any of these things mean in practice because we are a story carried by themes not sense.

I thought that ship in the trailer of Endwalker was taking us to the moon, but no instead we are teleported there through our Garlean... Moon Teleporter that exists for some reason? And the actual ship is used to traverse the known universe in a matter of what, hours?

All they managed to do in pursuit of this astronomical scale was make their universe feel so incredibly small. In addition, making the source of the Final Days that is set to doom, not just the planet now, but the universe, also happen to be from the star we are from, it makes it seem like the 'plot star.' These are all things that could have been avoided with payoff just as good if the scale had been reduced. If this big ship plot point was used to settle on the moon, and if the actual cause of the Final Days was from some foreign force, or a being within the star itself, as initially described. Maybe then Mare Lamentorum wouldn't have felt like such an afterthought. It's like they're terrified of showing the climactic zone of an expansion in trailers or something and just have to one-up it. No, not the moon, the dead zone of the whole universe!

[Lauront]

That was my issue with it as well upon arrival there, that inadvertent shrinking down of their entire universe and treating various alien stars in a very shallow, unsatisfactory manner.

[anhaato]

I don't think a huge overhaul would even be necessary and I'm pretty sure they've dipped a pinky toe into this kind of water before. All they have to do is just mix it up a little and get a little more subtle than not at all. Something they could do, for example, is take two dungeons and put them in a different unlock order unlock based on your actions. You still have to do them, and the plot still converges at the same place eventually. If my character is, say, a renegade, maybe I'd get dungeon #2 first. A paragon, #1, with different sassy comments from whatever scions might be along for the rides. Any concerns that one dungeon would be less popular than the other could be mitigated via the Trust system, and they can always stick a big fat warning up front saying 'the choice you are about to make will effect which dungeon you play first, are you sure.' And New Game+ could be used to run through the other version. It's so obvious an option I can't see them NOT doing something like that eventually, and is even if it is still a railroad it feels a little more like it was my choice of one.

Yeah I'm sure they could do story changes like that, but I'm thinking more about the open world exploratory stuff. The zones in 1.0 were all connected with no loading zones, but they had to add loading tunnels because the software (and most hardware people were playing it on back then) couldn't handle having everything loaded in. I think with modern technology they could pull it off, but it would take a fair bit of work to reintroduce the ability to walk across a bridge between Limsa and Lower La Noscea. And that's to say nothing about adding in details to incentivize exploration. Treasure, secret mini bosses, overworld dungeons, and so on. Again, 1.0 tried having all of that but it just didn't work, but I think they could pull it off now.

[Ishe-P]

Yes, Ultima Thule runs on pure spectacle. It's fun while doing it, but like a lot of Endwalker's story it falls apart quickly on closer inspection. We certainly didn't need it this early in the expansion, but I think this is well-trod ground at this point and I'm not offering anything new there.

This might risk a controversial point of view but I think that the 'In from the Cold' quest is S-class story telling with regards to the unknown soldier theme, although I'm not including the whole motive behind the swap that occurred a few cutscenes before in my assessment. Playing that solo duty as an Unknown Soldier to me was incredibly moving and the kind of subtlety we need, only because it spoke to something way bigger than a little video game with quests in it (edit to include: without going crazy with this End of Days melodramatic crap). I was profoundly moved at the end of that duty, and I think the game needs to do more of that. I honestly can't think of a time where that's been done in gaming before. Obviously I still think about it to this day.

[Theodric]

Yeah, they're clearly prioritising the shards over completely unique worlds and civilisations. I liked ShB but Norvrandt wasn't really 'alien' in the same way going to another world would ordinarily be. Imagine if it were instead closer to the likes of Morrowind from the Elder Scrolls series?

It's hard to be excited about going to the other shards when everything just seems to end up being written in such a way as to dismantle any grit and consequences so that every nation becomes an extension of Alphinaud's misguided will.

I just can't fathom why they decided to take us to the edge of the universe itself when that should have been something limited to the game's actual finale.

[Ritsuka-55]

A thing I never liked either is how lately they go out of their way to write lore justifications for gameplay mechanics, it's a game have some Ludonarrative dissonance, it isn't a big deal, but welp whatever.

[PawPaw]

This might risk a controversial point of view but I think that the 'In from the Cold' quest is S-class story telling with regards to the unknown soldier theme, although I'm not including the whole motive behind the swap that occurred a few cutscenes before in my assessment. Playing that solo duty as an Unknown Soldier to me was incredibly moving and the kind of subtlety we need, only because it spoke to something way bigger than a little video game with quests in it (edit to include: without going crazy with this End of Days melodramatic crap). I was profoundly moved at the end of that duty, and I think the game needs to do more of that. I honestly can't think of a time where that's been done in gaming before. Obviously I still think about it to this day.

I thought it was an amazing duty. It was ballsy and made me feel uncomfortable and I'd wager that that was their intention in designing it, so it worked well for me. However, having it lead to absolutely nothing in terms of consequences yet again made it fall flat in the end. Imagine having an actual reason to render all my hate and rage unto Zenos, instead of having him just being a mild annoyance once more. Such a wasted moment and a wasted character.

[Rulakir]

Endwalker's story will not stand the test of time and I'm glad the Ascian arc has more or less been completed. I would much rather be some goofy adventurer running around doing small, contained stories that may or may not build into a larger arc later.

I disagree only because I became hugely invested in the story of the Ancients. Additionally, the end of their arc was the worst case scenario for me so I didn't come away from EW feeling good, in fact, I'm still quite sad about it (moreso than salty). As such, I can't be excited about new adventures, especially because they rushed to be done with not only my favorite characters but the very foundation of the world's lore.

I would've loved the idea prior to ShB. I hated being a war mascot and then when I heard about Azem's adventures I thought, wow, I wish the WoL had that much fun. This isn't to say I enjoyed traipsing about the universe, I did not. However, they discarded some of the most compelling characters and story arcs for something that I don't have much faith in both because of how they mishandled the material they had and my absolute boredom of the Scions.

If my decisions don't matter, it's no longer my adventure and just some adventurer someone else wrote for me. It's not very interesting when viewed like that.

Agreed with this. The lack of diverse dialog options is a complaint even among people who liked/disliked different things in the game. You're forced to play the WoL the way the writers imagine it, which means your character is going to love all the characters they think you should.

Yeah, they're clearly prioritising the shards over completely unique worlds and civilisations.

I don't understand the point when they want to be done with the Ancients. I don't care about the shards for the sake of just going somewhere new, we can do that on Etheirys, I care about how they play into the lore of the Ascians and the sundering. Plus, I'm really not interested in meeting more Ardberts unless we're spending the next 10 years collecting the pieces of our soul. I am fully on board with #UnsunderedAzem.

[Lauront]

I don't understand the point when they want to be done with the Ancients. I don't care about the shards for the sake of just going somewhere new, we can do that on Etheirys, I care about how they play into the lore of the Ascians and the sundering. Plus, I'm really not interested in meeting more Ardberts unless we're spending the next 10 years collecting the pieces of our soul. I am fully on board with #UnsunderedAzem.

I'll sign up to that and even buy the merch for it.

[Cach]

I'm really not interested in meeting more Ardberts unless we're spending the next 10 years collecting the pieces of our soul. I am fully on board with #UnsunderedAzem.

Isn't the most prevalent fan theory that the spooky ghost from 6.1 is a corrupted/evil fragment of Azem? I don't know if that's better or worse than going through Emet's laundry list verbatim.