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

[DevonEllwood]

People mentioning that Endwalker started undoing their interest in the story, and 5.3 was where it started doing that for me. I had my expectations set pretty low and I still somehow managed to be disappointed.

Also mentioned was the voice actors for the 24 man raid and yeah, they sound weirdly familiar. I thought the third one sounded like Titania and the last boss sounded like Hermes and Hades.

For future characters I want someone abrasive, foul mouthed bad guy/gal (but not a Bad Guy) that the "good guys" have no choice but to work with.

Endwalker kind of contradicts Shadowbringers in humanizing the ancients. Which is baffling, it was just last expansion.

On Fandaniel fighting the WoL, it wouldn't matter if he killed them, he in fact could have done more damage. Not only would the one thing standing between him and the planet's destruction be gone, but he could take Zodiark for a joy ride and continue that destruction. Would have made Zenos angy to have his BFF dead resulting in Fandaniel being killed anyway. Would have been an interesting hypothetical for Zenos to pick up where the WoL left off and be the savior of the planet.

I don't feel Hades acted any different in Elpis than in Shadowbringers. There's two short stories where he acted just like that, it's just in the game now. He's still a butthole.

For the Elpis butterfly, " you can turn butterflies into clothes, just like that?" option doesn't seem to imply the character was horrified to me, but more suprised...it was that easy. I thought that was what it was about. Not that my character would be horrified by it? That makes no sense.

I don't think the "primals don't actually temper people" bit wasn't an excuse to say Hades wasn't tempered, I think it was more an excuse to have everyone around Hydaelyn not be tempered. It's just a traveler's ward yo

Now for the Venat Vomit.
Did Venat want to protect mankind or all life? If she wanted to protect all life then why did she want to abandon the planet to its fate as her main plan? It was Sharlyan's idea to rescue as many species as possible, not hers. Her decisions make no sense if she wanted to protect all life. She literally did nothing as Meteion frolicked across the universe killing even more things before the sundering.

If Venat was not Hydaelen and if she did not directly benefit the player character, anyone could see her as an antagonist. I sometimes see people bring up mental wellness with Hermes, but never with Venat. She seems just as equally unwell as him. That trial with her was kind of unsettling. I felt the music was weirdly aggressive, the walls of light attack didn't make any sense . Why would she use that? That's what almost ended the first. Bust her expression caught me off guard the most. She looked completely cold and unemotional. There was no expression, no sense of what Venat used to be in there. I went into Endwalker thinking the developers would never make Hydaelen bad guy, yet, between what Brinne said about the connections between Venat and Hermes and Rulakir mentioning that Ishikawa only kills off side characters or villains...and we have Hydaelen dying off completely. Either she was originally written as a villain or she's sneaking that in. Yoshida's confusion would make more sense.

I honestly would love for a character in game to call Venat/hydaelen on her BS, but I honestly don't think that will ever happen. The average character isn't even aware of what happened and probably wouldn't care.It would probably have to take someone existing pre-sundering and still alive to do that.

As for why the thread still exists, it's because people still care. I've been playing since 2013 and the ancient reveal felt like complete payoff after all those years. Endwalker felt like it completely undid it.I am still on the copium though and still feel like next expansion might be a bit better. I'm still not done with the patch though I completely forgot about it for a while.