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

[SeverianLyonesse]

Each to their own, I liked both the Ascians and the Garleans back in early days of ARR on the basis that their antics were a breath of fresh air to the stuffy sophistry that the game likes to pass off as political intrigue. My biggest regret is falling for the trap of believing that the game's style and aesthetics would give way to something as nuanced as Matsuno's work in the form of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics.

I don't think that the introduction of the Ancients was a mistake. I was already losing interest in the story due to the caricature made of the Garleans in Stormblood. Then the story decided to treat the Ascians with dignity throughout Shadowbringers...only to then treat them with contempt as of Endwalker.

There was never any reason we could not have had an expansion focused on Garlemald and an expansion focused on the Ancients. The development team simply decided they don't care about anything but the Scions for whatever reason.

The Garlemald story itself was pretty solid. I just think it deserved to have a full expansion exploring beyond that arc and filling out the empire more.

The Ascian arc was, now that you mention, awful. Whatever depth Amaurot had given the Ascians was just...sundered by Endwalker.

Also, I gotta sneak in disappointment at the Myths of the Realm lore. We have spent a ten year story arc deconstructing the relationship between popular ideology and deities, shown that primals are created by faith of all forms and that gods effectively do not exist as anything but man-made constructs. But now suddenly none of that matters and surprise gods do exist. It undermines some of FFXIV's core themes, not to mention trivializes the entire Hydaelyn arc wherein we effectively killed the supreme god-figures of Etheirys.