Quote Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus View Post
I actually liked the lore introduced/retconned in Shadowbringers. It made me wish that had been the plan from the start
I've always liked them, and particularly Elidibus and Lahabrea, to the point I would probably have dropped this game in their absence because of how lacklustre I otherwise found ARR, but I'll agree with the sentiment that it would've been good if there was a consistent thread throughout their writing, as it would've avoided a lot of the bizarre writing around tempering to explain away Lahabrea and Nabriales's zeal, and yielded a better experience overall.

The only thing that it really "ruined" in my estimation was that by firmly tying the Calamities to the Ascians' goals, it retroactively meant that they are SO bad at planning that they could only manage 1 Rejoining every several thousand years, and even then, they screwed up at least 1 of those attempts.
To be fair, that kind of thing happening to the entire world was a very novel state of affairs (particularly with the Void), and they do require the Source to recover from them so it can be primed for the next one. I don't think the writers did a good job covering off this element, especially as they wanted to hasten the pace as of the 7th, but they never explain why.