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

[Lauront]

I don't like heavy-handed theming of the sort EW resorted to in the first place. It's not a writing style I've ever enjoyed, and I didn't particularly like it cropping up in SHB, either, even if it was less egregious than in EW - it just had a more interesting story to tell me about characters I found more interesting from the outset. I much prefer a focus on world-building and "here is a fantasy world with lots of vying factions and competing viewpoints... go forth and find that which you enjoy most." If I want a philosophy lesson, this game is about the last place I am going to go looking for one, especially after EW.

[Tobias_Azuryon]

I definitely want a real villain next expac. All the stuff with Emet was pretty well handled imo, including here where I thought they'd botch it.

Meteion wasn't bad as a whole "fighting against your own despair" as a concept with Zenos tacked on kind of.

I want a real bad guy next expansion though. No more "This guy is actually really sad" or "This guy is empathetic" or something.

Just give me someone to love to hate. Someone intelligent. Scheming even. Someone who isn't going to get any chance at redemption at the end. I don't care how many people think it's cringey or not. Hell have us going against an actual opposing party of Scion esque enemies. I even liked Lyon and them in Bozja even if they tried to make them sort of sympathetic at points. I just don't want another "sad person gets beat up but they're sad so it's okay" plot.

[YukikoKurosawa]

You know the WoL really shouldn't have brought their friends back. They died, don't try to undo that, forge ahead.

But then twitter would be upset and we can't have that. Need these characters alive so twitter keeps making fanart of them which is free advertisement. Can't have consequences in our story anymore. We saw what happens when a character gets killed off. You don't see anyone making Ysale fanart these days, for example. So now we only kill off side characters nobody cares about.

[Theodric]

I don't like heavy-handed theming of the sort EW resorted to in the first place. It's not a writing style I've ever enjoyed, and I didn't particularly like it cropping up in SHB, either, even if it was less egregious than in EW - it just had a more interesting story to tell me about characters I found more interesting from the outset. I much prefer a focus on world-building and "here is a fantasy world with lots of vying factions and competing viewpoints... go forth and find that which you enjoy most." If I want a philosophy lesson, this game is about the last place I am going to go looking for one, especially after EW.

Nicely put.

I'd also note that there's a big difference between presenting a particular character or faction and making an attempt at forcing the player to agree with and accept everything that a particular character or faction decides to do.

Furthermore, someone can agree with a message in theory but find it heavy handed and ill-fitting for the context in which it is exploited. One big issue with modern takes with fantasy settings is assuming that everybody wants everything to be viewed through a very biased modern day lens of black and white morality where certain concepts are concerned. I'd much prefer to be left to draw my own conclusions. For example, I found myself drawn to the Night Elves and Blood Elves back when I played World of Warcraft. I liked their aesthetic, culture and societal goals. The same can be said of various non-playable entities such as the Naga. I didn't need the ability to side with them to have them be a part of the ongoing story that I looked forward to.

Destroying the Ancients and Garleans, then, simply stripped away something I enjoyed simmering in the background. I want more agendas and factions to persist that don't just perfectly align with the dull goals of the protagonists.

[CrownySuccubus]

I much prefer a focus on world-building and "here is a fantasy world with lots of vying factions and competing viewpoints... go forth and find that which you enjoy most."

That can be fine, but it also kinda leads to the characters and stories feeling stagnant -- particularly in an MMO.

A perfect example is ESO. There's a three-way war for the throne going on, and the plot tries to sell that each of the competing monarchs have their positives and negatives, but this in turn basically leads to all three being generically "nice" to the player. And when you do run into "bad" elements in the factions, they're usually rogues -- such as the racist xenophobes in the Aldmeri Dominion going behind the queen's back, the slave-owning Dark Elves that are breaking the Ebonheart Pact, and a bunch of war criminals of the Daggerfall Covenant. All of which are treated as unambiguously evil, but not "true members" of the faction.

Furthermore, someone can agree with a message in theory but find it heavy handed and ill-fitting for the context in which it is exploited.

That's why I'd rather they learn from their mistakes and be better writers, than simply be cowards and not try. If the problem is the execution, and not the concept, then the execution can be improved.

[Lauront]

If TES had better combat, I would probably be playing that... (possibly SWTOR for the ability to play a Sith but I am not that fond of the broader SW universe... Warhammer or Warhammer 40k would probably be better to me), so I am keeping an eye on MMOs that are similar in their focus but are better in the combat department, and steering well clear of any MMO with heavy top-down "theming" in a singular story arc. Pantheon being an example of one which I hope actually sees it to release and does well.

I'll make a further point on theming, even if it's not what I seek in an MMO - of course I will prefer theming if it aligns to views I hold, or at least it makes a good attempt at presenting the theme in question in the event that I don't necessarily agree with it, but then I don't play these games with the express purpose of bragging about how deep they are. That doesn't even cross my mind as an intention. I play them for a story I enjoy, and what I like about lore is connecting dots about areas of the lore which interest me, and character motivations. In EW the theming is so heavy-handed and the theme in question is so in conflict with my own views, and I'll go as far to say, abhorrent to me, that I find it difficult to enjoy it at all.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Perhaps, crazy take here, perhaps not having a clear, coherent planned outline for the story from the very beginning (along with changing writers multiple times) was not a good idea and has led to this contradictory, schizophrenic writing. Maybe just having a single writer who planned everything out from the beginning and just stuck with it would've led to a much better plot. Rather than changing both the intention for the plot and the writers behind it multiple times, along with having writers who are influenced by social media and care too much about appeasment and fanservice than the integrity of their writing.

Then again if they stuck with ARR's story direction this would've been significantly worse. I'd much rather what we have now than saturday-morning cartoon writing that ARR was and the story would've continued to be had the writers stuck with the original direction back then.

[CrownySuccubus]

I'll make a further point on theming, even if it's not what I seek in an MMO - of course I will prefer theming if it aligns to views I hold, or at least it makes a good attempt at presenting the theme in question in the event that I don't necessarily agree with it, but then I don't play these games with the express purpose of bragging about how deep they are. That doesn't even cross my mind as an intention. I play them for a story I enjoy. In EW the theming is so heavy-handed and the theme in question is so in conflict with my own views, and I'll go as far to say, abhorrent to me, that I find it difficult to enjoy it at all.

That's kind of my point. Everybody loves themes and nuance and character depth when it's within their values, and wishes they weren't there at all when they don't.

That's just human nature, and the people in this thread happen to be on the losing side of it for Endwalker.

[Lauront]

That's kind of my point. Everybody loves themes and nuance and character depth when it's within their values, and wishes they weren't there at all when they don't.

That's just human nature, and the people in this thread happen to be on the losing side of it for Endwalker.

Sure but as I said, I don't play the game for this purpose:

They want their stories to be deep and relevant so they can brag about how sophisticated they are for enjoying it.

[CrownySuccubus]

Sure but as I said, I don't play the game for this purpose:

I mean, if you say so?

That's not the sort of thing that anybody, including myself, would actually admit to anyway.