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

[KageTokage]

The thing I'm most curious about is whether or not they're going to roll with another large-scale story arc that spans multiple expansions or if they're going to go the XI route of having smaller scale, self-contained stories.

Ascian involvement aside, HW was a largely self-contained plot, so I wouldn't necessarily consider that a bad thing.

[aveyond-dreams]

The thing I'm most curious about is whether or not they're going to roll with another large-scale story arc that spans multiple expansions or if they're going to go the XI route of having smaller scale, self-contained stories.

Ascian involvement aside, HW was a largely self-contained plot, so I wouldn't necessarily consider that a bad thing.

As much as I want to explore the Void, I still believe that the ideal course for 7.0 should be a Heavensward style expac. A true clean slate with new, fleshed out cast members and a story untethered to lofty plot threads that were left open from Season 1. And then 6.1 happened and threw all that out the window.

Now we're getting ready to go save a dragon lost in the Void, with the same static cast just waiting in the wings to force their way back into the party.

[Skyborne]

The thing I'm most curious about is whether or not they're going to roll with another large-scale story arc that spans multiple expansions or if they're going to go the XI route of having smaller scale, self-contained stories.

Ascian involvement aside, HW was a largely self-contained plot, so I wouldn't necessarily consider that a bad thing.

Just from how they've been handling this, writing this by the seat of their pants, I do think the team is generally way better at smaller self-contained stories... without focusing on some sort of lofty Moral Lesson(tm) that takes precedence over the actual meat of the writing.

[Zaene]

As much as I want to explore the Void, I still believe that the ideal course for 7.0 should be a Heavensward style expac. A true clean slate with new, fleshed out cast members and a story untethered to lofty plot threads that were left open from Season 1. And then 6.1 happened and threw all that out the window.

Now we're getting ready to go save a dragon lost in the Void, with the same static cast just waiting in the wings to force their way back into the party.

I'm hoping for some fresh story beats. Like nothing we've seen so far.
I'm also hoping that upon walking through the portal,aside from the WoL, all the other scions fall Wile Coyote style into the void and we don't start finding any of them until the end of the 3rd act of the new expansion. You know, actually make any reunions feel like they mean something. In the meantime, we explore, find new and GENUINELY refreshing characters with their own ideas, beliefs, the majority of which clash with everything we've experienced in FFXIV so far.

Turn the whole dang apple cart over!!

[Rulakir]

The Watcher mentions that because the rejoinings make Zodiark stronger, she has to spend more energy holding him. If we set that concept of her being sundered aside, this would make a lot of sense. Zodiark is composed of a lot more souls than she ever was, so splitting him up into manageable chunks tactically would make sense.

This is another reason why Hydaelyn sundering herself doesn't make sense to me. Seems like she'd want to stay at full power on the Source to keep Zodiark's core imprisoned, especially as she knows she's going to struggle with it.

[YukikoKurosawa]

There's no stakes with the scions around because they've made it painfully obvious they will never kill them off. They won't even commit to retiring them. I know full well that any future storyline nobody I care remotely emote will die, there will be no lasting consequences for anything, so there's no stakes whatsoever. Nobody and nothing I care about is at threat. They will kill off another Conrad, nobody will care, any bad thing that happens will be undone and we'll just go back to the status quo. This is the result of writing a story consistently being averse to consequence no matter how high you try to up the stakes.

The bloody Final Days happened, yet we only saw it happen in all of 2 zones, one already in ruins anyway, not a single main character died, and everything ended up pretty much back to normal in the end. They were trying to write serious and dark with EW but with the narrative consequences of a children's story.

[Fiel_Tana]

The Watcher mentions that because the rejoinings make Zodiark stronger, she has to spend more energy holding him. If we set that concept of her being sundered aside, this would make a lot of sense. Zodiark is composed of a lot more souls than she ever was, so splitting him up into manageable chunks tactically would make sense.

Heh to be fair yeah, ignoring various parts of this story does help EWs plot make sense. (edited to add that this is not a go at you in any way, please don't read it as such)

This is another reason why Hydaelyn sundering herself doesn't make sense to me. Seems like she'd want to stay at full power on the Source to keep Zodiark's core imprisoned, especially as she knows she's going to struggle with it.

^ This! And she wouldn't get weaker against him with each rejoining if she's also sundered and being rejoined at the same rate. Makes no sense.

EW has more lost threads and inconsistencies than usual. Often good writers will leave threads to potentially pick up later, those thread however should never interfere or contradict the story currently being told. This example (and a few others) do whilst adding nothing to the current story.

I've enjoyed Ishikawa's other stories (that I've done so far) which is why I'm leaning towards this either being a rushed rewrite with someone on the team being VERY pro-hydaelyn insisting on her being portrayed as "pure saint-like goodness" and "absolutely not grey" causing this hurried rewrite.

There're too many base plot inconsistencies that can't be explained as "not having a deep understanding Buddhist theory and other religious philosophies" (which in my case, fair, I do not), "JuST NoT thiNKInG" (!), or the other excuses floating around this community as to why many players are confused / dissatisfied with the story.

This story makes my head and heart hurt. (._.)

[Lucida3b]

Yeah, some of it is less obvious contradictions and more implications or tone or the implied direction being shifted. Which is easy to pick up if you pay attention.

Honestly the biggest thing that bugged me before the rest of EW really digested in me was like the whole big deal they put into the warding scales and then they undermined how big of a deal it is with the radio's, It bugged me quite a lot and i do hope it's just like a 'only for anima's tempering which utilized roars' then anything else.

[Theodric]

If nothing else, I'd be potentially able to overlook one or two inconsistencies in the story but as it stands there's simply too many. As someone who delved into every bit of side content to dig up every bit of lore on offer, as of the conclusion of Endwalker's base MSQ's I've been struck with a considerable urge to just shrug and question why I should even bother.

I suppose it's been the case for a while that player speculation based on logical trajectories ended up being more engaging than what the story decided to do as a 'twist'. There's no longer any reward for investing and digging through obscure quests to see how everything fits together because now we've literally got a power that justifies things happening on the basis of 'feels'. Ugh.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

If nothing else, I'd be potentially able to overlook one or two inconsistencies in the story but as it stands there's simply too many. As someone who delved into every bit of side content to dig up every bit of lore on offer, as of the conclusion of Endwalker's base MSQ's I've been struck with a considerable urge to just shrug and question why I should even bother.

I suppose it's been the case for a while that player speculation based on logical trajectories ended up being more engaging than what the story decided to do as a 'twist'. There's no longer any reward for investing and digging through obscure quests to see how everything fits together because now we've literally got a power that justifies things happening on the basis of 'feels'. Ugh.

Twist villains either make or break a story. It depends on how much they want to invest into the character. But they need to be there from start to finish with concrete evidence that the story wouldn’t work without them. That isn’t Meteion, and what’s more annoying is the devs are actually upset that we don’t like that. It’s as if someone at SE had a financial death grip on them and will ruin them if they play or know of absolutely anything besides XIV.

Like I’ve given several scenarios for her or, you know, the guy they hyped in the trailers, end of ShB, could have been more than literally Varis 2.0 except will most likely not get a trial, Zenos. And no, I don’t care for that shade unless it’s literally Zeromus, complete with a rockin theme that every single official remake of Exdeath’s theme never gets. I’m also aware of the fact that we could delete Zemus from IV and nothing would change, but then we wouldn’t have the final boss theme and dizzy background as well as the time IV released so he gets a pass. Also Big Bang. Endsinger gets none of that, not even her own song. It just being Two’s Song from Drakengard 3 would have been better than “HEY REMEMBER THE OTHER EXPANSIONS FINAL BOSSES?”