Endwalker is the most controversial expansion

[BaconBits]

Tried to do too much in too little time. Also unskilled writers.

Lmao skill issue.

[DPZ2]

Tried to do too much in too little time. Also unskilled writers.

If your definition of 'unskilled' is "not writing a story to accommodate my head canon", sure.

[NekoMataMata]

Random thought but does anyone else feel as if Emet was overused quite a bit in EW? I love his character a lot, probably too much but it felt a bit overwhelming having him narrating certain parts of EW. His voice is fantastic, especially for narration, but it didn't feel right. It even felt a tiny bit weird when he came back at the end.

Lore aside though Elpis was incredibly enjoyable, even if it creates all sorts of potential contradictions and it's not something I'd give up. The rest of it just feels as if they knew how much we enjoyed the character and tried to recreate it.

[RayneBoemir]

I for one loved EW while ShB had the stronger tighter narrative. EW gave a lot of development to characters it was quite an emotional rollercoaster.

[DPZ2]

I for one loved EW while ShB had the stronger tighter narrative. EW gave a lot of development to characters it was quite an emotional rollercoaster.

Likewise. "Emotional" rather than "wooden", the sign of competent writers. For those who want a different story, there is always fan fiction. There are over 4000 works recorded on Archive of Our Own's website (search for "final fantasy xiv emet-selch") as an example.

[Rulakir]

Controversial stories are the best. If everyone came out of a story that was intended to have this much grey area agreeing on everything, that'd be a sign it was too simplistic.

The disagreements about whether x part was good or y part was logical of a group of people deserved b or c group of people did d right.... those are the sign of a well handled story with characters people care about.

It's controversial because the story elements and character development is inconsistent. The narrative requires you to accept conclusions without doing any of the leg work to get you there. It outright tells you how you're supposed to think and feel. It's suspension of disbelief taken to an extreme, you have to have zero critical thinking skills to be able to enjoy EW and even then it's questionable.

To be fair, I sincerely doubt EW is what Ishikawa wanted or intended. I suspect EW is the result of 'too many cooks in the kitchen' because it was the finale.

[aveyond-dreams]

I for one loved EW while ShB had the stronger tighter narrative. EW gave a lot of development to characters it was quite an emotional rollercoaster.

To which I ask, what development?

Estinien was massively toned down in terms of his earlier personality though this was ultimately detrimental as it made for a less entertaining experience whenever he came on screen.

G'raha Tia has had negative character development since patch 5.4 and continues to be little more than a running joke. Other than a poorly executed reference to FFIV and a brief reversion to his Crystal Exarch personality in Thavnair, not much happened.

Y'shtola I'm not even going to elaborate on.

Thancred despite having fought so hard to protect Ryne in Shadowbringers practically rolled over and had little to no reaction when he learned the First would be abandoned. He represents useless baggage now that his arc is over.

Urianger had another "I promise not to lie to you, even though I must" situation again and didn't do a whole lot besides the occasional lore dump every now and then. Tying his supposed "payoff" to the end of the Loporrit questline at the end of the second visit to Labyrinthos wasn't satisfying.

Then there's Ultima Thule where they "sacrificed" only to have that sacrifice completely negated 10 minutes later, as an adult that whole sequence of events was too predictable because throughout Endwalker there were very little stakes. The only emotional bits came from characters outside the main party, like the Garleans and the people in Thavnair. The main party is hardly worth caring about, their plot armor is too thick and the writers are too afraid to do anything significant with ffxiv twitter's favourite comfort characters.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Thancred despite having fought so hard to protect Ryne in Shadowbringers practically rolled over and had little to no reaction when he learned the First would be abandoned. He represents useless baggage now that his arc is over.

I'm curious, what exactly should he have done? Sit around angsting about it, complaining about how he can't actually go back to the First to see her? Or help fight against the Final Days, knowing that's the only way to actually save Ryne and the First?

[aveyond-dreams]

I'm curious, what exactly should he have done? Sit around angsting about it, complaining about how he can't actually go back to the First to see her? Or help fight against the Final Days, knowing that's the only way to actually save Ryne and the First?

He is an adult father figure to Ryne. He should have reacted like any father would if he learned his child was in mortal danger. He could have screamed, cursed, shown any hint of emotion. Instead he just stood there and took it like a robot.

[shao32]

Well it's normal EW is the most controversial expansion:

- controversial MSQ with tons of plot holes and clarifications being answered with "don't think to much about it"
- Roghtgar and Viera head situation with Yoshi-p giving controversial answers to the problem like "we could develop unique hairstyles but will take more time for it" when that has been the actual promise for these race 3 years ago in the first place.
- Gameplay homogenization/simplification leading to unsatifactory gameplay with jobs allineating Healers, DRK, BRD, SMN, MCH, SAM, ect ect. Basically anything that is not one of the Devs fav like BLM giving obvious bias on gameplay development of the jobs in the game right now.
- Cut content that followed SHB, simplification and reduced dificulty overall even on high end battle content like savage and no long term content to play with betwen patches compared to past expansions before SHB and EW.
- Lack of comunication betwen Devs and non JP playerbase, seems like Yoshi-p only answer latelly due JP playerbase start ranting and directly insulting to the devs like the SAM issue twice and the recent BLM bias accusation for the pvp changes.
- Poor translated questions in the Q&A leading to frustration for the playerbase feeling any kind of feedback specially related to jobs is deliverately ignored for they own bias/sake.

What i see is decadency, a lot of decadency from the dev team, they make controversial changes for they own sake not for us, they ignore the feedback unless it follow they let's make gameplay more simple and braindead agenda and feels like we get less and less with each patch, HW and SB independent of your own taste of the story and small balance issues offered high quality and durable content both in number and replayability + great and unique gameplay in all jobs, something is lacky heavely this expansion, im a person that judge an expansion for what it offers gameplay wise more than story while story is considered of course and both SHB and EW has been poor expansions so far, just my 2 cents.