Would Endwalker have been better if we never visited Elpis at all?

[BubblyBoar]

Awfully defensive, aren't you? When I am hearing from people that posters didn't pay attention, with zero evidence (in fact worse than zero), I am going to call them out on that trite point, and no, I will certainly not keep it to myself, whether you like it or not - understood? Stamp your little feet all you like.



Weird example to choose, that.

How so? What can you point out that you think has been misunderstood or not comprehended about the story?



Again, I see this line thrown around so often as some sort of retort to people who didn't enjoy the story. "You must not have been paying attention to XXX.".

What makes you think that the people who look deeply at the story and point out the contradictions and contrivances are the ones who aren't paying attention to the story? Just because someone takes something different away from the narrative does not mean that attention was not being paid.

It's because the last section of the Dead Ends was explicitly the end point of ancient society. So much so that the dev team confirmed it themselves. How can you look at how a utopia ended and not think "that society I visited early that was aiming for a utopia would end like this." You'd have to not be paying attention to not make that connection. And if not, you've got some interesting delusions about how a utopia would be.

Assuming that we dislike Elpis because we think it's a utopia is not criticism. You're putting words in our mouths.

If it doesn't apply to you, I'm obviously not talking about you am I?

[Chie_M]

There is absolutely nothing a critic hates more than criticism. If you give your opinion, people are allowed to have opinions on it. If you don't want that, keep it to yourself. This ain't a soap box.

Assuming that we dislike Elpis because we think it's a utopia is not criticism. You're putting words in our mouths.

[grinkdaboy]

If the entirety of the storyline surrounding Venat and the events of Elpis had not been in-game, would the story seem better to you? Or was it essential for the successful conclusion of 6.0, despite the dislike of that storyline for a number of forum posters?

i think elpis could have worked better if it wasn't a massive asspull/emet fanwank. instead of us physically going back, we could have had an echo flashback to us (as venat's successor, the man/woman who would next take the seat of Azem, we play as an ancient but retain our skin/hair/eye color) instead. i would also suggest splitting meteion and the endsinger into 2 separate characters and have meteion and endsinger (think of zidane and kuja or cecil and golbez)

[Lium]

Awfully defensive, aren't you? When I am hearing from people that posters didn't pay attention, with zero evidence (in fact worse than zero), I am going to call them out on that trite point, and no, I will certainly not keep it to myself, whether you like it or not - understood? Stamp your little feet all you like.



Weird example to choose, that.

I mean, weird or not, that's where I was posting after EW came out. So...either click it or don't. Totally your choice.

The problem with getting into lively debates with those that disliked the story is how defensive (and in your case) a tad hostile they get. There is the inability to differentiate between someone like me saying "Lots of people didn't get the story" and "Some people understood the story very well and just didn't like it."

The latter is fine and is why we are all here. To share opinions. The former aren't worth the key strokes to type a response to. Which if I'm being honest, is most of the people on the forums.

[Xtrasweettea]

Yes it would have.

As soon as the game stated we were going to the past, I knew it would be FF1 Time Travel logic. The story at this point was FF4. I already knew who the Forum was working with after my our character's first meeting with them.

Not surprised that things turned out like they did.

The story was bland already, but it turned intolerable for me at this point:
1. This whole timeline was started because some nerd that didn't want to hand over his homemade virus riddled Realdoll and himself to the authorities.
2. Venat's response was "not going to do anything to stop the future, lol"
3. Venat becoming the Jesus Christ figure who decided to flip the universal table and sunder the universe, destroying everything and locking what we were told was basically "the devil" for 10 years in the same reality that our characters were in

Elpis wasn't needed. They could've used other means to get us to that point. The Forum was very much underutilized. So was the moon. You would think that Venat would've left some paperwork or recordings or something about what happened. Nope, instead we went to the past so SE could utilize the presence that Emet-Selch has because the new Ascian-of-the-week doesn't have any of that.

[Chie_M]

I mean, weird or not, that's where I was posting after EW came out. So...either click it or don't. Totally your choice.

The problem with getting into lively debates with those that disliked the story is how defensive (and in your case) a tad hostile they get. There is the inability to differentiate between someone like me saying "Lots of people didn't get the story" and "Some people understood the story very well and just didn't like it."

The latter is fine and is why we are all here. To share opinions. The former aren't worth the key strokes to type a response to. Which if I'm being honest, is most of the people on the forums.

We disagree on Endwalker, but I agree with you on this. These debates get way too hostile, way too quickly. We can be passionate about a video game without resorting to genuine anger, surely - all of us, on both sides.

[Rulakir]

Elpis carried EW hard. Regardless of how you felt about the story, most would agree it was the best or simultaneously the best and worst parts of EW. I believe without it EW would've been... lackluster. :P

Having said that, the issue is the genocide apologism. It's not just Venat either when you have Ishikawa in an interview wanting players to ask themselves if the Final Days (an extinction level event) was some kind of first step for mankind. I don't know what went wrong or where, but we go from rejoinings being "mass murder" and the Ascians as villains to the people responsible for the Final Days and the Sundering, both exponentially worse, being "impartial", tragic heroes, and ushering in an overall net positive.

I legitimately don't understand how this ever got past their ethics department. Regardless, all I wanted from EW was for the WoL to learn better mastery over the Echo, use it to peer into Azem's memories and those of the unsundered to try to piece together events of the past.

It's because the last section of the Dead Ends was explicitly the end point of ancient society. So much so that the dev team confirmed it themselves. How can you look at how a utopia ended and not think "that society I visited early that was aiming for a utopia would end like this." You'd have to not be paying attention to not make that connection. And if not, you've got some interesting delusions about how a utopia would be.

It doesn't matter. Venat didn't know this, it was pure speculation. Even if it were a guaranteed fate, that didn't give her the right to do what she did. Nobody in the history of ever would defend, "This civilization is going to end one day, so I'm just going to end it sooner but in a different way." It's nonsensical.

[BubblyBoar]

Elpis carried EW hard. Regardless of how you felt about the story, most would agree it was the best or simultaneously the best and worst parts of EW. I believe without it EW would've been... lackluster. :P

Having said that, the issue is the genocide apologism. It's not just Venat either when you have Ishikawa in an interview wanting players to ask themselves if the Final Days (an extinction level event) was some kind of first step for mankind. I don't know what went wrong or where, but we go from rejoinings being "mass murder" and the Ascians as villains to the people responsible for the Final Days and the Sundering, both exponentially worse, being "impartial", tragic heroes, and ushering in an overall net positive.

I legitimately don't understand how this ever got past their ethics department. Regardless, all I wanted from EW was for the WoL to learn better mastery over the Echo, use it to peer into Azem's memories and those of the unsundered to try to piece together events of the past.

How was the sundering worse than the Final Days? Venat wiped out a planet's worth. Meteion wiped out a universe's worth.

It doesn't matter. Venat didn't know this, it was pure speculation. Even if it were a guaranteed fate, that didn't give her the right to do what she did. Nobody in the history of ever would defend, "This civilization is going to end one day, so I'm just going to end it sooner but in a different way." It's nonsensical.

None of my posts are a justification of Venat's actions, but a condemnation of people that seem to think the ancient society is the "correct" one.


IMO, what Venat did was based on the information she had and the answer she had come up with in the time she had at that moment. People are free to agree or disagree with it and that's fine. The point is that it did happen and the sundered exist now. So is it right to take that all back. IMO, it is not.

[Deusteele]

Elpis should have broken the standard design of "Zone Plot -> Dungeon -> Zone Resolution" and been split into two stories. We should have visited before the summoning of Zodiark and had the Meteion plot ending in the dungeon of Ktisis, then we should have re-visited the zone post-Final Days and should have seen the Ancients growing over reliance on their shiny new God-Machine.

[Lauront]

It's because the last section of the Dead Ends was explicitly the end point of ancient society. So much so that the dev team confirmed it themselves. How can you look at how a utopia ended and not think "that society I visited early that was aiming for a utopia would end like this." You'd have to not be paying attention to not make that connection. And if not, you've got some interesting delusions about how a utopia would be.

Your original post:

The problem with Elpis is that somehow people walked away from that arc thinking there was a utopia and it would have been better to exist in that time than right now. They apparently didn't pay attention to the Dead Ends.

Here's a question: if it's so clear and people just had to pay attention to the story, why did the devs have to come out and clarify this in a Q&A? Because not everyone was convinced by the shallow visual parallels? Moreover, your wording here is confusing. Is it a utopia? You seem to be saying it isn't. Then above you're saying a utopia would end as the Plenty. Did the story do a good enough job of making this point? Yoshi even had to clarify in a Famitsu interview that he thought the ancients would come across as scary but clearly the reception of them did not end up that way.

The biggest problem with the Plenty is the story is both trying to have its cake and eat it too, by presenting this as having achieved perfection, by the definition of eliminating all sources of strife, and yet at the same time all it's giving me to support this is a bunch of strawmen in robes who evidently did not think what they'd do with themselves once they reached this end point, and were struck by the strife of existential boredom. Why am I to think this is how the ancients will end? Yes, they wear robes, and masks, but that's where it starts and ends - below their small garden is a barren star. The story isn't giving me nearly enough here other than trying to scream in my ears "PERFECTION BAD!!!", whilst not quite explaining how this is perfection as opposed to a lack of forward planning. Meteion delivers a couple of lines on this world in her report and that's the info Venat has to base her decision on.

As to what the writers said - it is that the Dead Ends was "probably" their vision for how their society would end up, if they continued as they were from after the Final Days - it does not address the situation of how they would react to the full account of what had happened to motivate Venat's concerns, which they never got, because she believed they were incapable of changing. This specifically is what people find dissatisfactory.

Sadly, though, trying to hit me over the head with "tHe wRiTeRs SaId" isn't going to work - I am going to draw my own interpretation of whether they have done a good enough job of making the point they sought to make, and in this case, if the end game here is justifying the genocide/erasure of the ancients, then no, it does not cut it for me, nor does it suffice to put me off what was shown in Elpis. The caricature of a utopia isn't enough to convince me that the concept of perfection, of alleviating certain ills - like criminality, poverty, hunger, war etc. - is doomed to end in an ill-fated pursuit like the Plenty, and it certainly hasn't dissuaded the Scions from seeking the same in their own world, nor is it adequate to fill in the narrative gap here of how the ancients would end that way if they were given the info in question.

In future, I would suggest you instead ask people why they dislike the story rather than just assuming they don't get it. I can assure you many of us have paid more than enough attention to the story.

The problem with getting into lively debates with those that disliked the story is how defensive (and in your case) a tad hostile they get. There is the inability to differentiate between someone like me saying "Lots of people didn't get the story" and "Some people understood the story very well and just didn't like it."

Alright, I'll phrase it another way: if a good chunk of the playerbase is not understanding this story, which is trying to push a very controversial conclusion, then who is at fault here? The playerbase, or the writers for not making their material clear enough to stand on its own? This is the conclusion of a 10 year arc, with plenty of work going into it to supposedly make sure it comes out clear.