Endwalker is the most controversial expansion

[EaraGrace]

Even spies can show emotion. Even Gaius cried as he was forced to kill Alfonse in the Diamond Weapon and end his suffering, and yet Thanred can't be bothered to act like human when he faces his daughtered being abandoned on a Shard condemned to oblivion? Do you see why things aren't adding up here?

One of the coldest and sternest characters in the game could act like the father he was but Thancred after all his development in Shadowbringers was capable of nothing more than rolling over and recklessly charging at a little girl only to get turned into a rock. Forgive me if this sort thing existing in the writing gives me pause, because there is no way I personally would have allowed for this character to remain utterly stagnant and no more relevant than the "This is Thancred" meme for an entire expansion.

I’d say Gaius is shown to be less stoic than Thancred. Whether it’s his dramatic flourishes in Prae, his yelling when Varis died, Werlyt as you pointed out, Gaius as always been a bit more prone to emotional outbursts, and good. It makes him a more dimensional character.

Thancred meanwhile literally has his emotional distancing as a plot point in multiple expansions. His relationships with Minfilia and Ryne are defined by this, a point even Emet twists the knife on. Of course he’s not going to react with anything but seriousness and restrained determination when faced with the possibility of losing Ryne. It’s not yet set in stone that the First is doomed, and he’s already been in a more dire position in the past.

[RyuDragnier]

Even spies can show emotion. Even Gaius cried as he was forced to kill Alfonse in the Diamond Weapon and end his suffering, and yet Thanred can't be bothered to act like human when he faces his daughtered being abandoned on a Shard condemned to oblivion? Do you see why things aren't adding up here?

Genuine question, but when was the last time Thancred showed an outburst of any kind that was emotionally charged? Because as far as I recall he has never done one in the entire story of this game.

[Raoabolic]

Genuine question, but when was the last time Thancred showed an outburst of any kind that was emotionally charged? Because as far as I recall he has never done one in the entire story of this game.

The Shadowbringer's trailer between him and lion that looks really silly when he fires his mouth laser. Seriously, it was like he tried to roar and shot a ton of milk out of his mouth at mach 5.

[aveyond-dreams]

Genuine question, but when was the last time Thancred showed an outburst of any kind that was emotionally charged? Because as far as I recall he has never done one in the entire story of this game.

Thancred had multiple stand-offs with Ran'jit where he acted believably and called him out on his tyrannical nonsense. This culminated in the showdown that left him broken and bloody. Not a whole lot of screaming or shouting, but he acted like someone who cared and who at least gave us a reason to root for.

He showed anger and frustration as the situation demanded. The reactions matched what was going on in the story, a heroic Gunbreaker who intervenes regularly to defend the people he cares about even if he's not cursing in the style of Jack Garland.

Shadowbringers Thancred was an active person that commanded my attention whenever he was doing something on screen. Endwalker Thancred simply didn't do much of anything at all! There's no more reason for this now passive and stagnant character to take up space on my screen. Either do something with him to justify him being there or for goodness sake SE make new characters. Enough already.

This cast may have barely carried us across the finish line of the first 10 years of FFXIV but in their current state they won't be able to get us through 7.0 that's for sure. At least not a 7.0 with a story worth investing in, let alone another 10 years. Whether SE will have the courage to tell FFXIV twitter to set down their comfort characters is another situation entirely, though admittedly they never took to Thancred much aside from his Endwalker-defining meme. I doubt he will be missed much if he suddenly decided to go open a fast food restaurant or something along those lines.

Goodness knows that the current writing direction wouldn't dare give him an epic finale because the budget has already been allocated to something like animating the individual grains of rice on a sushi roll for when we next go to the Sharlayan cafe.

[Theodric]

Thancred flirted with women pretty actively during the days of ARR. In HW he punched a certain baby faced Elezen right in the middle of Ishgard after the Elezen shot a misguided maiden. He also spent much of ShB clashing with Ryne - and some of the other Scions - as he dealt with his feelings towards the loss of Minfilia.

EW did very little with him. He didn't even have any harsh words for Hydaelyn despite Minfilia dying unnecessarily. (We learn that Venat had power left in reserve to call upon for a fight with the player character...though that makes very little sense as every other victory so far in the story should have provided that 'proof'...)

Thancred was always one of my favourite Scions, though he was tragically underutilised during EW.

[kpxmanifesto]

It's a problem that will only persist, I fear. The game has a very bloated cast of characters and we've reached a point where characters with similar skillsets and personalities now compete with each other for screen time. Furthermore, it's harder for new or forgotten characters to be introduced to the forefront again due to how little room there is these days.

I'd very much appreciate the cast being trimmed down, ideally through a combination of death and retirement.

I agree with this. Also, the death of an important cast member would be a very convincing reminder to the player that there are still things at stake in the game, which is something that EW completely failed to do. If SE does have an important character die, I'd hope that they write it well. It would also have to be a character crucial to the plot and not some minor supporting character like Tataru.

[-Teria-]

shb had female only viera that couldnt wear hats, problems with the nier coffer and other minor nitpicks

but compared to raubhan ex and pipin savage both ew and shb are uncontroversial

Don't forget that bug on the first two days where if you were mounted before going into Sussano's story trial you'd leave to a game breaking bug that saw you trapped in the water of Ruby Sea and made it impossible to play until the emergency server maintenance and hotfix kicked in.

[Arkfrost]

Huh? Endwalker being universally controversial and Shadowbringers being universally praised? I'm not sure which forums/websites you were reading, but that's completely wrong.

Yes, the Endwalker story is controversial, but the expansion is not universally controversial. Yeah, some people were whining about the SAM and NIN changes, and some whine about the housing lottery, but that's pretty much it. The new PvP is generally praised across the board, the new Ultimate is highly praised for being the biggest challenge this game ever had, people outside from those wiping in p3s PF are generally fine with the Asphodelos raid, people absolutely love Aglaia, and they really like the zones.

Meanwhile, Shadowbringers was NOT universally praised. Yes, most people liked the story, but there was a fair share of people who didn't like it. On top of that Shadowbringers was probably the expansion that got the most hate of all, content-wise. People were constantly complaining that we were only getting UI changes and crafter/gatherer content, while getting no Hildi, no deep dungeon, less zones for Bozja than we did for Eureka, Bozja being less social, an Ultimate was cut, Island Sanctuary being postponed to Endwalker, etc.

_________________

And little side-note:
Not everyone hated Stormblood. There's tons of people that really liked Stormblood, even the story. Only the 4.0 MSQ was kinda meh for most, but the patch content was some of the best so far. It was 100% better than Heavensward's patch content that had literally only 1 good patch in terms of MSQ (3.3), while the rest was super boring (3.1, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.5 were really boring). It was also on average better than 5.1 and 5.4, and around on par with 5.2, while 5.3 and 5.5 were generally better.

[CKNovel]

Shadowbringer not controversial? Okay the expansion was amazing, but it had its share of problems.

The race limitation:
Viera and Hroth had no male/female counterpart, forum was on fire and players still ask for female Hroth.

The whole leak debacle:
I'm pretty sure that those leaks were aiming to sabotage ShB launch but basically...
DNC was leaked but not its role, it leads many players to believe it would appear as the quite requested 4th healer. It didn't and many people were disappointed.
Races were also leaked but not their limitations.
An actual Chain saw for MCH was leaked but it never happened and I'm still salty about it.
Blue Mage was leaked for 4.4 or 4.5 I forgot, but it also didn't mentionned the limited aspect.

SMN job design:
SMN suffered from many limitations and ShB iteration was by far the worst.

Anatman:
Anatman was introduced. Just right after they had to rework MCH because of Flamethrower.
It started multiple MNK rework.

Balancing:
While it was the most balanced expansion, ranged were crapped on.
At the start of the expansion, it was better to have 2 good BLM rather than 1 BLM and 1 very good ranged.
Physical ranged role is still heavily debated upon. On one hand mobility, on the other hand bosses hitboxes were massive and without positionnals.

Bozja, lots to talk here:
Bozja was great but it's not dead. The second area, Zadnor, was unappealing visually, lots of nothing.
Delubrum Reginae was a cool concept but its duration streched due to players not using consumables that basically made your character as twice as strong.
Delubrum Reginae savage, whoever thought of 48 player content should be forced to prog it 10 times with different players each time.
Balancing wasn't Bozja strength, the rewards of both Castrum and Dalriada were not appealing enough. Also, suffered from the same problem as Delubrum Reginae, players not using the consumables or lost actions, making the instances taking ages to complete.
Duels were cool but hard&random to get in.

There was also:
The grind of Ishgard restoration mount, I'll never do this one.
The 1 ultimate expansion.


I loved ShB but it had many problems from start to finish.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Meanwhile EW hasn’t been out for that long and yet probably has as many problems as ShB had a year into its lifespan lmao..