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

[YukikoKurosawa]

One of the problems I have with trying to discuss criticisms with this game's writing in most places outside of here is that 99% of the people who dislike the story dislike it soley because they have to "read". Too many times do I see complaints from people who complain about the story, or streamers, does their complaint ultimately boil down to "too much reading, if it was fully voiced acted it'd be good tho". Ask them about any actual deeper criticisms and they'll just repeat "I hate having to read so much, I'd have no problem if it was voiced completely". I have seen people trash the story soley because of the reading involved then go on to praise GW2 because it's fully voice acted (this is despite the fact that GW2 is almost universally reviled for some of worst writing in MMOs, if not video game, history, and the voice acting is extremely cringe outside of a few talent actors like Steve Blum).

People either really love the story without complaint, or hate it only because of the amount of reading involved. Those with actual serious, deep criticisms of the writing are very few and far between.

However I think the problem lies with the fact that most people really only enjoy a story on an absolute surface level, so they do not actually care about deeper nuances in writing, and would never take issue with narrative flaws, inconsistent characterization, etc. Just give them le epic poggers moments, le funneh reddit meme humor, le super emotional moments and voice acting (don't you dare make them read) and they're most likely good and will look no deeper into a story. So naturally they will get filtered by a story that asks them to read but not a story with massive plot holes, horrendous moral lessons, characters acting inconsistently, etc.

And, sadly, this is the criticism the devs are seeing primarily. So maybe we'll get more voice acting in the future, at least.