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

[Kolsykol]

"Goal"? I need a goal to state an opinion now?

How about you? What's your goal here?

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In regards to Garlemald, they had five expansions to introduce some nuance to Garlemald other than "well, some of them AREN'T racist monsters", but that's pretty much the direction they went to the very end. I was hoping that the Stormblood expacs leading into Shadowbringers would add more nuance to Varis (and thus, the Empire), but we basically just got "I want to cause rejoinings because something-something one true race". I honestly would've saw trying to cram all that into 6.0 or later as a cop-out.

Tbh the racism thing isn't exactly unique to Garleans, and the Garleans being racist is a bit more understandable too considering their history.
Not saying it's right, but it's more like retribution for wrongs committed against them in the past.
( And it becomes a circular thing, but ultimately they were the first to be victimized. )

The whole '' one true race '' thing makes sense too if you know the context behind it ( which we didn't then ), altho the way he presented it was definitely quite unhinged.
But his overall point was that the Ascians were bad and if we were going to stand a chance against them we had to be '' whole ''.
I definitely think Varis is a bit more nuanced with the full context revealed, I also think it's a bit understandable that he'd be a bit unhinged about it considering he had basically been carrying that knowledge alone and even been the grandson of and puppet of an Ascian himself.
Varis just was in a very very screwed up position and could basically not talk to anyone about it until then and like his entire life and the empire he loved was basically a lie.

I didn't really get the impression that the Garleans were just treated as racist monsters, especially not if you know the lore of the other races and how shitty they can be towards each other too.
From our pov we don't see much of it because we're the WoL and generally hang around good people.

Edit: When it comes to Ala Mhigo too there's the whole mad king thing.
There's some truth to the notion that Garleans offered stability even if it was oppressive, I think Eorzeans are portrayed in a pretty negative way quite frequently in the story too.
We saw that with how people trying to adapt were treated too ( Fordola's parents ).

[Misplaced_Marbles]

There's some truth to the notion that Garleans offered stability even if it was oppressive, I think Eorzeans are portrayed in a pretty negative way quite frequently in the story too.
We saw that with how people trying to adapt were treated too ( Fordola's parents ).

Emet-Selch himself says in shadowbringers that conquering is easy, what comes after is the hard part. Point was that you need to treat the conquered with dignity. The way Garlean rule has been portrayed and told, even Gaius' rule that supposedly was no different even though it obviously should have been, has always been as bad (and just plain stupid) as possible to justify everyone hating them. Even that stoning scene was less to show Eorzeans as bad and more to show how Garleans don't care unless you're Garlean (and to show why Fordola does what she does). Basically just a grotesque caricature of the worst possible ruler(s).

[Kolsykol]

Emet-Selch himself says in shadowbringers that conquering is easy, what comes after is the hard part. Point was that you need to treat the conquered with dignity. The way Garlean rule has been portrayed and told, even Gaius' rule that supposedly was no different even though it obviously should have been, has always been as bad (and just plain stupid) as possible to justify everyone hating them. Even that stoning scene was less to show Eorzeans as bad and more to show how Garleans don't care unless you're Garlean (and to show why Fordola does what she does). Basically just a grotesque caricature of the worst possible ruler(s).

I dunno why you're dismissing the Eorzeans in that scene so easily tho.
It was essentially both, but it was still the Eorzeans who were stoning one of their own people.

Gaius is a bit weird because he was retconned.
But I think they did a great job at humanizing him in the Weapons storyline, it's one of my favorites in the game.
I think that if Gaius was written today tho he'd be written differently, because back then he was still meant to be the main villain that we wanted to defeat and tbh he kinda felt like was meant to be a '' Vader '' figure he even got the mask and voice and everything.
The writing has come a long way since and I think Gaius proves that too.

I don't agree tho that the scene was '' less to show Eorzeans as bad and more to show how Garleans are '', especially not from Fordola's pov what she got out of it was that her own people were pieces of shit.
She did think that the Garleans looked down on them and let it happen too, but she was clearly more worked up about what the Eorzeans did.

I mean there's a ton of other examples too, it's also worth noting that Garlemald had a ton of foreign soldiers working for them many of who actually committed the atrocities against their own people themselves.
Yotsuyu was also Doman and the people who harmed her and caused her to be how she was weren't Garleans either.

I think the game does a lot more to show how bad Eorzeans are than to show how bad Garleans are.
On some level that's also a matter of screentime, but I don't agree with this characterization you presented.
I think there's a big difference between someone doing what Yotsuyu did and simply not doing anything.
Inaction in the Fordola situation is bad too, but it's not them directly committing a wrong with their own hands/ orders.
It's more like looking the other way, which was also one of the things Yotsuyu criticized her own people for doing too.

Edit: Even with Valens Varro in the Weapons storyline, there's other Garleans in the story that are clearly shocked by his methods.
I don't think they'd be shocked by it if he was the norm.

While I think it's fair to say that a good portion of the playerbase is happy with the story, there has been enough murmuring and dissent to move the writers to do a Q&A, address story mixed messages in interviews and add a follow-up quest to (at least try) introduce nuance that was sorely lacking in base EW. I've seen quite a few mentions even within sites which lean more positive, like Reddit, of how they find the story depressing, and this is not even ancients fans necessarily. Just people who found the way EW presented its "themes" and messaging depressing in spite of its aim to deliver a hopeful message. I would say as time has progressed, the needle has moved, and we are probably in a position where there are two polarised groups that either love or hate the story, both of which are fairly sizeable minorities, and a majority that is content with it but has reservations about this or that aspect, just not story-breaking ones. There is no way to categorically prove this, but there is also no real evidence to claim the story is universally loved, and as Vyrerus put it, there are good reasons to dispute the notion that Reddit (which is slowly beginning to show more dissent on the story), Twitter or Metacritic are the final say on this, in addition to the fact that they too represent a fairly small proportion of the playerbase in their own right (Reddit may boast 600k members but its actual post engagement is far, far below this.)

Tbh I think that if a significant portion felt the way some of you do about the story then the game wouldn't have a 9.4 metacritic score.
Especially since people who feel this way tend to usually be significantly louder than those who don't.
Yes there's no way of knowing for sure and what the actual stats are, but all of the stats kinda speak against you here.

Nothing is universally loved there will always be people who dislike something, but I think it's fair to say that people in this thread are being a bit overly dramatic and are probably not representing a very significant portion of the playerbase.
I know that this isn't a significant representation of anything either, but even Streamers who go into it with a negative or very skeptical mentality with existing audiences they garnered from competing games have still ended up loving it some even calling it the best story they've ever experienced.
I mean there just rly isn't much implying that there's some large group of people here that are so negative about it.

[Rulakir]

Tbh I think that if a significant portion felt the way some of you do about the story then the game wouldn't have a 9.4 metacritic score.

I love how this is consistently the only evidence I see provided of some overwhelming majority thinking EW is good when it's based on less than 1500 reviews, all of which are not positive. I thought maybe reviewing games on there is difficult? No, turns out it's not. Since people continue to bring up the site as some gold standard, I figured I may as well make an account there and give EW the 5 rating it deserves.

Just to clarify, I don't think we're the majority, but I do think there's enough of us to make a difference. Were that not the case then Yoshi-P wouldn't need to "communicate Hydaelyn's not a bad guy" or Ishikawa have to write a quest chain that significantly walks back the positivity (and even justification) of Venat. I understand this can feel threatening if you enjoyed the MSQ. I'm certainly seeing some defensiveness here trying to marginalize our opinions, but it's not just us. Frankly, Yoshi-P having negative feedback at the time of the LL Q&A likely wouldn't have come from the west, which would suggest that JP audiences had similar issues and were perhaps more freely able to discuss them on their social media platforms.

I looked at the comments on one of the character favorites polls in JP shortly after EW's release. One of them described the post-Elpis cutscene as "self-indulgent", one said Venat and Hermes were "co-conspirators", one said the sundering was "selfish", and several criticized Venat for not telling anyone about Meteion claiming it was unfair and she wasn't a sympathetic character.

[Lauront]

Tbh I think that if a significant portion felt the way some of you do about the story then the game wouldn't have a 9.4 metacritic score.
Especially since people who feel this way tend to usually be significantly louder than those who don't.
Yes there's no way of knowing for sure and what the actual stats are, but all of the stats kinda speak against you here.

Nothing is universally loved there will always be people who dislike something, but I think it's fair to say that people in this thread are being a bit overly dramatic and are probably not representing a very significant portion of the playerbase.
I know that this isn't a significant representation of anything either, but even Streamers who go into it with a negative or very skeptical mentality with existing audiences they garnered from competing games have still ended up loving it some even calling it the best story they've ever experienced.
I mean there just rly isn't much implying that there's some large group of people here that are so negative about it.

My problem here is what you're referring to as the "stats". I could just as easily point to the direction the game's player numbers on steam are headed as a counter to this point, particularly when most of these Metacritic scores (if I was to use the argument many on here do about the OF: a tiny minority in their own right) are in the large majority dated now by several months, so sorry, but I don't consider this a great argument, and that's even assuming I was to take that score as being solely attributable to the story. I don't put much stock into what streamers, who have an interest in being positive about the product for audience engagement and financial reasons, say.

The fact, once more, that the writers felt the need to address ambiguities in the story via the methods I mentioned is not suggestive of critical views on the story are as tiny a minority as you may think it is. And this does not necessarily equate to a low score - many are able to compartmentalise this and focus on what they enjoyed, particularly for as complex a beast as an MMO, including in terms of story aspects.

You are using words.

Yes, I am using words, much like you are. You've passed your Perception check, bravo.

I don't think they mean what you think they mean. Ask anywhere. In game. Peruse the internet. FFXIV's story is overwhelmingly popular. You don't have to like the truth, but it doesn't make it any less true. At least using the same straw man arguments yourself that you and your buddies are claiming against me tells me all I need to know. It's sad some people desperately need justification and can't stand that their opinion is shared by very few. :\

I have perused the internet. This is part of the internet - I have also been on other sites like Reddit and Twitter to know enough about their characteristics, including that you in particular don't know those characteristics, if you think the former, for example, leans highly negative on this game. Going in-game is an incredibly biased sample and does not account for all those who stopped playing for a variety of reasons, either, but then you're assuming an answer here and I am sure if I was to probe, I'd find a variety of views on the topic, if such an exercise in pointlessness took my fancy. It's all the more curious to me that those who enjoy EW feel this need to console themselves that they're this huge majority - what do you need this validation for? I am not even disputing that reception of it is by and large positive. What I am disputing is that this means the story is flawless or that this majority is as absolute as you are presenting it as, based on other sites with similar issues as samples to the OF. Your approach does not really allow for the sort of nuance this topic requires, because it's not as simple as hate/love the story.

[Lucida3b]

My problem here is what you're referring to as the "stats". I could just as easily point to the direction the game's player numbers on steam are headed as a counter to this point, particularly when most of these Metacritic scores (if I was to use the argument many on here do about the OF: a tiny minority in their own right) are in the large majority dated now by several months, so sorry, but I don't consider this a great argument, and that's even assuming I was to take that score as being solely attributable to the story. I don't put much stock into what streamers, who have an interest in being positive about the product for audience engagement and financial reasons, say.

The fact, once more, that the writers felt the need to address ambiguities in the story via the methods I mentioned is not suggestive of critical views on the story are as tiny a minority as you may think it is. And this does not necessarily equate to a low score - many are able to compartmentalise this and focus on what they enjoyed, particularly for as complex a beast as an MMO, including in terms of story aspects.

Ill point out that a game being loved at the start doesnt mean it will be loved years later, bioshock infinite for example was cheered on but over the last half decade people have gotten FAR more critical of it.

I mean if the concept of a cult hit is the inverse of the above after all!