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

[Tama-Kanzashi]

"She really was an Ancient, huh?"

I found it was a very shallow reason too, on the surface level it may imply that Ancients just like making large-scale decisions, but thinking a bit further it would also imply that any other Ancient would have made that same decision if they were in her position - which is hard to believe. It's not just a decision for the people of the present, but also a decision for endless generations in the future, and I highly doubt any other Ancient would be arrogant enough to deem themselves fit to make a decision like that, especially since it would lead to endless suffering.

And since I know this will invite someone to say "But they decided that future life seeded by Zodiark would be sacrificed!" - the problem here is that from what we know, that would be a one off sacrifice. The Sundered are still happily blasting each other after countless generations with no end in sight.

And about the arrogant part - no, ShB Emet does not count as he had already been thrown into a woodchipper for 12k years. ShB Emet made decisions that were motivated by endless grief.

[Rulakir]

I did not bother trying to introduce or account for the element of Dynamis in my rewrite. It was simply too ridiculous of a device to use in any serious story. Think about the target audience - how in the world are you going to try and pass off the literal power of friendship onto a playerbase that is in their late teens/twenties? By that point that kind of nonsense just isn't palatable or believable.

I can't find the link for it now, but I thought the average age of the JP FF14 player was between their 20s and 30s? (I believe it was a survey Famitsu did.) Even if it is in the teens (the game is rated Teen in the US), that's still too old an age demographic to keep doing this Saturday Morning Cartoon stuff. It's especially disheartening when I read that the writers like 'darker' stories because they're either not allowed to do them or their definition of 'dark' is much different than my own. Their single player titles are darker.

I've 'joked' numerous times that EW as an expansion reads like r/im14andthisisdeep.

I will however encourage you and other frequenters of this thread to finish and post all of your respective rewrites, can't wait for these streamers to open the first page of General Discussion and see it flooded with multiple works that are highly likely to outdo and course correct the direction that Endwalker went in. We may as well make this territory our own.

There are tiers to EW rewrites. The first one being minimal changes, everything stays the same but the gaslighting surrounding Venat is removed and the characters don't all act like they've been tempered by Hydaelyn. The last tier being we need to go back into ShB and do some things differently. I tend to be more in the latter camp. Even though I loved 5.3 at the time, in hindsight I think it was a mistake to kill off Elidibus who should've been saved for 6.0 and involved with Zodiark.

I found it was a very shallow reason too, on the surface level it may imply that Ancients just like making large-scale decisions, but thinking a bit further it would also imply that any other Ancient would have made that same decision if they were in her position - which is hard to believe. It's not just a decision for the people of the present, but also a decision for endless generations in the future, and I highly doubt any other Ancient would be arrogant enough to deem themselves fit to make a decision like that, especially since it would lead to endless suffering.

Even Hermes and Venat weren't on board with genociding their people until Meteion gave her report. I'd almost find this plausible if 'our' Meteion by connecting to the hivemind had inadvertently warped their brains with dynamis, though that wouldn't explain why Emet and Hyth didn't become genocidal (unless you want to blame Kairos :P).

(even Reddit, usually a cesspool of negativity)

Tell me you don't go to r/ffxiv without actually telling me. The place is toxic positivity at its finest. Try posting anything critical about EW and get back to me about how severely downvoted you are.