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

[Theodric]

I like the point raised about the Ragnarok. It's such a large ship that it felt weird that so few people ended up boarding it.

It ties in to why I consider some elements of the storytelling in ESO and WoW to be superior. They leave room for the 'everyman' to get on board and go somewhere exotic and fanciful. Whether it be Draenor through the Dark Portal in WoW or Molag Bal's domain of Coldharbour. FFXIV spends far too much time building up the player character and the Scions as these uniquely special individuals who can go anywhere and accomplish anything but it quite simply doesn't feel earned to me at all.

[Lauront]

I'd add the Plenty to all the above. As I said, I just couldn't take it seriously. Ditto with UT and the fake death march.

These are all great but the #1 thing I cannot suspend disbelief for is the fact that we had to maintain the course of events when we went back in time, but G'raha gets to "if histree must be unwritten... let it be unwritten" all day and CREATE A SPLIT TIMELINE. Guess we're the only ones who deserved a better fate getting to avoid the 8UC, meanwhile this entire race of good people isn't allowed to avoid their literal extinction.

And any other stars that fell in the crosshairs of the Meteia's cosmic temper tantrum of despair.

[Rulakir]

That's just it -- according to the writers themselves, they didn't intend EITHER of them to be considered "bad". They use terms like "mistake" and "important first step" to describe Hermes' actions. To the writers, the Ancients are not a group of people unfairly and unjustly murdered, they're a group of wannabe gods that thought themselves above suffering and death before being ready for it.

I'd accept that if the Ascians weren't presented as being wholly in the wrong even as recently as the Omega quest chain. Meanwhile, history's two biggest antagonists are a "first step" and a "herois". It seems like if it happened to the Ancients? It's fine, they deserved it. Did it happen to the sundered? Unforgivable atrocities.

Note, I'm not trying to say the Ascians were right. I'm simply saying they set a precedent that is inconsistent with what came after despite the crimes of the Final Days and the Sundering being far more egregious.

I missed this. When/where did this happen?

You can find the character poll link here along with some of the translated comments.

[CrownySuccubus]

I'd add the Plenty to all the above.

I've had a hard time deciding whether this or the Ea were the stupidest.

[jameseoakes]

I'd accept that if the Ascians weren't presented as being wholly in the wrong even as recently as the Omega quest chain. Meanwhile, history's two biggest antagonists are a "first step" and a "herois". It seems like if it happened to the Ancients? It's fine, they deserved it. Did it happen to the sundered? Unforgivable atrocities.
.

Yeah this is my problem, the actions Hermes and Venat take are as wicked as any of the antagonists the game as had before but it seems it's OK when the victims are arbitrarily called the wrong kinds of people so it's OK to systematically purge them. It's only bad when it's the the right kinds of people are going to be the victims

[YukikoKurosawa]

I feel like any time there's 5 or more characters on screen everyone, including the villains, and especially the WOL, collectively loses over 50 points of IQ.

[Rosenstrauch]

Another Mass Effect post. I am almost finished with Mass Effect 3. Only have the Citadel DLC, Priority: Horizon, Priority: Citadel Headquarters, and Priority: Earth left. And I have to say

It is amazing just how much more threatening this feels than the Final Days. Every one of those nodes represents a nebula, and every one with a giant robot cuttlefish is one the Reapers are systematically cleansing of life. The entire plot of the Mass Effect Trilogy takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy, and only the Milky Way Galaxy. And not all of it is explored! And yet it still feels utterly massive compared to FFXIV's handling of the freakin' universe.

[Jagick]

Here's a no doubt non-inclusive list of all of the contrivances, plot holes, and outright idiocy one has to accept in order to get through Endwalker's trainwreck of a plot. THIS is how far one's Disbelief must be Suspended

• We have to accept that 7 Rejoinings have limited Hydaelyn's ability to communicate with men, and generally weakened her, despite 7 being the same number of Rejoinings since the start of A Realm Reborn, the time when she talked to men all the time and actively protected us from the Ultima spell
• We have to accept that several formerly intelligent characters thought it wise, in the face of the Apocalypse, to have the WoL waste their time helping nerds read books in the Nerdery, taking their focus off the End of the World Tower they are uniquely qualified to deal with
• We have to accept the WoL saw an autonomous, less-than-lethal grenade drone and didn't mention it or its MANY uses to ANYONE
• Thus, we have to accept that the WoL is cannonically dumber than gibbon turds
• We have to accept that Nidhana seriously thought it was a good idea to test the anti-tempering scale herself. Risking the top of the chain of command for absolutely no benefit
• We have to accept that Alisae and Alphy were dumb enough to propose a plan to invade Garlemald without killing anyone
• We have to accept that the rest of the Scions unanimously agreed with this suicidally idiotic plan
• We have to accept that several heads of state agreed with this suicidally idiotic plan
• We have to accept that very many volunteers gleefully stepped forth to throw their lives away on this suicidally idiotic plan
• We have to accept NO ONE MENTIONED THE CONQUERER'S CHAIN and how it would make this suicidally idiotic plan just a tiny bit less suicidal
• We have to accept that the Far East contingent, comprised of highly trained ninjas and warriors, extremely capable of targeted strikes, forward reconnaissance, and simply open fighting, were relegated to Naruto Running communications back and forth off screen. Even though LINKSHELLS EXIST
• We have to accept that Y'Shtola, formerly intelligent character, ever thought Estinien, whose only skill is stabbing, would be useful in non-fatally subduing wild zombies
• We have to accept the suicidally idiotic plan to completely non-lethally invade Garlemald actually works
• BECAUSE we have to accept that hitting people with my gigantic axe just knocks them over with Looney Toons stars around their head. Instead of killing them like it had done to everything else throughout the whole game since level bloody 1.

to be continued

continued from above:

• We have to accept two unarmed women in street clothes seriously fled onto a monster covered ice shelf in the direction of a dead end just to avoid talking to someone they don't like
• We have to accept whoever wrote that wants us to feel sorry for those two Darwin Award Winners
• We have to accept that Thancred had the Conquerer's Chain with him the entire time
• We have to accept that Thancred didn't tell anyone that he had the Conquerer's Chain with him the entire time
• We have to accept we didn't murder Thancred (this is the point I gave up on the expansion)
• We have to accept no one complaining about the cold the entire time ever thought to put on a winter hat to cover their doofus carnival ears
• We have to accept no one lost an earlobe to frostbite
• We have to accept the Loporrits had hostile robots wandering around the dining room FOR NO RAISIN!
• We have to accept that Hermes was mentally and emotionally defective enough to have a breakdown because we had to euthanize a wild animal before it killed everything else in Elpis
• We have to accept that despite being such a fragile clod, Hermes rose to be in charge of Elpis and was being considered for Convocation-ship
• We have to accept that every planet a Meteion went to had developed sapient life that had subsequently went extinct
• Not one planet just didn't have life on it. Or just had early aquatic life, or was in a Dinosaur stage, or had a society that hadn't yet destroyed themselves, or any other of many possibilities. HOW CONVENIENT for clown plot
• We have to accept Hermes has an Insta-Cast spell strong enough to bind the WoL, the former Azem, and the current Emet Selch. And also some other guy.
• We have to accept Hermes didn't use this incredibly useful spell TWO MINUTES EARLIER when he was fighting us.
• We have to accept that bind spell was either broken or ran out of duration JUST after Hermes finished programming Kairos, and also JUST IN TIME for everyone to act in time for Venat and WoL to escape. HOW LUCKY
• We have to accept that EMET SELCH, formerly highly intelligent and practical, spent time saying a few final words to the WoL instead of acting to escape himself
• We have to accept that Venat refuses to even attempt to bring Emet Selch into the fold, despite his objective and demonstrable status as an ally. Because this clown plot couldn't occur otherwise
• We have to accept all the various and myriad lore shattering lunacy that occurred in that Venat cutscene as the WoL was returning to the present day (that is another tl;dr for another time)

continued again

• We have to accept the WoL did not get any closer to the Satrap despite running towards him for several seconds
• We have to accept that some Blasphemy cascade situation didn't completely unravel anywhere in the world while we were VERY LEISURELY making our way through the rest of the extremely padded out plot
• Seriously. Kugane, Doma, Azim Steppe, Bozja, etc, completely unharmed. The giga-blasphemies masquerading as proper job quests? Completely contained offscreen nothing else to worry about
• Yeah just do some chores and kill some time and walk and talk for several hours as the world is supposedly ending no big deal
• We have to accept Y'Shtola sincerely suggested that Hydaelyn sundering Man, and thereby reducing an individual's aetheric density, rendered us more resistant to dynamis, even though that is EXACTLY the opposite of how it had been established to work. I'm fairly certain it was Y'Shtola herself that spelled out how the Unsundered didn't themselves turn into Blasphemies because of their aetheric density.
• We have to accept that Hydaelyn played along with Y'Shtola's idiocy because Hydaelyn herself just realized what an idiotic idea sundering Man was
• We have to accept that only the "Core Scions" were loaded up for the one and only chance to save the universe
• We have to accept that we didn't use any of the spare time in the plot to gather extra help for the One And Only Shot to save the actual universe.
• Really no one thought to try and wrangle up any of Gaius, Lucia, Hoary Boulder And Friends, anyone from the various combat guilds, anyone from the various job quests, the crazy lady from Azim Steppe, literally even that Assassin Fisherlady from Heavensward there's plenty of bloody room on the Ragnarok and the universe is at stake why are we pretending we have the roster limitations of a basketball team who wrote this abject garbage
• We have to accept that Y'Shtola unironically told us not to bring them back by using Azem's crystal, even though there was no reason NOT to bring back Y'shtola, Urianger, and Estinien once the WoL reached the next Aetheryte.
• We have to accept that Zenos, after multiple times refusing to instigate a fight with the WoL because there was a lack of "despair" or whatever edgelord nonsense, all of a sudden is cool with challenging the WoL to an explicitly voluntary duel.
• We thus have to accept that the writers of this decade long mess went through all the trouble to bring Zenos back from the whole dead, but not for one good reason.

This expansion was a catastrophic failure of characterization, continuity, and common sense from start to finish. Or the plot of the expansion was, anyway. The gameplay """content""" is, of course, the exact same loop of tired tripe we've been repeating since Heavensward. And I still can't actually WEAR my SAMhat

Excuse me while I vomit blood uncontrollably because this sums up my issues with the expansion, especially the Garlemald arc, and especially how so much requires the WoL or other supposedly intelligent characters to be stupid to accommodate the terrible writing. Agreed with everything. THANK. YOU.

[AziraSyuren]

Another Mass Effect post. I am almost finished with Mass Effect 3. Only have the Citadel DLC, Priority: Horizon, Priority: Citadel Headquarters, and Priority: Earth left. And I have to say

It is amazing just how much more threatening this feels than the Final Days. Every one of those nodes represents a nebula, and every one with a giant robot cuttlefish is one the Reapers are systematically cleansing of life. The entire plot of the Mass Effect Trilogy takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy, and only the Milky Way Galaxy. And not all of it is explored! And yet it still feels utterly massive compared to FFXIV's handling of the freakin' universe.

ME3 really isn't the best example for reasons that might become apparent to you when you finish the game. I'd also argue the gravity of Priority: Earth isn't too far off from the gravity of the 2nd Thavnair story section, with the big issue with the latter being that said gravity didn't extend far beyond that.

I don't want to spoil anything for you though so I can't really elaborate further.

[Theodric]

Yeah, I've been getting similar vibes from Dragon's Dogma. The world has teeth. It feels dangerous. Things happen. Not everything works out perfectly for the protagonist.

It's just so weird to me that FFXIV claims to want to tap more into the single player game side of things but is consistently avoiding any meaningful change or lasting consequences.

We've gotten to the point where if certain characters show up or the story takes us back to an older location then it's obvious that even minor characters will be perfectly safe. All to maintain the status quo at any cost...but mysteriously never really throwing a bone to those of us who favour the antagonists and would enjoy seeing at least some of them stick around without being forced to lose everything, proclaim that their ideals were 'always misguided' or just generally end up going in an utterly bizarre direction far removed from what appealed to those who liked the character in the first place.

In other words, putting the game closer to more of the single player titles and rival MMO's.