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

[Lauront]

I'm afraid you're now just veering into the usual "I got mine" protagonist-centric morality, and going further by conflating the Ascians with the ancients at large. It is not all clear to me why the ancients as a whole were "meant" to lose through being genocided, or that they would try and justify this act, albeit very clumsily and half-heartedly, in a way that led Yoshi to compare her to SHB Emet-Selch, whilst the story tries to hammer you over the head with how much she "loves" you. Bluntly inserted themes being wielded by the writers like a cudgel are not going to endear it to me any the more. This includes trying to paint the ancients as sCaRy, which really, the Elpis sidequests in combination with the Amaurotine lore we got from SHB did not succeed in - all I got out of it was a society comprised of individuals who bore many transcendent traits, and who nonetheless shared in some of the usual human pursuits, concerns and anxieties, but a society which was on balance idyllic in comparison to just about any other shown in the setting.

Great that it was so "obvious" to you, but if it had been "obvious" that they were going to take the ancient story in this direction after SHB portrayed what happened to them as a tragedy without any real justice in it (and it remains so), which led to an irreconcilable conflict between the Ascians - fighting on behalf of these, their people - and the Scions, rather than trying to declare either side is 'right', yeah, I'd have waved goodbye to the story there and then. To me, it sounds like you very much did go into it with some fixed expectations given what you claim is "obvious". At this point, I am offering my feedback on the story and waiting for 6.2 to see what the short stories do with the ancient backstory. If the direction is the same, I will have my answer.