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

[CrownySuccubus]

I think they would rather write a scenario that has us going to Wendy's on the 13th than have us return to Ilsabard. The Garlemald role quest and the underwhelming way in which the provinces were handled has done nothing to further my confidence in any future settings. This, paired with a community that is all too eager to repeat "not everything has to be so serious!" whenever challenged on the continuous encroach of slice of life and attempts at comedy

The story still has a lot of problems, but this argument is still hyperbolic. As I've mentioned before, in that seven minute cutscene, G'raha eats a burger for about 15 seconds of it, while the rest is recounting the events of the plot. The comparisons to slice of life and "Persona" and whatnot just don't work. Comedy in FFXIV has never been something that's "landed" for me, but compared to the problems with the themes of "suffering" and whatnot that fell forth in the expansion, "slice of life" is at the bottom of what they need to work on fixing, IMO.

[BRVV]

The story still has a lot of problems, but this argument is still hyperbolic. As I've mentioned before, in that seven minute cutscene, G'raha eats a burger for about 15 seconds of it, while the rest is recounting the events of the plot. *snip*

I guess it annoyed so many because of the weird pacing of EW and the forced goofy times during a universe wide threat. The eating is actually not that long. You are right on that.

[Midareyukki]

I guess it annoyed so many because of the weird pacing of EW and the forced goofy times during a universe wide threat. The eating is actually not that long. You are right on that.

The eating on that scene is honestly not that big a deal. They had the budget for new animations, why not make use of it? I don't even think it came at the detriment of the script itself. You can still have a game with amazing animations and a game with the world's worst animations and on both have a script that either works or doesn't. They'd still eat during the calamity, and likely need to use the toilet during the calamity. I don't suppose your body stops all its functions just because the world's going to hell around you. It being animated was just a quirky thing to add, what's really important is the script and the dialogue.

For me, what bothered me is less the impact these things have on the plot, but rather the impact they'd have in other stuff related to visuals and gameplay. Because ah yes, I clearly needed to see G'raha and Krile eating in the 7th Heaven with animated sugar cubes after being told my hairstyles would not have any ears because it was "too hard™". Like, you can knock yourself right out with that excuse.

I totally needed to know they could animate sugar cubes when Housing blew up on Day 1 and Data Center Travel wasn't prepared for the very obvious influx of players they'd have. I'd rather them pouring the money they gave Miqo'te NPC animations into stuff players would actually make use of.