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

[aveyond-dreams]

Not just the WoL, but all the main cast could stand to be humbled by way of lasting consequences for their actions or even failures in the story. However, due to elements in the community I am not sure if we will ever see that come to pass.

[Kaliesto]

Isn't it kind of early to talk about the end result of Endwalker? Usually the story continues in some fashion after the main patch.

I mean there is a few mysteries left, and I doubt that final boss was truly the biggest thing will ever fight.

Just my take.

[aveyond-dreams]

Isn't it kind of early to talk about the end result of Endwalker? Usually the story continues in some fashion after the main patch.

I mean there is a few mysteries left, and I doubt that final boss was truly the biggest thing will ever fight.

Just my take.

It has already been stated numerous times that the 6.0 MSQ represents its own story arc that as of now has concluded. It is different to other expansions because of this aspect, which lets us judge it as it released.

[Eldtagg]

Isn't it kind of early to talk about the end result of Endwalker? Usually the story continues in some fashion after the main patch.

I mean there is a few mysteries left, and I doubt that final boss was truly the biggest thing will ever fight.

Just my take.

Not too early in my opinion.

[GrizzlyTank]

Isn't it kind of early to talk about the end result of Endwalker? Usually the story continues in some fashion after the main patch.

I mean there is a few mysteries left, and I doubt that final boss was truly the biggest thing will ever fight.

Just my take.

That's not the case for this expansion. They wanted Endwalker to end straight away like ARR so the following patches are rather going to establish future content than to build up to the true final boss of the expansion a.la Niddhogg, Yutsuyu, Elidibus.

Pardon my bad take, but; I really didn't/don't like the focus on The Ancients this expac.

I don't find them particularly interesting (except Emet) and they being behind creation just mess with the things I like about the lore: Elementals, Padjal, Beast Tribes etc.

Things are often most interesting when they can't/don't have to be constantly explained to me.

This falls into my second dislike; I've always disliked that my character is the WoL. Godlike can't-lose chosen tropes kills any interesting factor of a character. Lazy writing.
In headcanon my character is just another scion. A close friend to Tataru and co. that out of chance happens to have the gift of the echo.

But the idea that my character could stand 1v1 with "certain powerful opponents" is absurd. My character is a healer. He is not the fittest, most brilliant or bravest character in the world.

Why can't the story start focusing on that the scions always helps you out instead of sending you alone, with adventurer friends, in impossible scenarios?

Dragon Age Inquisition is the only modern RPG that does the "chosen one" correctly IMO - there you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You get something that your character can se as a means to power or as a curse.

You don't remember how you got "the thing" (no spoilers) until much later in the game because you lose that part of your memory out of trauma (keeps the mysticism).

You are free to RP it as something that destroyed your life. That you hate to have and just want to get rid off and go back to who you were before.

Some people in the world see you as a sign from god. Others are afraid of you and see you as a blasphemy, a pretender.

So its up to you; will you pretend to be a sign from god or are you not the brave hero everyone thinks you are? Are you just an average guy in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Is the thing a sign from god and is it actually a gift? (No spoilers) maybe, maybe not. I loved the twist here.

The things that happen in Inquisition is bigger than you are. The characters you meet are just a as strong or stronger than you.
Constantly through the game; the story let's you play into that your character is just an average person that is afraid and scared to put themselves in danger if you so choose.

In FFXIV your character never struggle - if they do struggle it's not because of their own insecurities but because something happens to others. WoL is automatically the best at everything (except maybe paperwork). WoL don't have any own internal struggles(beside DRK) no personal dreams or insecurities.

WoL never says; nah I don't want to do that, nah I'm tired of it all, nah I'm too afraid to go on, I don't want to die!

Where is the Frodo Baggins, DAI protaganists, Arthur Morgans in RPGs?

I hoped Endwalker would expand a bit on the WoL but they are still the boring superman-esque boyscout they always have been.

Thank god for "headcanon".

And Elpis completly sucked!

Seems like you aren't too interested in jrpg stories then.

[Eldtagg]

Seems like you aren't too interested in jrpg stories then.

You are partly correct since I love western RPG's the most, esp. the CRPG ones; Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, ToEE etc.

Some JRPG characters I really love;

- Cloud from FF7.
- V, Vergil, Dante, Nero from DMC5 (sure it's not a JRPG but it's a Japanese game).
- Urianger, Alphie and Ali from FFXIV.

Endwalkers weak points are not boring "because it's a JRPG" but because the "nietzsche themes" are cringe and overdone.

The only character I can remember I enjoyed in media that had the nietzsche thing going on was Owlman from Justice League: Crisis on Two Worlds because 1. the character is over-the-top and 2. he is an enjoyable psychopath that goes out like a badass.

His reasoning around existence made sense because he is a friggin psychopath that admits that he was never a good man ever, has no trouble in murdering everyone including his associates/lover because he was always an evil douche that just wanted to destroy everything even as a child.

Owlman's reasoning is that every action he takes is pointless because on another Earth he does the opposite choice. On earth 3 he is poor, on earth 4 he is rich etc etc.
So if he ends all creation by destroying "Earth Prime" (which makes all alternate worlds destroyed in the process) he can end the whole existance which is the only choice he can make that fills a purpose.

Is it insane? Yes it absolutely is. Does the reasoning to end all existence being the only meanful choice somewhat makes sense? It absolutely does.

He is not the typically moustache-twirling villain, but instead just wants to destroy all of existence because every other action he can take is just pointless from his view and it was incredibly refreshing to watch a character like that in this day an age where every villain have to have a cringe backstory of "how they were wronged and got lost on their way".

With Endwalker I feel that Square tried to do the thing with; "oooh these characters are so deep, oooh creation, ooooh can we really play gods, though?? LOVE THE CHARACTERS!!!" - It just doesnt work out for me because it's not deep, it's overdone and it's frankly very boring and predictable just like Ultima Thule.

Instead of spending the expac making the Ancients and their civilisation interesting, like Amaurot, and make the Ancients "something else than us" they just end up being another dissapointment followed by a narrative that tries to force me to like them and emphatize with them. I don't. They are annoying. I really hate their robes and their forgettable boring face models.

While I enjoyed the Endwalker story at its whole I can't wait to be done with this "pseudo-greek" blabbering that just keeps getting thrown into my face even after the MSQ is done.

And I am one of those that love greek mythology! The greek themes are just so boring in this story!

edited: to minimize spoilers

[Theodric]

Not just the WoL, but all the main cast could stand to be humbled by way of lasting consequences for their actions or even failures in the story. However, due to elements in the community I am not sure if we will ever see that come to pass.

Coincidentally, my favourite JRPG's are those with lasting consequences for the playable cast.

Shadow Hearts
Breath of Fire IV
Grandia II
Suikoden V
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy XII

Without spoiling anything, although the protagonists ultimately succeeded, their victories were often bittersweet - because they failed meaningfully along the way and faced dire, lasting consequences that extended beyond the occasional minor character perishing along the way.

It's why the whole 'hurr, durr, u must not liek jrpgs111' doesn't mean much to me. I do like them - and I'd like FFXIV to be more like a JRPG instead of a Hollywood movie where there's minimal stakes for the protagonists and the only meaningful, lasting consequences are pushed onto the antagonists.

At this point, it's pretty clear to me that a pattern has been established where the antagonists are fleshed out in their final hours to induce sympathy and 'feels' only to lose absolutely everything or near enough. The game then tries to take that trauma and falsely attribute it to the Scions - but it doesn't work for me (or others here, it would seem) because we've caught on to that trick.

It doesn't help that many of the cutscenes in FFXIV are very stiff and large swathes of the community have outright meltdowns in response to the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, the major Scions or City State leaders could be at risk of being killed off from time to time.

Personally I care more about interesting worldbuilding over individual characters - sure, there are characters I like a lot though if they die? So be it. I just want it to make sense - and sadly, that hasn't been the case with the Ancients due to the utterly bizarre attempt to justify their genocide as a good and necessary thing rather than a complete and utterly monstrous act.

[Rulakir]

Thanks to the ridiculous time loop, the location we went to had to be someplace the WoL could be themselves and not stick out like a sore thumb. Hence Elpis. Had they gone with what I would've preferred, first person perspective Azem flashbacks, we could've been anywhere.

I agree I am also tired of Superman/Goku WoL. I had hoped EW would bring more DRK themes to the front with the WoL questioning if they're doing the right thing or struggling with the 'right thing' involving what it does (essentially the annihilation of the Ancients and joining forces with the woman responsible for it). We get none of that as the WoL reverts to ARR affirmative head nodding to what are controversial situations not treated as being such.

The lack of consequences for the protagonists was ludicrous too. It definitely felt like the Ancients were put on the chopping block (again) for the tears because the writers simply won't allow any harm to come to the Scions. It's hard not to see it as emotional manipulation when you factor in that every major character who 'died' was already dead. They basically just brought back fan favorites to watch them suffer (heh) helpless to do anything about it.

As far as the focus on the Ancients, I'm not invested in anything else. I hated ARR and thought SB was meh. ShB was the first narrative to grip me since the end of 3.3 only for Yoshi-P to decide to wrap it all up in 6.0. I've no story hook now and so far am completely bored with the supposed "new adventure". (Also, these callbacks to previous FF titles are meaningless to me as FFX is the oldest one I've played.)

I would've preferred the Ancient storyline keep being peppered throughout each expansion rather than the huge dump (in more ways than one) of them in 6.0, especially because we were denied a lot of lore because of it. We didn't even get to see the actual sundering, let alone anything else like Zodiark's summoning and the stopping of the Final Days.

[ReynTime]

Coincidentally, my favourite JRPG's are those with lasting consequences for the playable cast.

Shadow Hearts
Breath of Fire IV
Grandia II
Suikoden V
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy XII

Without spoiling anything, although the protagonists ultimately succeeded, their victories were often bittersweet - because they failed meaningfully along the way and faced dire, lasting consequences that extended beyond the occasional minor character perishing along the way.

It's why the whole 'hurr, durr, u must not liek jrpgs111' doesn't mean much to me. I do like them - and I'd like FFXIV to be more like a JRPG instead of a Hollywood movie where there's minimal stakes for the protagonists and the only meaningful, lasting consequences are pushed onto the antagonists.

At this point, it's pretty clear to me that a pattern has been established where the antagonists are fleshed out in their final hours to induce sympathy and 'feels' only to lose absolutely everything or near enough. The game then tries to take that trauma and falsely attribute it to the Scions - but it doesn't work for me (or others here, it would seem) because we've caught on to that trick.

It doesn't help that many of the cutscenes in FFXIV are very stiff and large swathes of the community have outright meltdowns in response to the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, the major Scions or City State leaders could be at risk of being killed off from time to time.

Personally I care more about interesting worldbuilding over individual characters - sure, there are characters I like a lot though if they die? So be it. I just want it to make sense - and sadly, that hasn't been the case with the Ancients due to the utterly bizarre attempt to justify their genocide as a good and necessary thing rather than a complete and utterly monstrous act.

You really should try out the Xeno games. And I'm not just talking about -Blade.

[Necrotica]

It has already been stated numerous times that the 6.0 MSQ represents its own story arc that as of now has concluded. It is different to other expansions because of this aspect, which lets us judge it as it released.

What they say they are doing, and what they end up doing, are very different things.

That Omega stuff came in a patch. And was trying to wrap up points in Endwalker.

I think the rest of the patch content will be them trying to build the next expansion yes, but also trying to fix the mistakes in 6.0 lore.