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

[Vyrerus]

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 need to play through Xenogears next. You may have some issue with the translation, but it is saturated with characters who suffer meaningful consequences. As well as a very morally grey main character.

That's right! I'm a coward!