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

[aveyond-dreams]

All I know is from "These were the words of the crystal's original bearer" after the Hydaelyn trial to "you are no mean trespassers" in the scene where Hesperos talks to the party in Pandaemonium, something is clearly going on.

[Rulakir]

So much of EW is a mess in EN. I never would've known how bad it was if I hadn't started comparing notes with others who play in different languages. Discussing lore turned into a joke. "Is this more EN weirdness?" Yep.

The amount of information that EN-only players miss out on cannot be overstated.

Are Meteion, Hermes, Venat, and etc. still alive to possibly return in a later expansion?

Venat is turbo dead, the only karmic justice to come out of EW. She burned through the remainder of her soul in her trial. Hermes is being tormented by Asahi, but it's implied that's finite and eventually he can be reborn to plague mankind with his idiocy again. Meteion, who knows. In EN she claims the WoL is her 'final encounter' and that she wants to sing one last song of hope before falling silent forever, but I haven't checked with other language versions (I do not care about Meteion) to see if it's any clearer she's going to die. Unlike with Zenos, we see her happily flitting around Mor Dhona while the WoL smiles.

[DevonEllwood]

I finally finished the rest of 6.1 and nothing really happened. I skipped the Sailor Moon cut scene. I don't know what the point of giving the bubble creatures the ability to talk just to express how much one was in pain on the floor as everyone stood around and talked. I started thinking about the story again and decided to look at it at face value and what we were supposed to see from it.

Backing up to Elpis, Hermes gets his message from Meteion, one about how people could not come with suffering and submitted to despair. He decides his test would be to treat humanity like their creations and submit everyone to copious amounts despair. If they couldn't deal with it, they need to die.

Venat has a line (can't remember the exact line) were she says that humanity must be equal to Hermes's test. I thought initially it was a throwaway fluff line. I know it had been brought up before and people saying that it wasn't a contest. But that's exactly what happened. She accepted the conditions and the final days happens. Because the memories were "burned into his soul", Hermes knew what was going on and opted to give less information about the situation. Venat knew what was going on and also chose to give less information. The line from SH, something about the new life being given the star or whatever, wasn't a lie because she knew that's what would happen. Her followers were just not told the whole truth

Venat sees that the ancients did not act how she wanted them to and did not show the qualities she wanted so she "unmade" them and turned them into something she thought would. On to Ultima Thule and Hades said they wouldn't have gotten that far. yes, because there were two people who knew what was going on and were withholding information. Of course the one person given all the information would succeed. The entire story of EW is a pissing match between two selfish people with the entire universe as the stakes. This doesn't just retroactively make SH worse, it makes the entire story worse. I'm pretty sure this is what Yoshida was implying when he said " Venat is just another ancient". Willing to gamble everything and willing to throw away life for whatever reason. Everyone was a pawn in in her plan including the ascians and the WoL. The moon was a spaceship because she didn't want all the work to be for nothing. She was going to succeed even if it leaving the shards to die. Of course she loved mankind, she worked so hard at them. Such a truly uplifting story.

I've read a book with a similar ending called The Carpet Makers. I was disappointed then and I really can't remember the details anymore, all I remember is the stupid ending. The only difference is that I didn't have to wait 8 years for the disappointment for it.

This works into another complaint about "othering" the ancients. It really makes no sense. I can't really think of another instance where we are working "backwords" in humanization. We are about to make friends with imaginary murder robots. Was there someone in control that just really hated the idea of the ancients or something? Ishikawa spend a good amount of time purposefully humanizing them in SH. So what happened?

As for Dynamis, we have one line from Hermes that they had no practical use for it. Not that ancients can't use Dynamis, but they had no reason to use it. One line from Y'shtola theorizing that's why the sundering happened. We are given no information that states only Dynamis can beat a being made of Dynamis. If it was there, I missed it.

Even after EW, the worse thing was Yoshida stating he didn't know people cared that much about the story. That and the many lose ends that are quickly wrapped up and or thrown away. Knowing this, what's the point in getting invested in the story at all anymore? It could really happen again with the new story.

In the end nothing in this thread really matters. A series of opinions and nothing more. The game will not change. The vast majority of players will love the story regardless. You guys keep this thread alive though if it makes you feel special.

Do you not see this as a problem? The developers could made something like the Heavensward Paladin quests for an entire expansion and the players will love it? If people will eat up anything just because the team made it, then yes, it's a problem. It show people have no standards. Hey, just remember, if something does happen to the story because of the complaints, know that it won't be because of this thread but because Japanese players were ripping on Endwalker long before we were. Also thanks for bumping the thread.

[MikkoAkure]

As for Dynamis, we have one line from Hermes that they had no practical use for it. Not that ancients can't use Dynamis, but they had no reason to use it. One line from Y'shtola theorizing that's why the sundering happened. We are given no information that states only Dynamis can beat a being made of Dynamis. If it was there, I missed it.

It was described a couple of times that the Ancients were unable to manipulate Dynamis due to the fact that they are incredibly suffused with aether. The reason why we and Meteion can is because our aether is much thinner. Aether easily cancels out Dynamis, which is why the Ancients had no use for it.


As for familiars, Y’shtola didn’t purposefully give them speech to make them suffer. If you didn’t skip the “Sailor Moon” cutscene, you would have seen that she had to follow the exact steps when she created them for the first time as a very young child. She was basically just doing a very limited summoning ritual to call forth an entity that already had a pattern than making something completely for scratch just for one mission.

If you did the Elpis side quests, you’d find that the Ancients don’t exactly treat their familiars better as a whole either. Some are kindly but others purposefully send you into combat expecting you to die and another even asking you to please die instead of killing creations you’re supposed to be capturing. Players who play summoner aren’t exactly better either. Carbuncle is a familiar like all of the others. Just the aether of a rock given a specific form and purpose like how nixies are aether manifested from water.


Segueing from there on why the Ancients were “othered”, the writers ultimately decided to follow the path many fantasy/sci-fi stories have taken before about a precursor race being full of hubris and ultimately responsible for their own destruction. They wanted to add nuance to the story so they made them more empathetic than most incarnations of this trope though and mostly ended up with just “clearly you don’t own an air fryer” levels of arrogance.

Would you have rather had the Ancients be completely irredeemably vile with Venat being the sole voice of reason? That would have barely changed the trajectory of the story.

[aveyond-dreams]

Do you not see this as a problem? The developers could made something like the Heavensward Paladin quests for an entire expansion and the players will love it? If people will eat up anything just because the team made it, then yes, it's a problem. It show people have no standards. Hey, just remember, if something does happen to the story because of the complaints, know that it won't be because of this thread but because Japanese players were ripping on Endwalker long before we were. Also thanks for bumping the thread.

Unfortunately, there are some sectors in the current FFXIV community who would probably take issue if someone were to speak out against the quality of the writing of even quests like those. It has proven difficult to have extended discussions surrounding the writing and story content lately without individuals trying to score social points by way of gatcha takes, or deliberately ignoring readily available information that has been presented to them on multiple occasions. Expressing concern for the future storytelling in the upcoming patches has also been met with similar resistance.

Some players need to understand that there comes a point when defending the errors made by the game would be to its detriment and hinder its ability to improve. Being told that I need to voice my posts differently makes me want to disengage from the greater conversation altogether and leave everyone to their business. It truly feels that because some people do not like those of us who frequent this thread, that they readily paint our ideas as bad despite the fact that should they instead be pitched officially by someone like Yoship, they would probably have no issue with them.

Simply put, Endwalker did not meet many people's expectations and as time has progressed, a disconnect between the interpretation of the story by the playerbase and by those involved with its writing has been made apparent. Moving forward it is to the game's benefit for both writers and players to be on the same page as to what the story is trying to convey, how its characters fulfil that purpose, and more carefully considering plot points/themes that may be received differently depending on the person's perspective.

[Hailen]

• Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

This is actually not true, it seems like the 12 were her helpers in the search of finding a solution. They pretty obviously seem to be unsundered ancients in their super form. We see a memory in shadowbringers where Venat is talking to her team about Zodiark. And the reason Venat didn't go to Emet-selch is because of his reaction when the WoL explained the story to him. He wouldn't believe her and she'd probably be tarnished for allegedly causing the shards.

She did try over and over again, but didn't find a solution as was said in Endwalker.

[BaconBits]

This is actually not true, it seems like the 12 were her helpers in the search of finding a solution. They pretty obviously seem to be unsundered ancients in their super form. We see a memory in shadowbringers where Venat is talking to her team about Zodiark. And the reason Venat didn't go to Emet-selch is because of his reaction when the WoL explained the story to him. He wouldn't believe her and she'd probably be tarnished for allegedly causing the shards.

She did try over and over again, but didn't find a solution as was said in Endwalker.

You mean his reaction being "That's bs, you must be lying, but as leader of the Convocation it is my duty to investigate any potential dangers to Star."

Sure he may have walked off in a huff the first time, but consider that he had just been told that not only his entire world would be Sundered into 14 shards but he would go on to commit countless atrocities for the sake of restoring his world by what he assumed to be a peculiar familiar.

Compare that to Venat, former holder of the seat of Azem, and respected by all. If she were to approach and warn him of the impending threat lurking at the far edge of the universe, he would be far more open to her advice than he was with the WoL. And if he didn't believe her right off the bat, which is likely since he can be pretty skeptical at times, then all she would have to do is point him in the direction of Ktisis Hyperboreia and have him activate the Echo to peer into the past. Doing so would reveal enough for him to understand the situation, from Meteion's breakdown and Hermes' challenge, to Venat and the WoL's escape, and the mind wipe incident.

[Rulakir]

Venat never once says that Emet won't believe her, yet that's become a commonly accepted excuse even though it doesn't make any sense (which BaconBits explained).

There's also no evidence Venat tried anything. It's just as likely she did nothing other than to find a group of suckers to turn her into a god so she could enact her racial cleansing.

[BaconBits]

We really did pull up and say "You were a menace to society bruh, had too much of that dog in ya, so I had to put you down like one."

The fact he didn't go full "Behold a Sorcerer of eld" on us and instead just walked out the door is honestly impressive. Even moreso considering he decided to continue keeping an eye on Hermes and Meteion for anything out of the ordinary instead of just blowing the whole thing off.

[SentioftheHoukai]

It was described a couple of times that the Ancients were unable to manipulate Dynamis due to the fact that they are incredibly suffused with aether. The reason why we and Meteion can is because our aether is much thinner. Aether easily cancels out Dynamis, which is why the Ancients had no use for it.


As for familiars, Y’shtola didn’t purposefully give them speech to make them suffer. If you didn’t skip the “Sailor Moon” cutscene, you would have seen that she had to follow the exact steps when she created them for the first time as a very young child. She was basically just doing a very limited summoning ritual to call forth an entity that already had a pattern than making something completely for scratch just for one mission.

If you did the Elpis side quests, you’d find that the Ancients don’t exactly treat their familiars better as a whole either. Some are kindly but others purposefully send you into combat expecting you to die and another even asking you to please die instead of killing creations you’re supposed to be capturing. Players who play summoner aren’t exactly better either. Carbuncle is a familiar like all of the others. Just the aether of a rock given a specific form and purpose like how nixies are aether manifested from water.


Segueing from there on why the Ancients were “othered”, the writers ultimately decided to follow the path many fantasy/sci-fi stories have taken before about a precursor race being full of hubris and ultimately responsible for their own destruction. They wanted to add nuance to the story so they made them more empathetic than most incarnations of this trope though and mostly ended up with just “clearly you don’t own an air fryer” levels of arrogance.

Would you have rather had the Ancients be completely irredeemably vile with Venat being the sole voice of reason? That would have barely changed the trajectory of the story.

Yes, actually. If the end result of Endwalker ended up being the same, I'd rather they hadn't made me care about a race of beings that were always slated to be a big, fat cosmic sacrificial altar.

Endwalker gave most people hope, for me? It made my life-long chronic depression spiral out of control again. I was suicidal for a fair bit after it. Denigrate me for revealing this information if that's what you wish to do, Gods only know I'm already preparing for the "It's just a game, you don't need to be playing it if you get so depressed from it!" criticism as I type this. I empathize greatly with a fictional race that built a society upon the backs of a monolith of logic instead of emotion. It's like a society of Autistics, of which I am a sizeable and significant example of. Suppose I saw a little of myself in it. Then I watched "MY" people die to a crazy egotistic harpy that decided I should die because I wasn't born in tune with my emotions enough.