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

[Rufalus]

IMO making the most important basis of your gameplay single-player centered in an MMO is an abomination in terms of bad decisions in the first place.

Big agree. I got tired of arguing with people on discord who think this is the best possible way to use resources. So much dev time goes into scripted events which people will see only one time ever unless they want to do new game plus for no reward. But it's an MMO and you have to pay for game time. In a live service game I care about dynamic repeatable content that drives daily and weekly engagement. Story scenes and single player instances are only relevant on patch week, not the following 4 months. I'm not saying FF shouldn't have story, but the ratio is weird here and all other content is locked behind that giant chain of msq which must be undertaken solo.

[Lustre]

I'm not engaging in an argument over how I phrase things. I cannot recommend anyone in my age group of 20somethings a story that propped up Venat at the cost of everyone else and the other worldbuilding that was interesting in this game. A story where the main cast suffered very little in the way of consequences all because they were Hydaelyn's "chosen" made for an experience that was too average and nowhere near the level of maturity in terms of the storytelling I expected based off previous expansions.

I saw someone recently compare the base plot of Endwalker to that of a Children's Novel, and the more I think about it, the more that is actually the case. 0 nuance, 0 character development, 0 stakes. Just good vs "bad". Boring.

[Lauront]

And they can't have a disaster destroy most of Ul'dah because we need that, players use that. They can't write in anything that would change the world, apart from hearing about major events at locations we can't access in gameplay yet. Once we get there ourselves it's a permanent time bubble, any threats by the big bad to wipe it off the map can't be taken seriously, we already know nothing can ever happen.

They're self-imposed restrictions, ultimately. Other MMOs haven't had problems implementing such changes to their overworld, e.g. using phasing. XIV did take the bold move of 'resetting' its world with 1.0 but that is quite a dramatic move that came with re-building the game; there are ways, such as phasing, to implement subtler changes. Granted, they're not "cost-free", but the point is it's not impossible to do in an MMO context, and XIV has done it e.g. with the Doma reconstruction. They're also going to have to think about a direct starting point for the new story; I believe Yoshi has said he intends to look into this, but the clock is ticking...

IMO making the most important basis of your gameplay single-player centered in an MMO is an abomination in terms of bad decisions in the first place. It is as relevant as making a singleplayer game, but you get a ingame chat that let you talk to other players in ther single player instance.

Turbo Casual story enjoyers are the kind of people who don't want long-lasting consequences story-wise anyway. The important chars who died so far are either not loved by the community in the first place (Minfillia) or were never plot relevant to begin with (Papalymo) and were legit at a point were people would complain if any other important char died cause they attach to them. Hell in SHB we legit brought back Ysthola from the death for the second time with no consequence. They legit used death fakeout a bunch of time to just give a new class to a npc. When ''death'' is a power-up there a reason why you can't tell a story seriously and hope anyone believes there is any kind of danger of even getting something that ain't the best case scenario out of a dangerous situation.

To me, the game lacks too many features I'd want in a single player, like branching story options, some choice in party members, optional hard difficulty settings (yeah they exist for group content but I am specifically looking at this through the lens of Yoshi's single player ambition), and it possesses none of that. That is before we even get to those games being able to do much more with their graphics. All this is aside from me finding the story to be, well... lacklustre.

Yes, there's single player games are similar in the above, but I generally wouldn't play them - they'd have to be exceptional in some respect for me to overlook it, in a way that XIV isn't. Certainly, if the story is bad, I can just drop the game and go "well that happened". There's no continuous element to them, so it's that much easier than with an MMO. That is before looking at value for money.

The idea that she had the ability to temper the entire world also plays nicely into her insistence that she's the Will of the Star. How handy that is when you usurp Zodiark, wipe out the civilization whose will he represented, and are left with significantly less intelligent beings with no memories to mould.

The word "ability" being key here. Primals can control whom they temper - the exception to this being for primals summoned using the Ascian rites, their summoners, and I guess with very powerful primals, you get the energy alignment aspect as with Zodiark. Other than this, there is a degree of choice here on the primal's part. This was covered in an interview where Oda mentioned Thordan could control to what extent he tempered the Heavensward. So there would be no inference of her just automatically tempering the entire Aetherial Sea, she'd have to will it. I always thought the conduit they could choose to use for this is the Blessing, especially since there are degrees and variations when it comes to tempering, that don't require total brainwashing. Not that we got much different out of Krile and Y'shtola (yeah no Blessing but her reactions in EW along with Thancred's... she may as well have had her brain soaked in bleach), and some others.

[Vyrerus]

I don't believe it's discussed enough how Venat/Hydaelyn has no downsides

Well, she does have downsides. They only get passing mentions. Which are either forgotten or ignored.

The biggest downside is that in order to even give her the Hydaelyn powers, she had to sacrifice all of her followers to herself, souls and all. They should have names, and they should be talked about, but they aren't.

She doesn't decay of the mind as much as the Ascians, because she didn't have to live in the real world. She had her follower's lives sustain her form after all, and she never once left her primal form like Elidibus.

And it's just my opinion, as the game's cast sure don't make any commentary on it, but Hydaelyn droning on still about Light = Good, Dark = Bad after everything we've been through seems to me like a crack in her mind. She sounds like a zealot, but of course, she is her own biggest fan anyway.

It's less about tropes or being cliche and more about suddenly making the character who supports us and saves our life on multiple occasions over 10 years into a villain just because people caught the feels for the Ascians isn't great writing. Considering Venat was in 3rd place in popularity polls in Japan, I don't think she's the universally panned figure you think she is.

Ultimately the game isn't about the Ancients.

They already started walking towards that path in Shadowbringers when Emet-selch revealed the truth of the world to us. They further committed to that path with the dialogue option choice on the boat at the very start of EW. They hammered in that Venat was a villain when she chose to Sunder the world rather than find a better way. Specifically, she is an Anti-Villain, but a villain nonetheless. Yet, they chose to do a nasty thing to try and shy away from that truth by having the cast completely validate her actions while lauding her with praise. It is most akin to Watchmen, but instead of the other Watchmen taking issue with Ozymandias, they all pat him on the back and tell him, "Great job!"

Which is totally the writers committing to what they like to do, which is write the unexpected. Everyone expected Hydaelyn to be full on villain, so they put, "For the greatest good, the ends justified the means" by her in the script. Of course, since they love writing the unexpected, what happens in Elpis? Well, when you hear about Kairos the first time you think, "Oh, everyone will get their memories wiped. Tragic." But they couldn't resist subversion even in a single instance, so they let Hydaelyn keep her memory.

There are plenty of people who take issue with her, because she was informed and stayed informed. Which should give her the agency to change things, but she opted to still choose the unknown instead of the people she claimed to love.

As for the popularity poll? Oh jee, in a generation where sexuality is an all important, all encompassing facet of people's identity from their surface to their core I can't imagine why a super hot lady would be high in popularity. Whispers: (Same reason as Emet-selch. She's hot, and people want to bang her.)

And I think they still wound up subverting Hydaelyn vs. The Darkness completely. They just chose to ignore that they already had, so her droning on about Hope = Light and shit sounds poetic and motivational. Nevermind that Ardbert already told us in HW that Light or Dark, doesn't matter. It's how you use them. Which Shadowbringers and Zodiark further illustrated. Hell, to even fight with Meteion who is the "true darkness" we had to use Dynamis, the fictional dark matter in order to win, anyway.

[Magikazam]

Big agree. I got tired of arguing with people on discord who think this is the best possible way to use resources. So much dev time goes into scripted events which people will see only one time ever unless they want to do new game plus for no reward. But it's an MMO and you have to pay for game time. In a live service game I care about dynamic repeatable content that drives daily and weekly engagement. Story scenes and single player instances are only relevant on patch week, not the following 4 months. I'm not saying FF shouldn't have story, but the ratio is weird here and all other content is locked behind that giant chain of msq which must be undertaken solo.

The sad part is that there correct way to make a story-centered MMO that still feels like an MMO. Just look at GW2, most of your time is spent in the open world leveling doing quests and Fates with others, while you also get a solo-centered questline every 5 levels or so, which basically let you progress the main story. each leveling zone also has its own sub-story so it makes the game feel more like a real world that is alive. It is similar to how job quest work basically.

on the other hand, FFXIV is so solo-content and story-centered It makes me feel like the whole universe revolves around the WoL. like mostly nothing happened in Gridania or Limsa since ARR, Garlean patiently waits for the WOL to do HW and resolve the sultan assassination plot AND let them help Ala migo before they come back from AFK or something, SHB whole concept work around the fact time continuation work perfectly so WoL arrive at the right time in the First.

Against, compare this to GW2 where sometimes you get to help some random small village cause there are some harpy building nests nearby and now they killing villagers, I have less trouble believing that while my char is busy fighting some BBEG 2 extension later, that while I'm busy doing that there probably a new adventurer going there and solving whatever new issue the villagers have with wildlife.

[Rulakir]

They can't fully commit to a single player experience due to not imposing relationships upon the player character as well. The closest we're likely ever going to get is Azem. Even then, despite the game trying to insist that all Azem reincarnations are their own person, Azem is the player insert of the past rather than an independent character which further hamstrings development and lore. I've often thought ShB being in an MMO was a huge waste of potential due to that and what an even more amazing story it could've been in a single player game with fixed character identities rather than trying to dance around the player. (Not that it stopped them in EW, but that's another rant. :P)

She sounds like a zealot, but of course, she is her own biggest fan anyway.

I do find it amusing that Emet calls Venat out for being a messianic figure. She seemed a little too into becoming Hydaelyn.

I'd argue her biggest downside is she's conveniently too weak to do anything when it matters. Oh, the First totally didn't fall because she needed it to in order to ensure the time loop, it was just a bad power day for her. Too bad, so sad. Same for all the other fallen shards, I'm sure. We'll just ignore that she'd hoarded more aether than required in the Mothercrystal and could have tapped into it if she wanted.

They already started walking towards that path in Shadowbringers when Emet-selch revealed the truth of the world to us.

This. Not to mention ShB was near universally loved. It would've made more sense and been smarter to continue with that as opposed to, gee, this doesn't fit with what someone back in 1.0 had in mind.

[DevonEllwood]

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.

Would you mind pointing where? Because I don't remember these scenes, only the one with Y'shtola and Hermes.

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.

I never stated they had speech just for them to suffer. I'm sorry if it wasn't clear but my point it was completely awkward that they were standing around and the things were just talking about how much they were in pain. I was confused because I didn't know what I was supposed to feel, but Endwalker had a lot of these moments for me. The worst one was with Livingway stating that it's a shame the world is ending. Was it supposed to be funny? Was the dinner scene in In From the Cold supposed to be funny?

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.

I did the side quests. Most of them were nice or neutral with a few rude or mean people. Like humans are. They're scientists, they're not going to be all nice. One or two people would prefer you to die, and several went above and beyond for some random familiar that was not their responsibility.

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.

The ancients were humanize from what we originally knew them as the ascians. So they completely backpedaled in what they did. I would have preferred they remained consistent, because EW, especially Elpis, reeks of rewriting. Ishikawa stressed normalizing the ancients in Shadowbringers, even in interviews, for that to only be undone in EW. Why?

[Lauront]

Would you mind pointing where? Because I don't remember these scenes, only the one with Y'shtola and Hermes.

It is specifically those characters who mention it, and in Hermes's case he premises it as being unable to easily manipulate or be manipulated by it, hence why it's a "big thing" that Hermes is able to darken the elpis flower to the degree he does... he's the saddest boi ever, don't you know, the first step for mankind.

It's less so that a dynamis-formed being could not be destroyed by aether... though finding such a being could be trickier (albeit Hermes's staff is apparently able to commune with them); that is, if you don't already have the coordinates conveniently mapped onto a crystal. The rest of the struggle was reaching her, so I kind of liked how Zenos in primal form just flew up to her. But none of what is suggested in the plot would rule out the ancients finding work-arounds, especially since entelechies are their creations, after all. Given 12k or so years, I am sure they'd find a way...

[MikkoAkure]

As for the popularity poll? Oh jee, in a generation where sexuality is an all important, all encompassing facet of people's identity from their surface to their core I can't imagine why a super hot lady would be high in popularity. Whispers: (Same reason as Emet-selch. She's hot, and people want to bang her.)

Venat’s supposed to be hot? First and only person I’ve ever heard say that.

Anyway, the game never treats her as villain and she doesn’t get a dressing down about her actions. It’s never “hammered” in that she’s a villain unless you empathize more with the Ancients than with the main characters, which happens to be a large chunk of everyone in this thread who is upset about the story.

I would agree that the writers flubbed her motivations but I don’t think she’s this terrible witch who deliberately destroyed the world to suit her self-interest like is being suggested and the game never goes in that direction with your interactions with her.

The whole point is that everything that happened back then was a runaway tragedy. We don’t know what would have happened if the Ancients handled it all on their own with Venat telling them because we don’t have insight into that potential timeline.

Emet-Selch ended up saying that Venat’s plan would have worked more than his, and considering these characters came out of the writers’ heads, you would think that they know the characters and any possibilities better than we do.

[aveyond-dreams]

I don't consider Venat not telling people what was going on a "runaway tragedy." More of an avoidable one.