Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[Necrotica]

Can argue all day long about how a story makes you feel. That is opinion.

But the narrative writing flaws that take place in Endwalker are very real. You can say they don't matter to you. That the good parts make up for it.

Doesn't remove the fact that they are there.

[EaraGrace]

An appropriate consequence for this game's equivalent of the Burning of Teldrassil, I suppose.

Game seems to be doing fine. I think your doomsaying hasn’t materialized.

Funny, you're still here.

They’re are a few posters who I think are great and interesting to talk to. Unfortunately I have to cut through tantrums and overreactions to jokes to find them.

Can argue all day long about how a story makes you feel. That is opinion.

But the narrative writing flaws that take place in Endwalker are very real. You can say they don't matter to you. That the good parts make up for it.

Doesn't remove the fact that they are there.

See that’s again what I was saying about subjective vs objective. You seem to be mistaking the two.

[Larirawiel]

I would not say, that it sucked. But they proved with HW and ShB, that they can do it better. IMHO the EW story feels very rushed and they surrendered to the "rule of cool".


Cheers

[KariTheFox]

Wait, who's the spoiled brat with daddy issues meant to be? I guess that kinda describes Zenos, but he's not really the principal mover of the story.

Hermes/Fandaniel? I never really saw him as 'spoiled', since he was a dilligent worker and the only 'Daddy' in his lives was Xande.

[Cleretic]

Wait, who's the spoiled brat with daddy issues meant to be? I guess that kinda describes Zenos, but he's not really the principal mover of the story.

Hermes/Fandaniel? I never really saw him as 'spoiled', since he was a dilligent worker and the only 'Daddy' in his lives was Xande.

I think they're talking about Meteion, and getting... basically every single detail wrong? I don't know, but it also doesn't matter because it's an opinion too brokeass to be worth examining.

I don't think Endwalker is perfect--I'd probably put it at a 7/10, hardly a failing grade--but it's flawed in far more interesting ways than if it completely stuck the landing for me. I don't think a whole lot about stories that I consider perfect for their intention after finishing them, but something that's almost there is really fun to prod at and ask 'how would I change this, and would that actually improve this or have I produced something worse but more to my tastes'.

These days the changes I've landed at are pretty minor; I'm hardly going to slander characters I don't like or warp the game's setting and themes to put a self-insert into power. But I do think they'd make things much nicer to me. It basically comes down to two things:
1. Lop off everything about Elpis before Meteion's freakout. While in the past I've thought just making Elpis an Echo flashback would be best, I think doing that would create more problems than it solves, and I'm not so spiteful as to completely remove the presence of characters people like. However, while I can respect the concept of falling action after a huge moment, and the Loporrits generally fill that role quite well after the raw WEIGHT of Garlemald and Zodiark, turning up to the idyllic Elpis after Thavnair's revisit isn't 'falling action' so much as 'action fell off a cliff'; it would rather suit to turn up in Elpis during a minor crisis that escalates rather than 'time to meet a bunch of cuties in paradise'. This would free up a lot of quests, so let's allocate them to Garlemald so that they get some space to talk about the remnants of the slave class (while it's clear Garlemald had a lot of ideas it didn't do, the slave class getting a single quest in the MSQ is the biggest stumble). If there's any spare reel after that, let's flesh out Ultima Thule.

2. The Illuminati attack during the Labyrinthos revisit. While there's great scenes in the Labyrinthos revisit (if your theoretical Endwalker rewrite skips Moenbryda's parents, your rewrite has failed), it's overall a lot of story space without a lot of action, so it feels like you're milling about a lot. It doesn't need a huge ticking clock or raising of stakes, but it does need something more happening; essentially, it needs a Team Rocket sort of presence to increase pressure while still letting the story continue. The Illuminati don't really come up elsewhere in Endwalker, so let's take advantage of them being free to have them turn up to steal spaceship parts or something; being a group with a strong technical aptitude, they're well-suited to turning up the heat in Labyrinthos without being a complete sideshow. My dream version of this would include Quickthinx in the Aitiascope, but making that work would require making Alexander compulsory, and that seems a bad idea.

Considering my rewrite of Shadowbringers to my tastes would include 'lop off the most popular zone', and I wouldn't even know where to start with Stormblood, Endwalker being pretty close is both testament to its strengths and that the flaws are not apocalyptic. Landing that goddamn ship at all is no mean feat, let's not be too angry that there was some turbulence.

EDIT: Oh, and let us walk away from the Zenos fight like he says we can. While I think the Zenos conclusion generally falls into the basket of 'I didn't think you should've written this but you've proven it was worth doing', it would've been satisfying in its own way to have us be able to not do that, and to see Zenos actually come to terms with the fact we might not be that kind of Fight Idiot. ...also I feel like I'm not the only person that turned up to that fight at four in the goddamn morning because they expected the final trial to be the end, and a compulsory fight after that makes for a weird state of 'do I do it now when the moment feels right but I'm tired, or leave it until tomorrow for an awkwardly-placed end'.