Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[KageTokage]

I don't think it was terrible, but nowdays I'd say it's probably towards the bottom of my expansion ranking, only above ARR.

It suffered from Stormblood syndrome in that they needed to make too much happen in too little time, but spread it across an even vaster array of zones spanning both the world and time/space. I also felt it didn't give a satisfying resolution to many long-standing mysteries and questions, but I had already curbed my expectations.

I really hope 7.x is another "focused" expansion like HW and ShB that really gives one particular region of the world the proper time for its lore and stories to pan out.

[ShinyChariot]

My biggest issue of Endwalker it failed to deliver on the backstory of the Ancients during the Final Days. We got to see none of the politics, infighting, and emotions of those in the convocation, which Shadowbringers teased at had me anticipating. It felt like that itself should've been a hefty topic of an entire expansion. Emet himself said that Hydaelyn and Zodiark "fought and fought and fought" but we got to see none of that. At the end of the Elpis questline, we just got a recycled Amaurot cutscene and sure, Venat said some cool things that might've distracted everyone from the fact that they abridged the events so hard it didn't even make sense compared to what Shadowbringers set up. It's like they had no time and did the bare minimum to wrap it up and they're going to suppliment the lore with the Tales from the Dawn. The ancients and their society are the most interesting part of FFXIV lore but they're going to spend it on text like it's WoW or something. If I were to get what I'd wanted, we would've seen Venat struggle and play politics during the Final Days instead of the compressed cutscene we got at the end of Elpis.



Elpis, I enjoyed it, but it also wasn't what I was hoping for. Memory alteration, what a cheap plot device. What a retcon, Hydaelyn seems so inconsistent from Venat from what we've seen in previous expansions now in the context that she knew the events of Elpis. Something just feels unnatural.


Also, the fact that the Final Days wasn't some actual cosmic threat but some bird a depressed dude made which somehow was able to destroy civilizations. I mean, they did a great job, but I didn't think it was the best direction to take with that at all. I just would've preferred if Metieon was simply a medium for the despair of failed civilizations, not Metieon herself perpetrating all of it.

I don't believe it, I don't believe they had everything planned from the start. I wish they did things differently, though I'm fine with how they did it in EW, but my expectations after the Amaurot dungeon were not met.

[Cleretic]

I don't believe it, I don't believe they had everything planned from the start.

It's okay, because neither do they. They've been quite open in interviews that the experience of writing FFXIV is much less 'writing a long cohesive story and deliberately planning for the future' and more 'desperately digging through the archives until they find an unused plot thread that works to justify the turn they need'. The Ascians are perhaps the most extreme example, because what we have now is more or less the result of them having to throw out the entire original plan for them constructed in 1.0, but while still having to keep every single plot thread about them that was actually exposed across 1.0 through 2.x. (It's unclear when exactly the 'new plan' fully came into existence, but my best guess is somewhere around the Antitower.)

That's hardly a bad thing or a smear against them, it is a genuine skill to have an eye for how to do that and the deftness in writing to make it look like you didn't pull that plot thread out from behind the couch cushions. The ability to pull that off has created pretty much every modern comic book superhero you can name. But yes, what it does mean is that whatever you thought was the plan probably wasn't the plan for as long as you thought it was.

Add to that the fact that we know the original plan for Endwalker was two expansions (but that by the time actual writing or development work was put on it, that plan was gone), and yeah, they probably did have a little more planned for the stretch that became Elpis. But it's folly to assume that what they threw out was the plot of your dreams. Honestly, my reading of Elpis was that no, they were probably never going to fully explore the politics around the End of Days; more likely, the plan was 'the same as what we got, but more', and while you might've liked to see some tense political drama abut that stuff, that probably wasn't planned and I don't think was ever really the intention. The entire rest of the game gets HEFTY on political stuff, but Elpis was ultimately 'the story of Atlantis but with more character beats'. Hell, if they wanted to write more stuff like what you're asking for but couldn't fit it, I'd assume they would've shunted it into Pandaemonium, and Pandaemonium... well, isn't that.

[GeckoMain]

I 100% agree with this take on the scions- I've said so many times that ultima thule was completely ruined by the really obvious and meaningless death of the scions, I couldn't take anything any of them said seriously and it really let me down. Not only was it incredibly obvious they were just going to come back, it's also insulting to give each character their own 'important' death speech, ergh it just completely took me out of it. I would have been so devastated and impacted if thancred or urianger or yshtola had actually died- 1 death is so much more meaningful then 7 absolutely fake deaths.

I think this kinda marked a decline in the storytelling honestly- they are so afraid of doing something the fans would hate like killing one of our favourite scions that they prioritised it over making a genuinely impressive story telling moment- and that really peeves me.

Shadowbringers got away with it because the rest of the expansion, including the core story and plot was cohesive, believable and pretty phenominal- but endwalker wasn't quite that impressive, it had some great moment throughout but it's story has some definite flaws and I'm just not a fan of how clearly defined and retconned all the lore of the game is now.

It's sad because I was so impressed with ShB and I was so excited for the future expansions amd finding out all of the lore- and by the endwalker I was kinda deflated haha, like THAT'S the lore of it all? It was just too fanservicey and made it clear they hadn't planned it through nearly as much as ShB made it seem they had- and for a game where lore is a huge drawing point for a lot of fans it does effect the way you view the rest of the story, especially going forward.

Went on a tangent there but hey ho it's just my opinion haha

[Lustre]

Yup endwalker sucked. Contrived plotlines, magical devices being pulled out of every oriface whenever the plot demands it, a total lack of stakes, more death fakeouts, characters I couldnt care less about introduced right at the last minute, power of friendship tropes. It all felt so convenient. They tried to do too much, too soon, for whatever reason and because of that it's filled with plotholes, unanswered questions that'll never get resolved and plot threads that shouldve been expanded upon neatly brushed to the side... for whatever reason.

[GeckoMain]

I think endwalker just highlighted to some people just how on the go the plot was being devloped. Previous expansions did a great job of seeming like the story was thought out quite far into the future and staying logical to it's plot - whereas endwalker just seemed really crammed and thrown together, and not really consistent with the impressions of where the plot was leading during shadowbringers, with introducing time travel, meiteon, ultima thule etc. Some people don't care so much about that kinda thing, my friends included which is fair enough, but to some it wasn't the quaility of writing we expected

[Thenightvortex]

I 100% agree with this take on the scions- I've said so many times that ultima thule was completely ruined by the really obvious and meaningless death of the scions, I couldn't take anything any of them said seriously and it really let me down. Not only was it incredibly obvious they were just going to come back, it's also insulting to give each character their own 'important' death speech, ergh it just completely took me out of it. I would have been so devastated and impacted if thancred or urianger or yshtola had actually died- 1 death is so much more meaningful then 7 absolutely fake deaths.

I think this kinda marked a decline in the storytelling honestly- they are so afraid of doing something the fans would hate like killing one of our favourite scions that they prioritised it over making a genuinely impressive story telling moment- and that really peeves me. I hope they at least make Golbez a good villain on par with the better ones in Hydaelyn-Zodiark story and don’t kill him off too quickly before 7.0

Shadowbringers got away with it because the rest of the expansion, including the core story and plot was cohesive, believable and pretty phenominal- but endwalker wasn't quite that impressive, it had some great moment throughout but it's story has some definite flaws and I'm just not a fan of how clearly defined and retconned all the lore of the game is now.

It's sad because I was so impressed with ShB and I was so excited for the future expansions amd finding out all of the lore- and by the endwalker I was kinda deflated haha, like THAT'S the lore of it all? It was just too fanservicey and made it clear they hadn't planned it through nearly as much as ShB made it seem they had- and for a game where lore is a buge drawing point for a lot of fans it does effect the way you view the rest of the story, especially going forward.

Went on a tangent there but hey ho it's just my opinion haha

The complete absence of stakes is what makes it a bit harder for me to get excited for the next MSQ story, cause I’m still sure that in the end of it, we will win, the heroes will lose absolutely nothing in the process. If there will be any need for “sad” moments, they’ll just resort to fake deaths once again coupled with preaching about “sacrifice” when everyone is perfectly fine. I hope they can at least make Golbez a good villain and not kill him off too early before 7.0.

Speaking of the scions in UT, there was a potential scenario in my head all the way back to 6.0. The story can remain conceptually the same, but the sacrifices of scions should feel less dramatic and a goodbye, and more like “we can still return, but only if you win, so don’t mess it up”(sure, that’s what it actually was in the game but they went too hard on the teary goodbye angle). Then when you only have 1 scion left you have them die for real, breaking the pattern. Not quite sure how, perhaps a caveat in a way UT is structured, some dangerous dynamis manipulation that would be set up beforehand, etc. The player would expect that they know how it will play out, and then will be shocked by an actual permanent death. This is where the final walk comes in, following by what we saw in game. All scions return except the one who sacrificed themselves permanently, I think it would have made the story more powerful.

The obvious candidate for this would be Urianger, instead of just randomly dying with Y’shtola he follows through to the end, and then plays the part.

[Kozh]

Endwalker is dissapointing to me. Writing wise, I think it's above arr, but I rank it below arr since at least arr has the ball to kill characters and let the protagonists made mistakes. Meanwhile EW is free from nearly all consequences.

I do like Garlemald and elpis section, but again, the bad outweigh the good. For a finale of 10 year arc, they certainly rushed it and crammed too many plots.

I certainly don't appreciate the introduction of dynamis to ffxiv world, since it's pretty much a deus ex machina.

[Kima_R]

I can't seem to get anybody to play EXTREME trails. Can't go forward the quest without going finishing the EXTREME trials. I don't want to go through the "Main Event" yet. So what do I do?

[sidurgu-12]

I can't seem to get anybody to play EXTREME trails. Can't go forward the quest without going finishing the EXTREME trials. I don't want to go through the "Main Event" yet. So what do I do?

party finder is great for old extremes. just make sure to say youre doing it for.