Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[LadyAveria]

The only thing I will say about it is I am starting to dislike the lack of consequences in the game now, we fixed everything so quickly, that no one dies anymore (Important). Heck, the last zone opened up with a major character dying but by the end, it was like "Lol just kidding, you got your friends back." I think they should have at least kept Thancred dead, it was so powerful he gave up his life for his to even breathe in this end zone to give us a chance but in true current FFXIV story fashion....we brought him back and everyone is happy and alive.

[DPZ2]

but they wrote her as a genocidal maniac who glorifies suffering for the sake of it. I believe you when you say that the writers aren't on the same page as their writing, they wrote this evil character and portrayed her a tragic hero and expected people to buy it. Thus she is indeed a villain in all but name, and a lot of people bought the lie, hook line and sinker.

Perhaps they buy the "lie, hook line and sinker" because they don't experience the story with the same pre-existing expectations that you do. I believe that you developed this theory back in Shadowbringers, and looked for things to vindicate it throughout Endwalker.

If you consider Venat to be genocidal, then you must concede that Emet-Selch is also genocidal, despite motivations. If the former "glorifies suffering", the latter cares nothing when causing suffering through calamity after calamity. This speaks of a great disregard and disdain for any creature who does not possess an Ancient's soul. A far cry from the idyllic dreaming of players about the True Goodness of the Ancients. What a god creates, a god can destroy, and, as we learn in both Amaurot and Elpis, they show a distinct lack of empathy for created beings. Even beings that have a soul.

The actions of Emet-Selch are also tainted by their knowledge that not a single Ancient soul that is brought back will ever be whole, given the mess they made of the Void.

So, continue to despise Venat, but you must also provide the same level of that feeling for Emet-Selch as well.

[DPZ2]

The only thing I will say about it is I am starting to dislike the lack of consequences in the game now, we fixed everything so quickly, that no one dies anymore (Important).

If by the term "lack of consequences" you mean death, that is the nature of this game and has always been this way. There are consequences. They're just not the ones you want to experience.

If you expect death at every turn for major characters in the game you will be forever disappointed. It is the unanticipated deaths, deaths "in the moment" rather than ones telegraphed, that make the most impact in a story.

[jameseoakes]

If by the term "lack of consequences" you mean death, that is the nature of this game and has always been this way. There are consequences. They're just not the ones you want to experience.

If you expect death at every turn for major characters in the game you will be forever disappointed. It is the unanticipated deaths, deaths "in the moment" rather than ones telegraphed, that make the most impact in a story.

The only place that has any lasting consequences is Garlemald were the civilian population is effectively exterminated everywhere else gets by with almost no lasting impact or none at all

[Thenightvortex]

If by the term "lack of consequences" you mean death, that is the nature of this game and has always been this way. There are consequences. They're just not the ones you want to experience.

If you expect death at every turn for major characters in the game you will be forever disappointed. It is the unanticipated deaths, deaths "in the moment" rather than ones telegraphed, that make the most impact in a story.

I don’t think people expect there to be death for a major character at every turn, just something with more stakes than it is now. Because currently we are at a “no death at all for major characters at any turn in an expansion about apocalypse”. It’s also not quite true that the game has always been this way, Heavensward had Haurchefant, Ysayle, and Papalymo. The ball was dropped in Stormblood and all that came afterwards. There is a reason devs keep milking Haurchenfant and the other two major deaths in HW to a lesser extent. That’s because those are the real consequences, stakes which they admit they need(otherwise they wouldn’t refer to them so much) and that is as close as they can go.

The current state of stakes in FFXIV is perfectly represented by Thancred coming back from the dead and joking that he doesn’t even have any scars to brag about.

[sidurgu-12]

The only place that has any lasting consequences is Garlemald were the civilian population is effectively exterminated everywhere else gets by with almost no lasting impact or none at all

i mean, not really? Outside of radz at han thavnair is still decimated and is in full on recovery mode while each roll quest explains that even if the blasphemies are gone theres still the smaller monsters to deal with.

[jameseoakes]

i mean, not really? Outside of radz at han thavnair is still decimated and is in full on recovery mode while each roll quest explains that even if the blasphemies are gone theres still the smaller monsters to deal with.

Is it? it really doesn't come up all that much and doesn't seem to have had any meaningful consequences at all, the country is so uneffected that within a few weeks the nations leader is free to abandon the country.

[Lauront]

If I might get a little conspiratorial, it feels like a lot of the writers are still kind of dying on hills for their take on the story without really considering how they will impact the broader picture. So in one corner you have Ishikawa writing the Nier Reincarnation story that portrays the Sundering in basically the most horrific light possible, while in the other you have stuff like this - probably written by Yoshi-P or someone on the same page as him - that's basically treating Venat like a saint. Ishikawa obviously doesn't think of Venat in such simple terms as "tragic heroine" and so feels comfortable injecting even more ambiguity, but the core narrative voice is insistent in spite of her contributions.

On the point of the short stories, my understanding is she had some involvement, though I can’t say for sure in what respect. Granted, she has alluded to herself as a paid employee in the past (I guess in the sense that her writing is assigned to her), so it may not matter that much in practice, and it may be that the approach they're taking is to allow for her (and others) to inject more nuance in peripheral areas, like Omega, the Nier collab and possibly even the normal raid lore, while certain core elements, like the codex and short stories, are expected to align more closely to the story presentation we got in 6.0. Though clumsy, perhaps they're hoping they can make it last through up to 7.0.

It feels like we're listening to two different songs being played at the same time. In isolation, both songs are fine, and if we parse them that way it's possible to enjoy them. But if we try to treat them as one melody, the result is bizarre.

Agreed. Yoshi has oversight and control of the overall production (within certain limits), but the one variable he cannot control (or, for that matter, always predict) is the fan interpretation and reception to certain plot elements, even if he's aware they're in there. He may have felt like the horses had bolted out of the stable given SHB's popularity, and sought to re-impose some of his original vision using EW (e.g. through the very abstract depiction of the Sundering), but the end result is that the two sit together very awkwardly (and there has been criticism of this both here and amongst Japanese fans, which may be an added sting to it) - even with some 'forced' compromise of playing two different songs, as you put it, they inevitably become dissonant at certain points, and it's difficult for me to keep the two separate. Jarring, even. With that said, I hope that part of it which is the ancients' ends on a higher note than it began on.

[Delily]

The strange attempts to justify genocide and paint the culprit as a 'herois' is also rather strange.

The decision to artificially conclude major ongoing storylines in the same expansion also left them with not enough time to build up naturally and breathe. Even in the most recent patch things are arguably moving too quickly.

I disagree with the OP's opinion, as I liked Endwalker's story. However, I admit I am confused by people who throw out the genocide argument. It was made pretty clear with the summoning of Zodiark that eventually all life would be sacrificed to fuel Zodiark to create a facsimile of the world they once had. So, the choice was to sacrifice everyone to Zodiark or sunder the world and give mankind a chance of survival. Or are people thinking there's a third option to stop the Endsinger and preserve life? The ancients admitted they would not have known how to deal with Meteion had Venat told them.

A spoiled brat with, daddy issues, destroyed an entire civilization because life is so "mean". What an awful ending. Also, you don't just introduce new characters that late in the saga. Just terrible storytelling.

That's a surface-level understanding of Meteion. The villain was always Hermes and his disagreement with how the ancients dealt with creations leading to his nihilism. Meteion and the Endsinger were just the tools of that. The point was to show how the ancients' callous disregard for life led to their undoing.

[Thenightvortex]

I disagree with the OP's opinion, as I liked Endwalker's story. However, I admit I am confused by people who throw out the genocide argument. It was made pretty clear with the summoning of Zodiark that eventually all life would be sacrificed to fuel Zodiark to create a facsimile of the world they once had. So, the choice was to sacrifice everyone to Zodiark or sunder the world and give mankind a chance of survival. Or are people thinking there's a third option to stop the Endsinger and preserve life? The ancients admitted they would not have known how to deal with Meteion had Venat told them.



That's a surface-level understanding of Meteion. The villain was always Hermes and his disagreement with how the ancients dealt with creations leading to his nihilism. Meteion and the Endsinger were just the tools of that. The point was to show how the ancients' callous disregard for life led to their undoing.

There is no indication that all life would eventually be sacrificed. There were three planned sacrifices we know of, and all were with a particular purpose. If their people would be brought back, there would be no reason for the ancients to continue. Also the only way the ancients have admitted that they wouldn’t have been able to deal with Meteion is Emet-Selch giving merit to Venat’s plan in the end, they still did not get a fair chance at stopping the cataclysm.