Thank you to whoever wrote the Pandaemonium story so far [SPOILERS]

[AwesomeJr44]

We all agree we just want Athena. Give us more Athena.

Give us what we want SE.

[Teraq]

Give us what we want SE.

They had better! I really hope she will be back in one way or another for a proper boss fight. On one hand, it would be hard to top Scream as the perfect Evanescence – Fallen (2003) boss theme, but on the other hand, I don't know how I would feel about them reusing a boss theme for such a fight. Last Eden tier had BGM unique to that tier, though most of them were just FFVIII rearrangements, and Omega compensated having only one legit franchise rearrangements by bringing back Primogenitor – good fit though.

Also, Athena! Incredible, even for how little we got of her, she's so much more interesting than any other female characters introduced in Endwalker.

I'd missed this shade lmao

Just wish they had voiced the whole storyline and cutscenes, at the very least after the obvious reveal of their true identities.

I keep hoping for actual voice acting in cutscenes for the last tier… but I can't remember any voice acting for raid storylines outside of combat. Shame though, because this really deserves it. I understand that the first tier's production budget/manpower was eaten up by the 6.0 MSQ because of how long it was compared to the typical x.0 MSQ, and it kind of shows already with the frankly killer tunes tier 2 gave us, but only having P8 voiced was a letdown, if expected. Agdistis's fight really should have had voice acting. Her voice being all distorted and sounding in pain, while Elidibus and Lahabrea help us in all their voiced glory.

Honestly I hope that for once Final Fantasy XIV will break its pattern for the last tier and feature voice acting outside of the raid fights… but this game isn't very fond of breaking its patterns.

I tend to find the stories in the Raid series in this game to be pretty, well, mediocre. I didn't like Alexander from the beginning, didn't like Omega until the end, and thought Eden was poorly paced overall and ended with a dull whimper. I don't think they're a good showcase of writing talent, considering that, by nature, they tend to be truncated and any narrative considerations have to take back seat to (typically) fan service and threading four different bosses together per tier. Pandaemonium also had an uphill climb with me because I'm not a huge fan of its aesthetic or premise.

That negativity out of the way, I have to say that I really do think Abyssos is on another level as far as Raid storytelling goes. Yes, I'd love some more connective tissue--or at least hallways so I could get a sense of what Pandaemonium looks like--but it's doing a lot with what it has, through implication and character interaction. I was skeptical that the game could make me as wild about Lahabrea as I am the other Ancients, but it passed with flying colors. I love the characters--including Athena--and I'm dying to find out what happens next. Even if the next tier doesn't manage to stick the landing, I will always appreciate this tier in isolation for how excited it's made me about the game--an excitement I've seen mirrored elsewhere online as well. I want the writer to take what they've done in this tier and take it to the finale. If they do, it'll not only the best Raid tier in the game, but some of the best writing in the game.

Agreed with mostly everything you've written here. So far, all the raid storylines only grabbed me in their last tier, and only Eden really got me, solely because of its treatment of Mitron not being as flat and one-sided as I had expected. I went into it fully expecting Gaia to reject the mean, terrible, very bad, no-good Ascian who is totally a ToXiC eX bOyFRiEnD (and if I were as disingenuous as some Twitter creatures, I would call Mitron haters racist and possibly transphobic), yet the fact that it ended on Gaia actually sympathising and saying she might have succumbed to the isolation too completely redeemed it. The Aries sympathising with Ascians? Wow… my in-game representation at last.

I wish we actually had a better sense of the locations that serve as raid background rather than them just being hubs. Overall the "world" feel is what I miss the most from WoW.

[Iscah]

Endwalker's closed time loop stands in complete contradiction to Shadowbringers. In Shadowbringers, G'raha went back in time and then completely changed what happened, thereby either changing or creating an alternative timeline. In Endwalker, using THE EXACT SAME method of time travel that G'raha used in Shadowbringers, a closed time loop "that had always been fated to happen" happens and sets in motion the things that already happened.

This is one of the things that made me the most furious about Endwalker. We were there. We could have saved them.

All we could have done, going from what we know of G'raha's time-rewriting, is to create a second timeline in addition to the one where they have already suffered and died in our history – and to be successful in doing that would risk leaving ourselves stranded in their new timeline, thus leaving our world to suffer and die because we never got back to them with a solution.

The difference doesn't lie in the method of time travel, but in disrupting events while we were there. We can't prevent the sundering because we don't know what we need to change to do that.

I also have a hard time believing that a rag tag band of adventurers with vastly limited knowledge compared to the Ancients figured out the whole Dynamis thing in 5 minutes when a race of more intelligent beings with creation/destruction magics at their fingertips could not.

They didn't, though? They had support from the Thavnairian alchemists who had been researching it for some time. Or if you're talking about Ultima Thule, they "figured out by doing", and the ancients presumably wouldn't have the same effect on the dynamis-based enemies in the first place.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Give us what we want SE.

I'm gonna marry her, screw Lahabrea.

Better yet, screw Lahabrea <3 We'll do it (him) together! ;3

[SillyCrow]

I'm gonna marry her, screw Lahabrea.

So I'm not the only one who likes evil characters and she's a researcher too. Kind of sad she doesn't really stand out that much though in terms of appearance but it makes sense.

[Skyborne]

Raising this thread from the dead and slapping it together with this random animal I found in my backyard to make a fearsome hemitheos. (don't mind the smell)

The 6.0 MSQ irked me for reasons I've already ranted about in depth (sharing a braincell with Teraq here)... since I got a callback invitation, I thought I'd use my two weeks to peek at the new tier. it pleases me to see that the raid story is a total 180 from that -- a family suffering fallout from a terrible situation all around, the people who have been drawn into its maelstrom, and that judges no one -- and it does give me the tiniest hope that it won't trip and fall over in the last tier. Every character is likeable and unique, and it gives some more insight into my favorite recent fantasy race/culture. Lady mad scientists are also always A+. Not to mention, I feel a bit vindicated for being a 2.0 Lahabrea enjoyer! Truly the hot dad we deserved (both in young and old flavor).

So uhhh... keep it up, raid writing team. Kind of, sort of praying for a break from the almighty time l00p.

(the music and the aiming/scouting armor are also A+)

Now the only weirdo Ascian is Nabriales. But i don't think anybody cares about that loser, so no redemption for him.

I quite enjoyed the greasy perv scorpion man for his brief appearance, it's too bad we didn't even learn about what his seat did. Ditto with Igeyorhm our debate team queen, who apparently was supposed to have more backstory back in HW but it got cut (from what I've heard).

[RukoBoshi]

I really like how they are explaining Lahabrea's madness.
It isn't over but you can imagine him using his crystal to get his memories back to use Athena's knowledge.

Now the only weirdo Ascian is Nabriales. But i don't think anybody cares about that loser, so no redemption for him.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Raising this thread from the dead and slapping it together with this random animal I found in my backyard to make a fearsome hemitheos. (don't mind the smell)

[Ameela]

I really like how they are explaining Lahabrea's madness.
It isn't over but you can imagine him using his crystal to get his memories back to use Athena's knowledge.

Now the only weirdo Ascian is Nabriales. But i don't think anybody cares about that loser, so no redemption for him.

I think you might be forgetting about Mitron there.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I really like how they are explaining Lahabrea's madness.
It isn't over but you can imagine him using his crystal to get his memories back to use Athena's knowledge.

Now the only weirdo Ascian is Nabriales. But i don't think anybody cares about that loser, so no redemption for him.

I don't think this ever is supposed to "redeem" any of the ascians. All I got from these raids is understanding them a little better. But I still wouldn't even call them redeemed.