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

[Thenightvortex]

We'll see what this "big" thing planned for 7.0 is. At the moment the game is struggling to retain my interest outside of its PVP, and I'm finding myself playing TESO more and more on the side. Being busy with work doesn't help, either, but I think even if I had the time to spare... the interest is just lacking.

It would be cool to have a rejoining with the 13th caused by the scions’ meddling and attempts to restore it, as unlikely as it is.

6.5 will probably be as significant as the final days.

[AwesomeJr44]

It would be cool to have a rejoining with the 13th caused by the scions’ meddling and attempts to restore it, as unlikely as it is. 6.5 will probably be as significant as the final days.

I certainly would appreciate that turn of events. Make the "heroes" into the villains for once, with all the consequences that come with it.

Agreed. I'd love to see some consequences for the characters. They currently feel too invincible to get invested into their stories. Have them fail so they can learn and succeed the next time. Their constant winning isn't exciting anymore. 6.0 failed to set any stakes and I'm hoping to see that change in the patch quests, although I'm not super hopeful. The Scions have flown far too close to the sun without any consequences, and it's time for them to get burned.

[Ameela]

Have them fail so they can learn and succeed the next time.

Yeah, the Scions don't fail nearly enough, how could I ever forget such moments of success like getting Tesleen killed, failing to stop Vauthry's Sin Eater attack on the Crystarium, failing to convince the Garleans that they wanted to help and having like half of them die as a result, failing to stop Fandaniel from causing the Final Days which got a bunch of people in Radz-at-Han and Garlemald killed as well as who knows how many more considering the amount of Blasphemies running rampant all over.
It really is just win after win for our heroes.

[Theodric]

Yeah, the Scions don't fail nearly enough, how could I ever forget such moments of success like getting Tesleen killed, failing to stop Vauthry's Sin Eater attack on the Crystarium, failing to convince the Garleans that they wanted to help and having like half of them die as a result, failing to stop Fandaniel from causing the Final Days which got a bunch of people in Radz-at-Han and Garlemald killed as well as who knows how many more considering the amount of Blasphemies running rampant all over.
It really is just win after win for our heroes.

They're all fairly minor consequences at best and most end up being little more than excuses to justify wiping out the Ancients in their entirety as well as most of the Garleans.

The desire is for losses that hit hard because they're meaningful losses - someone on the same level as Y'shtola, Alisae or Nanamo rather than just throwaway civilians or sympathetic antagonists.

If the game wants to preach at length about the need to 'move on' and 'forge ahead' then it's time for the same put its money where its mouth is and stop cladding the bulk of the cast in extensive, ridiculous levels of plot armour.

I'd like a healthy balance, not what we're getting at present where the more interesting elements of the setting are stripped away and the 'slice of life' characters are left getting almost everything that they desire.

[Ameela]

They're all fairly minor consequences at best and most end up being little more than excuses to justify wiping out the Ancients in their entirety as well as most of the Garleans.

The desire is for losses that hit hard because they're meaningful losses - someone on the same level as Y'shtola, Alisae or Nanamo rather than just throwaway civilians or sympathetic antagonists.

If the game wants to preach at length about the need to 'move on' and 'forge ahead' then it's time for the same put its money where its mouth is and stop cladding the bulk of the cast in extensive, ridiculous levels of plot armour.

I'd like a healthy balance, not what we're getting at present where the more interesting elements of the setting are stripped away and the 'slice of life' characters are left getting almost everything that they desire.

What are you talking about? The Scions are heroes, their job is to save as many people as possible, not kill the bad guys, therefore every loss of life regardless of who it is is a meaningful loss for them.
They did not go into Garlemald wanting to kill everyone on sight, otherwise why would have they even bothered with the diplomatic angle?
How can you even say they use villains' evil acts as an excuse to kill them and wipe them out when they have at multiple points tried to save outright villains like Zenos and Yotsuyu? Which, again, failure in saving them is a loss for the Scions.

[Theodric]

What are you talking about? The Scions are heroes, their job is to save as many people as possible, not kill the bad guys, therefore every loss of life regardless of who it is is a meaningful loss for them.
They did not go into Garlemald wanting to kill everyone on sight, otherwise why would have they even bothered with the diplomatic angle?
How can you even say they use villains' evil acts as an excuse to kill them and wipe them out when they have at multiple points tried to save outright villains like Zenos and Yotsuyu? Which, again, failure in saving them is a loss for the Scions.

I wouldn't expect anyone to read every single post in a thread as large as this, though a common point of discussion has been that most of what is passed off as 'consequences' of the City State leaders and Scions is generally stuff that impacts the antagonists and random civilians more than the self proclaimed heroes themselves.

Alphinaud and Alisae are sad about the two Garlean women who perished due to their stupidity. Though one can easily argue that not only should a pair of sixteen year old children have never been sent to the heart of a collapsed nation in the first place - and it would have been far harder hitting had Alphinaud and Alisae's stupidity resulted in the demise of Lucia and Maxima. Or even one of the twins themselves.

The self proclaimed heroes in this game don't resonate with me when nothing they have gone through is anywhere near as intense as what the antagonists and villains have endured. Thus I'd the writers to either dial back the amount of grisly punishment that they inflict on the antagonists or they could inject a little more balance when it comes to the losses that the protagonists endure.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

Yeah, the Scions don't fail nearly enough, how could I ever forget such moments of success like getting Tesleen killed, failing to stop Vauthry's Sin Eater attack on the Crystarium, failing to convince the Garleans that they wanted to help and having like half of them die as a result, failing to stop Fandaniel from causing the Final Days which got a bunch of people in Radz-at-Han and Garlemald killed as well as who knows how many more considering the amount of Blasphemies running rampant all over.
It really is just win after win for our heroes.

Seems like Tesleen, the people at Radz-at-Han, the people at the Crystarium, Garleans and all the people that turned into blasphemies should learn how to forge ahead.

But in seriousness: a bunch of nobody no-name NPCs were killed off. Who exactly were these people? I don't know any of them. Makes it hard to feel sympathetic to blank faces and no-names and things you only knew for 0.2 seconds. While the scions, and all of their allies (probably even including all the no-name Grand Company soldiers. Like really, did even a single GC soldier bite the dust?), all miraculously come out of the biggest, most scariest, most dangerous, most despairiest, most muchsaddiest expansion like literally nothing happened. What even was the point of this expansion when nothing of actual substance happens to the main protagonist cast or even the side protagonist cast? Arenvald you say? That happened in Shadowbringers not Endwalker.

[Theodric]

Seems like Tesleen, the people at Radz-at-Han, the people at the Crystarium, Garleans and all the people that turned into blasphemies should learn how to forge ahead.

But in seriousness: a bunch of nobody no-name NPCs were killed off. Who exactly were these people? I don't know any of them. Makes it hard to feel sympathetic to blank faces and no-names and things you only knew for 0.2 seconds. While the scions, and all of their allies (probably even including all the no-name Grand Company soldiers. Like really, did even a single GC soldier bite the dust?), all miraculously come out of the biggest, most scariest, most dangerous, most despairiest, most muchsaddiest expansion like literally nothing happened. What even was the point of this expansion when nothing of actual substance happens to the main protagonist cast or even the side protagonist cast? Arenvald you say? That happened in Shadowbringers not Endwalker.

Yep. It's this particular trope at play:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedShirt

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect at least one major protagonist to die during each new expansion. Such a death should be well written, of course, though this is an MMO - it has ongoing development planned for another ten years. They can introduce new characters to replace those that perish in a way that feels natural.

[Ameela]

Seems like Tesleen, the people at Radz-at-Han, the people at the Crystarium, Garleans and all the people that turned into blasphemies should learn how to forge ahead.

But in seriousness: a bunch of nobody no-name NPCs were killed off. Who exactly were these people? I don't know any of them. Makes it hard to feel sympathetic to blank faces and no-names and things you only knew for 0.2 seconds. While the scions, and all of their allies (probably even including all the no-name Grand Company soldiers. Like really, did even a single GC soldier bite the dust?), all miraculously come out of the biggest, most scariest, most dangerous, most despairiest, most muchsaddiest expansion like literally nothing happened. What even was the point of this expansion when nothing of actual substance happens to the main protagonist cast or even the side protagonist cast? Arenvald you say? That happened in Shadowbringers not Endwalker.

The point isn't that you're meant to feel sad about the no-names that got killed, since obviously we'd never gotten much time with them with the exception of the satrap, but how it affects the Scions and their outlook.
Plus this logic can easily be turned on its head too, am I really supposed to feel sorry for the noname Ancients that died? Or even named antagonists like Nabriales and Mitron who are almost cartoonishly villainous?
And I get your frustrations with the Scions all coming out of Endwalker alive, but at the end of the day they are characters who are meant to mature and develop over time, so cutting that short would be wasteful.
Maybe with the exception of Haurchefant every single (main character) death in XIV has happened at the logical conclusion of said character's development, which in my opinion is the right way to do it.
I saw someone say something about "watching Alisaie get mauled for jumping into danger cause it's a character flaw of hers". Like what would that accomplish? Literally nothing aside from shock value. No one in the rest of the cast would learn anything from it. It's much more compelling to have Alisaie's rashness and stubborness be the cause of strife for someone else which she then has to live with and learn to overcome, as then she actually develops and learns her lesson.
I will not deny that Endwalker has a lot of missed opportunities and, to me, one of the biggest is how the Scions never get any reprecussions for kind of indirectly causing the apocalypse that almost gets Thavnair wiped off the map, which might have actually caused some strife within the group, but saying consequences are only when characters die is simply a juvenile way of thinking.
And before you ask, yes, the reason why villains get offed more than heroes is because villains don't tend to get the luxury of feeling remorseful for their actions or learning from them, on account of being like, evil and stuff.

[Midareyukki]

Yeah, the Scions don't fail nearly enough, how could I ever forget such moments of success like getting Tesleen killed, failing to stop Vauthry's Sin Eater attack on the Crystarium, failing to convince the Garleans that they wanted to help and having like half of them die as a result, failing to stop Fandaniel from causing the Final Days which got a bunch of people in Radz-at-Han and Garlemald killed as well as who knows how many more considering the amount of Blasphemies running rampant all over.
It really is just win after win for our heroes.

But...
- Tesleen's death was not the Scion's fault. They didn't "get" her killed. The only fault in there was Alisaie not being at an appropriate distance to gauge danger coming toward Tesleen. Though I guess you can say they "got" her killed by actually killing her in the dungeon? .w.
- Vauthry's attack on the Crystarium was a surprise attack and as powerful as the Scions are, they're not an army. And they were handling a fairly decent-sized chunk of their forces at once. Vauthry just overwhelmed them and everyone else.
- The Garlean thing I CAN sort of understand because they did fail to properly convey the message... but there's so much in there that kind of threw them for a loop. Rethoric is one thing, and they had the best one we have, Alphinaud. And Alphinaud and Alisaie had a good idea in loitering around and talking, befriending and helping Garlean NPCs while they were there. It's why it's such a tense moment even for Jullus when his general just declines the Scions so aggressively. Because they saw the writing on the wall, Quintus was just stubborn and really would rather off himself than admit his Garlean values were built on lies. It's not Alphinaud's fault for not causing a mutiny, when his goal was to try and get Quintus and his troops off their arse.
- As for the Final Days... There's just so much about them. First, we didn't know killing Zodiark would doom the world. We thought the exact opposite, and were even driven to it. The consequence? The Final Days are triggered over Thavnair and Garlemald, with minor effects on surrounding nations. We play through Vanaspati and it's a horrid mess indeed, whereas Garlemald tries to hold it together. But the effect of the Final Days in Thavnair get under control, and the same happens for Garlemald until we manage to beat Meteion and free the world.

What AwesomeJr44 was saying was that plans never go awry for the Scions. Sure, Vauthry still killed people, Tesleen was still lost, the Final Days still happened-ish. But we killed Vauthry in the end and brought prosperity to Norvrandt. Tesleen's camp now has hope in the future as we've found a cure. The Final Days ended virtually without any major hitch; no civilization was lost, barely an inconvenience in the long run.
Casualties WERE horrid, yeah... but those examples ended really well. The consequences were apparent: lives were lost. But there wasn't a major geopolitical loss in being involved. Garlemald is still around, even if fubar'd. Radz-at-Han only really lost Vanaspati, it's happily rebuilding. And all of Norvrandt is doing the same. Had we seen the end to Garlemald itself and its people being utterly razed beyond recovery. Had we seen Thavnair be torn apart to the point of utter disaster. Had we seen the First be consumed by Light with us unable to control ourselves without Ardbert-ex-Machina...
So yes. We've always won. Hitches along the way, for sure, let's not discredit loss of life... but in the end everything always worked out. It always feels like a victory, our success is a foregone conclusion.

Actually, Ameela, if you wanted a better example, imo there's Bozja. Sure, okay, it's not ALL the Scions, it's Scion-adjacent and it's optional content, not MSQ. But Bozja lost its primary symbols (the Blades and Queen Gunnhildr's own story was exposed). Worse still, the Blades died when we actually had a cure for Tempering at that time. You can only unlock Delubrum AFTER you've done that part of the MSQ, and they were only turned into the Trinities within the temple. No one saved Dabog. And Zadnor was a win, but it was phyrric and in the end we didn't accomplish much.
The reports suggest that while Bozja and Dalmasca's rebellions ended up working out, the 4th Legion is still there lurking in the shadows. Waiting to come back. AND they have the original Bozjan relics. And idk about you guys, but doesn't Gabranth's note kind of imply that he wanted Bajsaljen to win because he knew someone would rise up and make a constitution in the Garleans' image? It kind of feels like we fell into his hand... It doesn't "feel" like a victory.