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

[Kaonis]

The trailer/cinematic also places a great deal of emphasis on the Moon - but when it came to it we didn't really spend all that much time there.

The moon was quite a disappointment. It was mostly just to just waste more time with the lopporits, when they could have at least had it dealing with Zodiark and the final days of the Ascians. Instead they did what I consider possibly the most egregious fault of EW, they just killed off Zodiark unceremoniously. Zodiark, the big bad they had spent nearly a decade building towards, the big bad they added intrigue to in ShB, and we don't ever meet Zodiark. Zodiark is not a character, it's a simple plot device that gets possessed by Fandaniel for us to have a boss fight so they can sweep him away for the "real big bad all along".

And for the record I'm not salty about Zodiark not being the big bad guy. I'm salty we got NOTHING of substance with Zodiark after all this time and don't even get to meet the real Zodiark. It is such wasted potential all to just be a subversion.

[RukoBoshi]

The moon was quite a disappointment. It was mostly just to just waste more time with the lopporits, when they could have at least had it dealing with Zodiark and the final days of the Ascians. Instead they did what I consider possibly the most egregious fault of EW, they just killed off Zodiark unceremoniously. Zodiark, the big bad they had spent nearly a decade building towards, the big bad they added intrigue to in ShB, and we don't ever meet Zodiark. Zodiark is not a character, it's a simple plot device that gets possessed by Fandaniel for us to have a boss fight so they can sweep him away for the "real big bad all along".

And for the record I'm not salty about Zodiark not being the big bad guy. I'm salty we got NOTHING of substance with Zodiark after all this time and don't even get to meet the real Zodiark. It is such wasted potential all to just be a subversion.

Considering we killed "Zodiark" back in 5.3 i don't understand your confusion.
Wasn't it established that zodiark didn't have an actual personality aside from Elidibus back in Shadowbringers ?

At best it would have been Zenos instead of Fandaniel in their, but he was never going to be his own person now that his heart is gone.
It would be like having the primal king Thordan without the Archbishop at the helm, just an empty husk.

[aveyond-dreams]

Considering we killed "Zodiark" back in 5.3 i don't understand your confusion.
Wasn't it established that zodiark didn't have an actual personality aside from Elidibus back in Shadowbringers ?

At best it would have been Zenos instead of Fandaniel in their, but he was never going to be his own person now that his heart is gone.
It would be like having the primal king Thordan without the Archbishop at the helm, just an empty husk.

Back then given the general vagueness of the EN localization I had assumed that only a fraction of Elidibus had parted from Zodiark and that a greater part of him remained in control of the primal, it being the "true" Elidibus. My interpretation was apparently incorrect seeing as how the story ended up playing out. Overall, I would've liked to have had more interactions with both Elidibus the Ascian and Zodiark the God...instead we got Loporrits and Fandaniel/Hermes. That was some decision making at work.

[RukoBoshi]

Back then given the general vagueness of the EN localization I had assumed that only a fraction of Elidibus had parted from Zodiark and that a greater part of him remained in control of the primal, it being the "true" Elidibus. My interpretation was apparently incorrect seeing as how the story ended up playing out. Overall, I would've liked to have had more interactions with both Elidibus the Ascian and Zodiark the God...instead we got Loporrits and Fandaniel/Hermes. That was some decision making at work.

I see, i played with the french translation, and it felt pretty unambiguous that this was the idea to me.
Agree on the lack of interaction with Zodiark. The moon feels like a waste of time after killing him.

If they were going to make so much call back to FFIV, i would rather have people living there, and maybe worship Zodiark or something.
Or simply see more of the ancients on moon and finishing the area with the Zodiark fight.

Should have kept the loporrits shenanigans to a minimum and introduce interesting lore on the moon that we could explore later.

[AwesomeJr44]

"Gotta subvert those expectations! You can't predict where the story is going, player! Muwahahahahahaha!" - Yoshi P, probably.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. They focused on trying to make Endwalker unpredictable at every turn, which only caused the story to suffer. Then, by the end, it did become predictable, so their efforts in this regard were wasted.

They got addicted to subversive writing between Stormblood and SHB. The lead in to SHB was subversive in its entirety, and then SHB subverted the knowledge about the villains whole heartedly, as well as a lot of people's views on Hydaelyn.

Then in EW they turn around and try to subvert that, at the cost of narrative cohesion.

It would seem they have yet to learn that if you write to subvert, this becomes your M.O. and eventually in order to subvert your own M.O. you will have to rely on age old tropes and archetypes. Thus writing something that's not subversive and is predictable.

Endwalker honestly reminds me of Star Wars Episode 8 in all of the wrong ways. Both stories got obsessed with subverting expectations. The logical end to the story that was set up was thrown out the window as that's 'too obvious', so they instead went and chose the opposite extreme, throwing in a massive plot twist regardless of whether it makes sense, just because you as the viewer won't expect that. Nobody will expect a brand new villain thrown in at the 11th hour with no build up whatsoever! Well of course no one would, because it's random and doesn't make sense. We would have gotten a better story if the writers just accepted that being random and illogical for the sake of being unpredictable isn't a good thing, and just went with something more safe. I'd rather have a predictable but good story than an unpredictable and terrible story.

Agree on the lack of interaction with Zodiark. The moon feels like a waste of time after killing him.

I agree. The entire moon segment post-Zodiark felt like a waste of valuable time, especially seeing that we know the Final Days are about to begin on the planet. Why are we up here talking with rabbits, eating their carrot food, and trying on their terrible clothes when we should be down on the planet helping people? That was a massive tension killer for me. It really made the Final Days seem like something that wasn't urgent, as apparently talking to the Loporrits was more important.

If they were going to make so much call back to FFIV, i would rather have people living there, and maybe worship Zodiark or something. Or simply see more of the ancients on moon and finishing the area with the Zodiark fight.

Considering that Zodiark is trapped on the moon and we've seen Ascians on the moon a lot, it was kind of annoying that it was mostly populated by people that were a part of Hydaelyn's faction. They could have taken it a ton of different ways and they picked the most boring option. Sure, it makes sense that Hydaelyn would want someone making sure that Zodiark didn't break out, but the moon always seemed like a place that the Ascians went to when not causing chaos on the planet itself. It definitely would have been cool to meet a group of lesser Ascians who are hanging out on the moon as they have no idea what to do now or perhaps a different group of Zodiark worshipers there that somehow have regained a portion of their memories of the world pre-sundering. But we got stuck with the stupid annoying rabbits instead.

[RukoBoshi]

Considering that Zodiark is trapped on the moon and we've seen Ascians on the moon a lot, it was kind of annoying that it was mostly populated by people that were a part of Hydaelyn's faction. They could have taken it a ton of different ways and they picked the most boring option. Sure, it makes sense that Hydaelyn would want someone making sure that Zodiark didn't break out, but the moon always seemed like a place that the Ascians went to when not causing chaos on the planet itself. It definitely would have been cool to meet a group of lesser Ascians who are hanging out on the moon as they have no idea what to do now or perhaps a different group of Zodiark worshipers there that somehow have regained a portion of their memories of the world pre-sundering. But we got stuck with the stupid annoying rabbits instead.

Wow, this sounds significantly better than what we got to me. Would have neatly tied the fate of the lesser/sundered ascians.
And it would have acknowledged their repeated presence on the moon.

It could easily replace most part of the loporrits segment as the part that allows up to lower the pressure after dealing with Zodiark.
It would still have been thematically linked to the rest of the overarching plot, compared to visiting the loporrits facilities that won't serve any purpose during the expansion (and probably after honestly).

Kind of mad we didn't get that now lol, such a missed opportunities to delve in the thought process of the ascians who no longer have a purpose.

[Striker44]

I mean, that's kind of an issue in and of itself. The trailer and all the lead up before EW was about "The final days are here!" with the trailer showing utter chaos everywhere. Within the actual story? Sky turns red twice and for a brief minute there's a ton of monsters but don't worry it'll pass so you can have no sense or urgency while you go on to do menial tasks to pad the run time out.

That's where role-playing comes in while playing a role-playing game. Personally, I felt the use of it for Vanaspati in particular was awesome and heightened the tension of that dungeon as I experienced it for the first time. There was also the sense of "who knows where this might happen next" that wouldn't be there if the sky simply turned red everywhere at once (not to mention it's completely explained via the currents vs. stagnation of certain types of aether in various parts of the world).

[Midareyukki]

Considering that Zodiark is trapped on the moon and we've seen Ascians on the moon a lot, it was kind of annoying that it was mostly populated by people that were a part of Hydaelyn's faction. They could have taken it a ton of different ways and they picked the most boring option. Sure, it makes sense that Hydaelyn would want someone making sure that Zodiark didn't break out, but the moon always seemed like a place that the Ascians went to when not causing chaos on the planet itself. It definitely would have been cool to meet a group of lesser Ascians who are hanging out on the moon as they have no idea what to do now or perhaps a different group of Zodiark worshipers there that somehow have regained a portion of their memories of the world pre-sundering. But we got stuck with the stupid annoying rabbits instead.

Yeah it doesn't make much sense when the records are like "oop, Elidibaby showed up. I'm just gonna sit here and watch him with a telescope. Maybe if he realizes that we're just watching over Zodiark, he won't attack me." but we know activity was a lot more intense than "he just showed up". There were conferences around the moon, there was this whole dimension that they gathered on and Elidibus himself banished us to. The moon is where he brings the Warrior of Darkness. Hell, we could have explored the effects of Dalamud on the moon, we could have had a bit more to the moon about Menphina or Tsukuyomi, or about the crashed aircraft there in the corner... But no, insted we just got Zodiark in a Can, the Watcher's tower and a crapton of references to pudding and carrots.

For something overhyped to hell since Heavensward, which the fanbase set up great expectations for, it was just bland. And I distinctly remember how people felt in Stormblood: "you guys split the story into two/three major areas but really Ala Mhigo feels like it got shafted". I felt the same in Endwalker. We wanted to go to Sharlayan, we wanted to go to Garlemald, we wanted to go to Thavnair, we wanted to explore the Original World at some point AND we wanted to go to the moon. Well, OBVIOUSLY we weren't expecting all that to just be crammed into the same patch of story. A lot of us thought there'd be two expansions, easily, before all this got wrapped up. I dare say, Eureka has a lot more lore than this. Bozja has a lot more to do than the moon! And you might say "Well yes, it's the moon, it's literally a giant white wasteland sphere orbiting the planet", but there's just so much about the moon in FF14 that they could have used...

Instead we got Puddingway... yaaay...

I'd rather have a predictable but good story than an unpredictable and terrible story.

Game of Thrones Season 8 flashbacks...

[AwesomeJr44]

That's where role-playing comes in while playing a role-playing game. Personally, I felt the use of it for Vanaspati in particular was awesome and heightened the tension of that dungeon as I experienced it for the first time. There was also the sense of "who knows where this might happen next" that wouldn't be there if the sky simply turned red everywhere at once (not to mention it's completely explained via the currents vs. stagnation of certain types of aether in various parts of the world).

That sounds less like roleplaying and more like doing the writers' jobs for them by taking the loosely connected plot points they gave us and filling in the blanks with headcanons. The players aren't supposed to be the writers for the MSQ.

[Vyrerus]

It's just an aside, a minor point from an old salt, but I absolutely hate that they reused precious Chains of Promathia Empty monsters on the moon. I hate it because in FFXI where they are from, they are The Empty, monsters/beings/people/memories turned that way by The Emptiness.

A mysterious, dark phenomena that seems to be a tear in the fabric of reality possibly leading to a new one.

So there, on the moon, where we house a God aligned to darkness. A God who rewrote reality. A God who rewrote reality to prevent decay/tears in the celestial aether currents. We get The Empty from FFXI. Except in FFXIV they're just weird fungus mutations.

Go figure. Endwalker couldn't even make good use of easy bake callbacks and references.