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

[Ameela]

Now, even in praetorium our character does a scene worthy of a Mexican soap opera, because a robot stopped working.

Lol wow you weren't kidding, what's even the point of that? Surely the last thing you'd want to add to the Praetorium is MORE cutscenes.
The ironic thing is that the cutscene of the armor recognizing you from the old version felt like a much more natural and unique way of establishing an emotional connection to it, no idea why they'd cut that since it was like 15 seconds long.

[Adamantini]

...

maybe you're right, but Yoshi P saying things like "we didn't expect the public reaction" regarding the poor hair quality of hrothgars in 6.1 (the ones without ears), makes me believe that they really have no idea of their players. Just ask anyone what the endgame of the FFXIV is, and most will answer "glammour", whether it's a joke or serious, after all, most players take appearance seriously. They got the SHB right, but in my head, they don't understand why.

...

I believe the idea was to make praetorium more fluid, but right after that they add a longer cutscene just to show our character making drama because the armor stopped working.
But you're right. The original cutscene generated more emotion without touching my character, so I would imagine what he was feeling the moment magitek recognized us. Today I have to accept that he has feelings for a lot of iron.

[SentioftheHoukai]

They are trying to go in hard with Azem being the WoL as the player slowly but surely loses all free choice and becomes the next Elden Lord.

Technically that would make one the Empyrean of the duo, not the Elden Lord. It's the God-Host that get's possessed by the Attack on Titan parasite and loses all agency. ;3

[Xeronia]

Well during my FC game night I did have friends who haven't returned to the game since 6.0 asking if they should come back, I gave them an honest opinion of no as the story hasn't move much since 6.0 and the usual content they enjoy of the relic is not in the game. I can no longer seriously recommend the game for purely it's story and when that leaves the rest of the game to sell itself well that is a hard sell at the moment with balancing issue galore and a lack of usually grind-able for casuals content like the relic/PoTD. I also heard the reaction of said friends as I explained my case in not recommending a return to EW and them starting to see 6.0 was not as meticulous as they had thought once plot holes are noted. I do hope the slowness of the patch content starts to get moving a little in 6.3 and the plot start to have any sense of urgency.

[Skyborne]

Well during my FC game night I did have friends who haven't returned to the game since 6.0 asking if they should come back, I gave them an honest opinion of no as the story hasn't move much since 6.0 and the usual content they enjoy of the relic is not in the game. I can no longer seriously recommend the game for purely it's story and when that leaves the rest of the game to sell itself well that is a hard sell at the moment with balancing issue galore and a lack of usually grind-able for casuals content like the relic/PoTD. I also heard the reaction of said friends as I explained my case in not recommending a return to EW and them starting to see 6.0 was not as meticulous as they had thought once plot holes are noted. I do hope the slowness of the patch content starts to get moving a little in 6.3 and the plot start to have any sense of urgency.

Yep, my FC is full of people who have probably never watched a cutscene in their lives (after Endwalker I kneel to these chads honestly) and quickly crush every new Savage and Ultimate within the first month and farm gear and parse on multiple jobs... but it seems like they didn't even return for Abyssos, or if they cleared, immediately checked out. And they've been raiding together since... Coil/Alexander, as have I.

I popped back in just to check out Pandaemonium and enjoyed it, as it seems to be written by someone who actually enjoys the same story elements that I do and treats them as living breathing characters and not dumb caricatures who just, like, don't feel emotions the same way as us so they need to flop over and go extinct happily ever after... so far. MSQ I had zero (heh...) interest in and didn't do. I'll probably just wait for the last tier to come out, hear about the ending from others, and maybe resub if it's decent.

[Striker44]

Well during my FC game night I did have friends who haven't returned to the game since 6.0 asking if they should come back, I gave them an honest opinion of no as the story hasn't move much since 6.0 and the usual content they enjoy of the relic is not in the game. I can no longer seriously recommend the game for purely it's story and when that leaves the rest of the game to sell itself well that is a hard sell at the moment with balancing issue galore and a lack of usually grind-able for casuals content like the relic/PoTD. I also heard the reaction of said friends as I explained my case in not recommending a return to EW and them starting to see 6.0 was not as meticulous as they had thought once plot holes are noted. I do hope the slowness of the patch content starts to get moving a little in 6.3 and the plot start to have any sense of urgency.

On the flip side, other people (such as myself) would 100% recommend the game on the story alone, and with the changes they've made to make solo-play a more viable option alongside typical MMO grouping, I can even recommend it to more people who love FF and RPG storylines but aren't necessarily big into MMO's. I'm not sure what's meant by the "slowness of the patch content"...the pacing of the patches is within a couple weeks of the norm, and for people like me who only have limited time to play, there's always something and more to do.

[Jagick]

Meh. Personally I've enjoyed it. It's fan-service in a video game, not something to be taken ultra-seriously. Sit back, relax, enjoy the old-school references you understand...I feel like some people have just become so bitter they're simply incapable of just having fun anymore.

And what about those of us for which FFXIV is their first and only Final Fantasy game? All of these name drops that occur throughout the story, all of these cameos or references are absolutely hollow and pointless if you have no frame of reference for what's being shown to you. Fan service alone does not a compelling or interesting story make. Just being shown something familiar is not fun (especially if it's not actually familiar.) There has to be an actual character, motivation, and compelling story arc first.

[Xeronia]

On the flip side, other people (such as myself) would 100% recommend the game on the story alone, and with the changes they've made to make solo-play a more viable option alongside typical MMO grouping, I can even recommend it to more people who love FF and RPG storylines but aren't necessarily big into MMO's. I'm not sure what's meant by the "slowness of the patch content"...the pacing of the patches is within a couple weeks of the norm, and for people like me who only have limited time to play, there's always something and more to do.

The slowness in regards to story mainly, we still have no clue what new big bad is even remotely up to and unlike the ominous "meanwhile in X" villains of the past he isn't going to last for expansions as they did. It just feels a bit slow at this point and torn between shoving FF4 fanservice in your face while trying to develop a new character. I feel like I am just waiting for the inevitable 6.3 "*gasp* Big twist here that changes everything!" due to how badly focused the patch content has been between The Fiends, Zero, the remaining life in The 13th, and the big bad himself. One of the reasons I loved ShB was The First feels like a very fleshed out understandable world, The 13th thus far feels like a flyover state compared.

[BRVV]

On the flip side, other people (such as myself) would 100% recommend the game on the story alone

A friend of mine never played a Final Fantasy game before. He played FFXIV for more than a year. When we talked about the story and a lot of it's shortcomings he claimed that was just "typical" for Final Fantasy. FFXIV's bad storytelling shines a bad light on other FFs.

[Ameela]

A friend of mine never played a Final Fantasy game before. He played FFXIV for more than a year. When we talked about the story and a lot of it's shortcomings he claimed that was just "typical" for Final Fantasy. FFXIV's bad storytelling shines a bad light on other FFs.

If you held any other FF story to as much scrutiny as XIV's has been in this thread you'd be bound to find just as many flaws, if not more.