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

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

Angry baby rage

Gonna be honest, I ain't reading that word vomit. You sounded deranged in your first paragraph. Sorry that bringing up the big bad evil WoW triggered you so hard, I guess?

Still writes better morally grey characters than FFXIV. Still makes better set pieces than FFXIV - especially considering Endwalker's apocalypse being meaningless. Still does huge battles better than FFXIV.

Sorry not sorry if that triggers you.

#IllidanWasRight

I would love it if Yoshi would stop taking away my character's agency and forcing them into ridiculous dynamics like the one the story prescribed for my character and Venat. Are we supposed to self-insert into our Wols/Azems or not? Can't wait for a short story next year to confirm we were rushing to that woman's side just before she wiped out her own race. Widen the chasm between the player character and myself even more.

Also this. My Azem and WoL would never forgive Venat for the atrocities she committed and the people she took away not just from the Unsundered, but from them as well. Yoshida can shove his mommy-loving fetish on me all he likes, that isn't my WoL in Endwalker.

[Striker44]

Still writes better morally grey characters than FFXIV. Still makes better set pieces than FFXIV - especially considering Endwalker's apocalypse being meaningless.
#IllidanWasRight

Hahahahaha! Oh, that's rich! Excuse *wheeze* me while I *gasp* try to *chuckle* stop laughing.

I would love it if Yoshi would stop taking away my character's agency and forcing them into ridiculous dynamics like the one the story prescribed for my character and Venat.

This is common in practically every JRPG I can think of. Your character isn't "you" - you are playing the role of that character. I find it amusing when people play a JRPG and then complain that it has common elements of a...JRPG...

[jameseoakes]

Hahahahaha! Oh, that's rich! Excuse *wheeze* me while I *gasp* try to *chuckle* stop laughing.


This is common in practically every JRPG I can think of. Your character isn't "you" - you are playing the role of that character. I find it amusing when people play a JRPG and then complain that it has common elements of a...JRPG...

Yes but most JRPGs make exploring the character of the main character a main part of the game, not make them a blank slate your meant to be free to use within a somewhat defined range and not thrown out at the very end of the the main story arc

[BaconBits]

Typical Striker44 moment.

[jameseoakes]

Small correction, Azem never said they disagree with Venat, they just didn't respond when asked to summon Hydaelyn.
That can have many more implications than them simply disagreeing, like something happening to them before they got time to respond.

Honestly I think this is getting to be a bit of a odd part of the story as given how close Azim and Venat are implied to be it seems very odd she doesn't seem have got him on side and which then makes her using him to make her plan at best cruel

[DevonEllwood]

No idea why we have two threads going on about Endwalker discussion, and I guess this would belong in the other thread but I decided to put it here.

I don't have Venat as a character, but I hate that she's Hydaelyn. Venat is someone who is very into her own ideals. If she actually had intentions of helping the ancients, then she would have told them the truth. but she never did and the ancients remained in the dark. She stuck to her ideals that mankind should be "equal to Hermes's test" therefore she never intended to tell them and if they couldn't figure things out on their own and live through the despair, they would be sundered. Her ideals are playing fair to a genocidal idiot's game and to avoid a fate that happened on some other planet. We don't know if she took the "best" path because we never saw the outcome of her telling the truth. She even got people to sacrifice their souls to her without them even knowing fully what was going on because they liked and trusted her. She waited until Zodiark had halted the problem and restored life, then split up the world knowing full well many of the offshoots were just going to die. The souls in Zodiark were trapped in Zodiark .The sundered inhabitants lost their memories, their culture, and everything that made them them. Hades, Elidibus and all the other ascians were literally monsters of her own making.
She then proceeds to give the sundered every key possible to fix the situation, while giving the ancients none, only for her main plan to abandon the planet. If it were not for Zenos (great grandson of an ancient), Hades, Elidibus, the WoL would have died, died again, never made it to Elpis to get the last key and then fail and fail again. The fact that this person, who is a villain in every way possible, is Hydaelyn is what makes me hate the character. I was hoping that losing Hydaelyn would be sad, the sundering being a completely human accident or mistake.But I guess we can't have her being human and relatable, no has to be an all knowing powerful Mary Sue. But I guess it's fine since she's nice to us. Venat was a monster #NotMyHydaelyn

Also the end of days should have affected the whole planet, yes, but that would mean that Venat was wrong and humanity couldn't fight through their despair. Endwalker's own themes and push for Hydaelyn to be right was holding its own self back

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

Hahahahaha! Oh, that's rich! Excuse *wheeze* me while I *gasp* try to *chuckle* stop laughing.

I mean, at least people aren't treating Illidan in-world like some tragic hero who did all the atrocities he did for the sake of his brave little sparks. They treat him like the asshole he is, they treat him with distrust and wariness because of what he is and what he's done. He may be doing all he does for the sake of a good cause, but no one treats him like a hero or worship the ground he walks on or call him a savior.

Which is already miles better treatment of a morally grey/evil-leaning character than Endwalker.

Keep being triggered that people say WoW of all things has better writing than Endwalker, though. I'm sure one day Yoshi-senpai will notice you.

I don't have Venat as a character,

Yeah, this is pretty much my stance. I think Venat could have been a very well-written villain/villain-adjacent character, and I don't personally hate her as she is. I hate the way the writing bent itself over and into a pretzel just to defend what she did as being Correct and Right and Good and Out of Love.

Write her how she is and let people react to her in a sensical manner, and I'd have no issues with her.

[Vyrerus]

Cause: cutscene where the scions prayed and channeled their power to us.

Actually, their praying formed a forcefield of its own that had no relation to the Limit Break. Coincidentally right as her second Ultimate Fate hits. The second LB you're thinking of is part of the scripted fight given to the players after you defeat the Kaikodaimon. Along with the line, "Transcend your limits to survive!"

The fight goes on after the Scions' prayer field saves you to give you all of their prayer lines, popping up with the text message <Insert Scion Name Here>'s Prayers give you strength! Even though you don't get any stronger, nor gain any LB bars (And you can still even lose if your healers die).

It's more or less scripted to make up for the script discounting the Scions earlier to remove them from being used in the final fight. As the total sum of their powers were useless when used directly against Meteion. It was only by praying for the WoL and believing in the WoL almost like a deity that they could be useful to us in the end.

And even that is discounted in the end, due to the Zenos fight proving that we could have fought against Meteion with elevated personal strength. Spark of Hope gives us 6 more lives, and that means Meteion would have had to use Ultimate Fate 7 times in order to beat the WoL, if the WoL had been fighting with all of their might.

[Theodric]

Typical Striker44 moment.

I know I've said as much in the past, though that image never fails to make me laugh. So I'm going to quote it so it remains one of my final posts around these parts.

I won't rule out a potential return altogether though I've let my subscription lapse so my posting rights will run out any day now.

Needless to say there isn't really anything in the recent patch that appealed to me. I've always loathed Hildibrand and appreciated that it was locked away in its own little bubble rather than tied to major content. The latest batch of beast tribe quests continues the bizarre trajectory of making strawmen out of alien races/pushing some utterly bizarre 'themes'. Then there's the criterion dungeon desperately trying to sanitise Ul'dah's dark past.

With the Ascians/Ancients and Garleans cast off of the playing board there isn't much other than the Void that really interests me in the game these days and that, in itself, seems to be set to be the next target to be wrapped up in an all too neat little bow.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if that isn't the case - though even if it isn't, my complaints towards this game extend beyond the story.

[AwesomeJr44]

I know I've said as much in the past, though that image never fails to make me laugh. So I'm going to quote it so it remains one of my final posts around these parts.

I won't rule out a potential return altogether though I've let my subscription lapse so my posting rights will run out any day now..

It's a shame to see you go, you're one of the most fair and intellectual posters on the forums, but hopefully you find greener pastures wherever you decide to head next. *gives a virtual bro hug*