A game for 4 year olds

[RukoBoshi]

I just wished Endwalker was actually two expansions.
One focused on Garlemald and it's surrounding regions like in HW or SHB, ending with our fight against Zodiark on the moon.
Garlemald deserved more than a single zone and being off screened by Zenos.
Anima should have been a trial too.

I think Zodiark not being the actual final opponent was a good idea, but that plot needed more time to properly get us intrigued and set up that antagonist.

I would put Garlemald and the moon in the same expansion, and developped the moon as something more than the lopporits hideout and an unused ship.
Ideally, it would have an ascians "city" and they would be some of the enemies before fighting Zodiark.
I can imagine some patches showing how these ascians processed the death of their god and ambitions. I think it would have been nice to tie up the fate of the remaining ascians that way.

Then the final expansion would have focused more on Sharlayan, Thavnair and Elpis.
I think both these cities storyline are fine, but suffered from having our group constantly moving from too many different places.
I'm particularly dissapointed that Thavnair is just one zone and city. I would have love to have a reason to explore the island more.

[Kesey]

I just wished Endwalker was actually two expansions.
One focused on Garlemald and it's surrounding regions like in HW or SHB, ending with our fight against Zodiark on the moon.
Garlemald deserved more than a single zone and being off screened by Zenos.
Anima should have been a trial too.

I think Zodiark not being the actual final opponent was a good idea, but that plot needed more time to properly get us intrigued and set up that antagonist.

I would put Garlemald and the moon in the same expansion, and developped the moon as something more than the lopporits hideout and an unused ship.
Ideally, it would have an ascians "city" and they would be some of the enemies before fighting Zodiark.
I can imagine some patches showing how these ascians processed the death of their god and ambitions. I think it would have been nice to tie up the fate of the remaining ascians that way.

Then the final expansion would have focused more on Sharlayan, Thavnair and Elpis.
I think both these cities storyline are fine, but suffered from having our group constantly moving from too many different places.
I'm particularly dissapointed that Thavnair is just one zone and city. I would have love to have a reason to explore the island more.

I think the change came with Shadowbringers, as that expansion seemed to be the plan change not Endwalker, assuming the goal to be entering the ruins and Emet's recreation of Amaurot. I think if Shadowbringers didn't happen, we'd still have Emet as the villain of 5.0 but we'd explore Thav and Garlemald and maybe Corvos and Werlyt, only to end up in the last zone which would have been very similar to The Tempest. 6.0 would have been a harder pivot to a bigger Sharlayan, with Elpis, Thule, and the moon relatively the same.

To gain Anima, would have required the sacrifice of Titania or Innocence. On the other hand, I think those that hated the way Elidibus was handled would have gone along with it better if he did his drama over fallen Garlemald.

But to further my real point here, the current iteration of Shadowbringers and Endwalker are reactions to the complaints about Stormblood and the success of Shadowbringers. We saw many people complain they didn't want huge zones like Ala Mhigo if they wouldn't be fleshed out well, so Shadowbringers gives us a lot of different zones that were very much different than every other zone and they adapted the story to this change. They then saw the success of this decision in Shadowbringers only to hear the community claim they wanted more Garlemald and more Elpis in Endwalker and didn't think the story adjustment to having very strong different zones adjusted to the story went well enough.

To give a smaller example is Viera. They added the race because of overwhelming player request but Hrothgar as well because that was their original plan. Giving us the situation where we had female Viera and male Hrothgar. And although they have listened to give us the gender swap for these races, the community hurt the lore and plans of the Bozja storyline because we didn't have a female Hrothgar to take on the role of the queen of Bozja.

We should be very careful about what we ask for. They do listen to us, but we should be very specific about what we want to see and not want to see. We should also not get caught up in meaningless arguments here either, as we are just hurting the direction of the game because we are letting unchecked feelings guide the direction of the game instead of well thought out criticism and suggestion.

[DPZ2]

I would put Garlemald and the moon in the same expansion, and developped the moon as something more than the lopporits hideout and an unused ship.

You forget that the moon is, first and foremost, Zodiark's prison. A prison that Fandaniel had to crack open using an aether-based weapon that required so much power that he created towers across the world to draw the aether from the land itself.

The Garlean solution provided by the story is still the better one if you are not looking for a War and More War expansion where the Garleans are solidly defeated in a battle that would be going on throughout.

Although a 'city of Ascians' sounds cool, there are narrative problems with getting there and remaining alive as every single Ascian discovers the Warrior of Light on their turf.

The movement between Sharlayan, Thavnair and Elpis during the leveling process is no more jarring than the movement between zones in any of the previous expansions.

Frankly, I consider the ending of a conflict that has been ongoing for over 10 years was handled with a lot more compassion toward the losing side than they deserved.

"The World's a Stage" the actor said
Come curtain call we'll all be dead.
"It isn't true!" the soldier cried
A bullet hit, and then he died.
The people wept, the angels sang
The World went off without a bang.
The actor gasped, and then was gone
The world's the world.