A game for 4 year olds

[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.

[MikkoAkure]

Okay first of all, that's kind of unfair. It's a rewrite but we're not allowed to create new character or add something to the lore? You might as well kill a big portion of fanfics on ao3. And speaking of that, I remember that EW does introduce us to a major new character with no prior build-up or mention at all, which is Meteion. And no, the morse code on CT isn't meteion.

Meteion was meant to be a "come from nowhere" character by the writers and apparently they had that idea going back to 2019 after ShB released. I don't agree with that or Meteion's everything but at least she shows up at the end of the expansion under the context of us going to Elpis to find the cause of the Final Days.

Aveyond's fanfic expansion just starts with Gaius randomly calling up a random Garlean noble's name who normally couldn't even be in consideration for the throne and Thancred immediately leaves the party to go hunt her down and rescue her because she's Aveyond's super special OC and everything in his rewrite from the beginning revolves around her.

People are allowed to make their own fanfics as long as they admit they're fanfics. But the difference is that Aveyond treats his rewrite as objectively better than what we got so his writing is going to be looked at with a different level of criticism.

Now to a more sensitive topic, I'm guessing people have problem with some states depicted as being better under the Empire rule? As seen with Bozja, it's not too farfetched I'd say. We know that not all garleans are evil, as seen with Maxima and the Populares. Gaius is pretty respectable guy too, a shame that ARR can't exactly explore his chivalrous side. To make the Empire all evil is boring to me. And in real life, we do have people who think their nation was better when they're still under other nation's rule.

I have no problem with that and the Bozja storyline also talks about that. But Bozja's capital was also accidentally disintegrated due to Bozjan rule so I don't think you can say they were better after the Garleans came. The field records go into the fact that the new Bozjan government will encounter resistance from those who liked the way it was before better so it's not ignored. But the rebellion was made with the specific purpose of letting Bozja's people determine their own path forward

We don't know the extent of the popularity the Populares had, but most of them who were active with their discontent ended up getting gassed so I don't think they were very influential or powerful unless Varis was willing to kill a large chunk of his government, though I wouldn't be surprised. The reaper storyline has the Lemures flee Garlemald after a failed assassination attempt on Solus for steering the empire into the ground. So there are "good" Garleans from the perspective of Eorzea, but it doesn't mean that the empire as a whole isn't a bad thing just because there are some good people and some of the provinces end up better than they were before. Besides the act of conquering and all the death and destruction that comes with it, all provincials are treated as second-class citizens compared to pureblood Garleans and get conscripted and sent to the other side of the empire to fight their expansionist wars. Miqo'te and Roegadyn are assigned the surnames "captured" and "fat" respectively. In Landis, magic-using knights were hunted down and killed after the country fell. Religion is banned and culture is erased wherever they go.

The problem with them goes all the way up to the leadership and the creation of the empire. As we all know, they were created by an Ascian, who cared nothing at all for the Garleans themselves, and kept expanding and molding the Garlean culture to be what it is with the goal that it would cause strife and set up a Calamity, as he had done with the Allagans before. He had such little regard to his creation that he left a parting gift of a civil war behind and even he was surprised with how violent and destructive it was. His successor's goal was to destroy the whole world over and over and in the 8UC timeline his first attempt at a Calamity destroyed Garlemald there too.

The issue with suggesting that some of the provinces are better off under Garlean rule is that not even the Garleans are better off under Garlean rule. Even with Bozja's capital melted and Rabanastre bombed to rubble, the Garleans have probably ended up being the most badly affected by the Garlean Empire and now exist as refugees in their own homeland.

[RukoBoshi]

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.

I didn't forgot about that, i also didn't forget that they Ascians were seen standing on the moon multiples times like they owned the place.
They were at least confortable enough to come and go whenever it pleased them, so it would make senses for them to be there to me.

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

I can agree with that, we know that they didn't want to tell more war stories, and i doubt they would want to tell more revolutions stories against Garlemald like in Stormblood.
I still think they could have created a story focusing on this nation and it's regions.

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.

I don't think it's impossible to tell that kind of story. After the death of the unsundered, i think many ascians would be dispirited and wouldn't even oppose us anymore.
Like Elidibus in Endwalker, they could accept that everything is over, while some others ascians would hate us and be against us.

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.

True in a way, my problem here is that we don't spend a long enough time in these regions. I'm fine with moving from place to place in connected areas, like the regions around Ishgard, because the storyline is still connected to the main hub.
Sharlayan and Thavnair are their own practically their own storyline that don't intermingle that much. They would gain to have time to develop their own plots.

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.

Despite feeling rush to me, i think they did a nice job handling the conclusion of a 10 year old saga.
I never had big expectations for Endwalker, because i feel Shadowbringers already ended the ascians plot in a satisfying way. I also loved SHB so much that i knew Endwalker wouldn't come close to it for me.

There's just a ton of details that i feel come from the fact that this expansion had to create a new plot since we lost the main antagonists in SHB and tie everything together. This is not an easy task, especially when you follow a game acclaimed like Shadowbringers.
Endwalker is just really good to me, but not amazing.

[Lustre]

Maybe if people didnt spend all their time on the forum spewing word salad at people they didnt know, and actually played the game once in a while they'd see that OP is correct /shrug

[KariTheFox]

Circling back to the original topic, I don't even think it is accruate to describe it as a story about a dragon "forgiving" an omicron. The point of the meal being shared is that it inspires feelings of nostalgia and builds a connection to a past that the dragon thought had been lost forever.

The idea of food being something that connects people to each other, and reminds you of a more pleasant past is actually a pretty common one in literature, and you can see it in everything from Pixar films to Tolkien. I wouldn't really describe a classic literary trope like that as "childish".

[CheshCa7]

Maybe if people didnt spend all their time on the forum spewing word salad at people they didnt know, and actually played the game once in a while they'd see that OP is correct /shrug

You mean the people that contradicted OP with actual examples from the game and from the quests in question? Those people should play the game?

[Carin-Eri]

Maybe if people didnt spend all their time on the forum spewing word salad at people they didnt know, and actually played the game once in a while they'd see that OP is correct /shrug

Easier said than done. I can access the forum from my work PC between tasks at work. I cannot, however, play the game at work since A: it would be inappropriate and distracting and B: my work PC is just that - a work PC; attempting to run pretty much ANY game would likely melt it!

[Iscah]

Easier said than done. I can access the forum from my work PC between tasks at work. I cannot, however, play the game at work

Prettymuch this. The angle some people take that "the forum is naturally the place for angry people because if they were happy with the game they'd be playing it" just doesn't ring true. For me, a forum is where I can keep (theoretically) enjoying the game with fellow fans when I can't be playing it or don't feel like playing it, but do feel like thinking and talking about it.

[AwesomeJr44]

Here's his post that you missed that you're defending without actually knowing what was said. It's on page 24, post #238:

Ah, that's why I didn't see it. Because he didn't say you were less than human, he said you didn't have a normal human reaction. Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with his assessment, that's not the same as telling someone they're less than human. Is there another quote that you didn't link? If this is the only quote, it honestly sounds like people took what he said, stretched it thin to mean something else and got mad over that new definition. Which isn't surprising as I've seen this happen more times on these forums than I can count. (And I don't just mean the lore subforum, general discussion does this all the time too)

It'ss the worst thing about the approach to moderating that these forums do: they can insult, belittle, dehumanize and hurt everyone they disagree with as loudly as they want, because the only person who's going to have action taken against them is the one that breaks hard enough to swear at them.

If the rules say no swearing, and you're the only only who swears, then you're going to be the only one who gets moderated.

Aveyond: 'Endwalker is bad and you should feel bad for liking it'
Almost everyone else: 'Endwalker is good and you should feel bad for not liking it'

Essentially, yes.

Me choosing to not believe someone who has given me no reason to trust their words after all I’ve seen from EW’s defenders is not the same thing as the outright hostility.

Anywhere else on the internet, this would be obvious.

Where were you when he called me offputting by simply liking how cute the new beast tribe is? Or when he said that people that liked Endwalker never knew loss or are handling it wrong? Why is it that Kazemons post is so bad

Because Kazemon's post calling someone a russian sympathizer for liking Garlemald is a lot worse than someone saying you're 'off-putting' for liking in-game characters. They're similar on paper but one is far more extreme than the other.

Maybe if people didnt spend all their time on the forum spewing word salad at people they didnt know, and actually played the game once in a while they'd see that OP is correct /shrug

I'm thoroughly convinced that there are actually two versions of FFXIV and different people are playing different versions of it with a completely different story. Maybe that's a bit of a conspiracy theory but it's the only way any of this makes sense.