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

[Fiel_Tana]

And not universally, but I suspect several depressed people are inclined to see the crafted existence of a failure state as "I would obviously be someone vulnerable to that failure state" and relate to its illustrations moreso than the heroes. People who bought into Shadowbringers's "humanize and validate everyone" approach would be thrown by "wait, since when is it okay to write off entire swaths of people as inherently unworthy to live, or by unideal emotional responses be 'shown' to be unworthy? That's really messed up?" And some weird people (hello) are generally brainbroken and tend to be inherently suspicious of the heroic fantasy tendency (and extremely ugly historical tendency) to otherize and invalidate people who don't belong in the POV characters' in-groups.

For Endwalker, well, it's a video game! They were never alive. They're just symbolic generalities. They're a vehicle to deliver that heartwarming, affirmative message to YOU! Don't worry about it! Their failure state could never apply to YOU! Even the people who failed to answer YES to the question are now rallying behind YOU and are happy that even if they couldn't, YOU are the one who gets the affirmation! And YOU are so great in being capable of answering YES to the question that you can even inspire and uplifts the others who couldn't do it for themselves! Happy ending for everyone.

Thank you for writing this!

Yes! That was my experience of it. Was so hyped to play EW, looked forward to it for ages since FFXIV had become where I went to try to mend my brain, a place to relax, be social, think and be able to get away from thinking when needed, and be a bit happier. Endwalker hit me HARD and I spiralled badly back into a depression I was already struggling to get out of.

The question "Is life worth it?" being answered with "if you're the right type of person, with only acceptable emotions (absolutely NO sadness or fear!), in with the right crowd, in the right time and place. If not, then no, you're just not strong enough or what we consider worthy". Damn!

Not the message they wanted to send, but that's how it was received by me during play through. Add to it the gaslighting ("they deserved it", "there was no other way", "suffering is beautiful", "it hurt mommy more. Think of her pain!" etc.) and I spent literally months trying to crawl back out from under the dark storm cloud in my head.

I know that's not what the writers intended, EW was meant to be uplifting (others seemed to feel it was?), but for me, it was the direct opposite.

[ReynTime]

Thank you for writing this!

Yes! That was my experience of it. Was so hyped to play EW, looked forward to it for ages since FFXIV had become where I went to try to mend my brain, a place to relax, be social, think and be able to get away from thinking when needed, and be a bit happier. Endwalker hit me HARD and I spiralled badly back into a depression I was already struggling to get out of.

The question "Is life worth it?" being answered with "if you're the right type of person, with only acceptable emotions (absolutely NO sadness or fear!), in with the right crowd, in the right time and place. If not, then no, you're just not strong enough or what we consider worthy". Damn!

Not the message they wanted to send, but that's how it was received by me during play through. Add to it the gaslighting ("they deserved it", "there was no other way", "suffering is beautiful", "it hurt mommy more. Think of her pain!" etc.) and I spent literally months trying to crawl back out from under the dark storm cloud in my head.

I know that's not what the writers intended, EW was meant to be uplifting (others seemed to feel it was?), but for me, it was the direct opposite.

It's unfortunate you were affected that way by it. I can definitely see people's point when put that way. I'm surprised how easily the bizarre message is brushed off by content creators and streamers to this day. Though I've seen some people comment something similar on reddit lately.

I suffer from depression myself but tbh I ended not being affected emotionally at all by EW because the moment Meteion started her report I just thought "Oh no. They're going full pretentious and focus on the question of the meaning of life to make simpletons think Endwalker's writing is deep, aren't they...?" and it was like all the remaining channels of immersion with the MSQ shattered right there, and I was just continuing to make fun of MSQ with friends from there on.

My guess? We're told a lot about Ul'dah/Gridania/Limsa, but the game doesn't really show us much about them from an organizational level. Even the individual Grand Companies might as well be completely indistinguishable in regards to your membership within them, though you used to be completely locked to whichever faction you joined in PvP until the devs realized that it was a pretty bad idea as far as faction-based PvP matching went. We know way, WAY more about the Ascians and the Legati more than the high ranking members of each Grand Company aside from the leaders, for instance. This disconnect is arguably part of why something like the whole Chasing Ivy arc in ARR was a bit hollow - you're just told that the Alliance is trying to root out a spy, and you don't get to do anything in regards to that until you're asked to confront her at the last moment. Then she escapes once, gets caught again, and her existence is completely forgotten after that (though we should have had a chance to question Emperor Varis about her, or he should have mentioned her capture, considering he's the one that planted/reached her within the Immortal Flames to begin with). Even the Garleans don't really seem to address any differences between the Grand Companies either - Emperor Varis is literally the only Garlean in the entire game that seemingly cares about the differences between the Eorzean city-states.

It's also important to note that we also see a lot of the societal flaws within those three city-states, while we only distantly observe them at best when it comes to Amaurot and Garlemald, because both end up getting destroyed before we get to witness their flaws for ourselves.

I'd say people would actually care a lot more about Ul'dah/Limsa/Gridania if we were actually more involved in the Grand Companies that we're supposed to be members of. For years, I had been kicking around an idea about how Squadrons and the entire GC ranking system should be completely overhauled into a serious Final Fantasy Tactics-like minigame where you lead your entire Squadron into lore-relevant missions, complete with involved questlines that differ depending on your choice of Grand Company enlistment (although you'd get invitations to assist the other Grand Companies later). For example, if you were a part of the Malestrom, you'd get to see how diplomacy works between the pirates that you keep hearing so much about, and raid Garlean ships and deal with stuff like Sirens out at sea. Twin Adders could deal with stuff like cultists and expeditions into the West Shroud. Immortal Flames could go into corruption and dealing with cultists on their side of the border.

At the same time, some Garleans could stand to address your GC rank more - some extra world building flavor to add weight to your own threat level beyond just a simple adventurer that happens to be allied with Eorzea and kicking everyone's asses for breakfast.

This reminds me.

While everyone has always seemed to be just looking forward to new nations (which are all going to be glaringly obvious FFXIV versions of real world non-european nations for social media buzz sake) I always wished they would just add more side-stories with quest chains related to each starting nation's internal struggles more. Without Ascian or Hydaelin nonsense hijacking it. Get Matsuno to write those, while the rest of the Walt Disney tier stories that seem to be more popular with the stans can go on without interference.
There is so much lore and so many plot points they haven't done anything with in the 3 nations. And when they do, they seem to shit all over the potential (The Sil'dihn Subterrane storyline). Seriously, leave that kind of thing to Matsuno or some writer that isn't afraid of making more mature scripts.

[SaitoHikari]

While everyone has always seemed to be just looking forward to new nations (which are all going to be glaringly obvious FFXIV versions of real world non-european nations for social media buzz sake) I always wished they would just add more side-stories with quest chains related to each starting nation's internal struggles more. Without Ascian or Hydaelin nonsense hijacking it. Get Matsuno to write those, while the rest of the Walt Disney tier stories that seem to be more popular with the stans can go on without interference.
There is so much lore and so many plot points they haven't done anything with in the 3 nations. And when they do, they seem to shit all over the potential (The Sil'dihn Subterrane storyline). Seriously, leave that kind of thing to Matsuno or some writer that isn't afraid of making more mature scripts.

My guess? The game's writing had gone through a drastic shift in direction when the Heavensward crew left to work on FFXVI. That was when plot points started getting dropped left and right in favor of emotional spectacle, which of course gets a lot more very vocal stans from the JRPG crowd, compared to something like Matsuno's works which are generally far more appreciated by people who actually play other things outside of JRPGs or MMOs. You can even see signs of this in the discourse in the Lore forum - I had been away for 3 years and only recently returned to find that the lore section has devolved into personal arguments rather than the deep analysis that used to be far more common, because the recent presentation of XIV's story has emphasized us having to take everything at face value. (It's also worth considering that JRPG writing in recent times is rather abysmal, especially considering that the Trails series which was previously the closest thing to matching XIV's emphasis on world building went completely off the rails and became just another generic JRPG series in the end. People who play exclusively JRPGs tend to have low standards in regards to writing by default, considering so many rely on emotional impact at the expense of literally everything else - it also doesn't help that this particular crowd seems like the major culprit behind the negative reception that may have chased Matsuno off from any further involvement in XIV.)

What many stans fail to realize is that the only reason XIV is a step above your typical JRPG is because it built up the lore and context to give the big twists their major emotional impact later. It's why all the statements about how ARR is trash is misguided at best. The only thing wrong about ARR is the presentation - it could go through a quality pass to make it more in line with the rest of the game. But once again, my major issue with Endwalker is how the Garlemald arc basically ended as an off-screen sacrifice in favor of the Ancients completely hijacking the entire story last minute. It's probably the single biggest disappointment from a writing standpoint I've encountered in all of gaming thus far, and it gives me incredibly irrational hatred for Zenos and Fandango asshole especially.

Since XVI's development is wrapping up, maybe the Heavensward writers will come back in time to rein everything in for the next major story arc. Maybe a lot of the older lore hasn't been expanded on simply because the previous writers were absent working on XVI instead. (And hopefully Ishikawa goes on to work on FFXVII instead, or she stays lead writer for XIV for the entire next big story arc. I don't mean to belittle her work, but there's a massive tonal difference between her writing and literally everything else in the game, and having her take over the lead writer position mid-way clearly resulted in a massive whiplash between pre-ShB and post-ShB, to the point where it looks like a lot of plot points from pre-ShB were sacrificed for the sake of the accelerated spectacle that Endwalker ended up becoming. I'd like to see what she does when she's not constrained by previously established lore.)

Sadly, I wonder if it's too late for my idea in particular. My idea would have been far more relevant back in Stormblood, when the Garleans and the whole Primal stuff were still in play. Since both are now out of the picture with Endwalker, there's much less around to give context to the necessity of the Grand Companies. Supposedly there's a Squadron/Grand Company rework that was being mentioned early on in the EW patch cycle, so who knows.

Also regarding my earlier point about Roaille, her being the Ivy was not much of a reveal at all because we hardly talked to her to begin with. Same for stuff like how Mistbeard is basically a title. Again, we literally don't get to know anyone in the Grand Companies aside from their leaders, outside of a few sidequests here and there. The entire Bard questline in general is probably the only real look we have in regards to the operational structure of the Twin Adders for instance.

[MikkoAkure]

My guess? The game's writing had gone through a drastic shift in direction when the Heavensward crew left to work on FFXVI.

Ishikawa isn't the only writer so I don't understand why people feel the need to pin everything on her.

Banri Oda was on the writing credit alongside Maehiro from ARR through 3.0 which was Maehiro's last writing credit, and continued to be on it from 3.1-now alongside Ishikawa. Ishikawa was main scenario writer in 3.2, 3.4, and all of SB and ShB (Oda and Ishikawa shared this title for both expansions) so I don't know why your cutoff is pre-ShB and post-ShB. Yoshi-P has had full and direct oversight in how the game is run and the story points since the beginning. Maehiro leaving after 3.0 to XVI doesn't immediately make the game change in tone since he wasn't writing every last story and he was working alongside Banri Oda and Yoshi-P the whole time anyway. Plus, most of the lore originates from Oda himself and not the other writers and he's still here.

As I said in the other thread going on for Endwalker's story, HW's tone is different because Yoshi-P specifically called for it to be written as "dark fantasy". Knowing this, you can look at ARR/ShB and see how they were written specifically in the sub-genre "heroic fantasy", SB is clearly a war story, and EW is a mix of them all with a dash of sci-fi.


Matsuno wasn't "chased off" by negative reception by the English lore forums or people who like JRPGs, it was received negatively in Japan but they didn't go much more into it. Yoshi-P and Matsuno even had an interview last year or the year before after Bozja to talk about it and possible post-Bozja plans but people seem to ignore it for the "drama".


Garlemald being nuked off-screen by their own hand is partly a consequence of the 1.0 writers making them too strong imo. Other than deus ex machina there's not really a chance for Eorzea's military to do more than just defend when they have magic, bows and arrows, swords, and muskets against a fully mechanized and modern military with magitek. Even Ghimlyt Dark required WoL to show up.

The other reason Garlemald is what it is, is because in an interview Yoshi-P said that if we went in guns blazing, we'd just continue to see Garlemald and the Garleans as faceless mooks to kill instead of the average people and their stories and that had an effect on the state of the zone.


If you want someone to blame for "emotional spectacle" you might want to look at the creative director more than anyone else.

[Graeham]

Ishikawa isn't the only writer so I don't understand why people feel the need to pin everything on her.

No Neko. You must think of the strategy. Is why guild is leader of the forum.

Guild is want to bring the course correct to bring back the No Shadow God. Ikawa is popular writer but has kill No Shadow God. So to change course must fire and punish the Ikawa. English and Japanese translated script say wrong thing like the Venar is not cause of all evil in universe. Must fire English and Japanese translator team so only German script is use in game. This is way that all know Venar is evil. By remove the strong general of the Yoshi island will only have writer who is scared of guild and obey the forum. We do not care about the Matsumo or the Myhero and other retire Heavenwart writer but the name drop it make it look like we do. Remembering the dark chocolate fantasy of the Heavenwart? We do not but it is better writer this lmao. Give us the new writer and keep fire until story is what we want.

Garlemalding hit by the nuke off the screen it like the burning of Teldrassil. We do not know how two are related but FF chara think story better than the WoW so when story can be compare mean it is bad. Top secret file it show that evil writer they try to make the Endwalking in the last hour of the summer band camp but it fail. Original German script it having two expansion not one. First expansion was the Garlemalding tower climb. Second expansion the No Shadow God kill all the chara and destroy game. Is why it is call Endwalker because is no more expansion. Only No Shadow God. Script it still exist but it is hidden on the Yoshi island. And Ikawa was force to rush write script as only one. By attack writer can bring back top secret German script to have No Shadow God kill all chara and win war.

Do not feel sad Neko. We teach you truth of game we see on the reddit interview.

[Graeham]

the moment Meteion started her report I just thought "Oh no. They're going full pretentious and focus on the question of the meaning of life to make simpletons think Endwalker's writing is deep, aren't they...?" and it was like all the remaining channels of immersion with the MSQ shattered right there, and I was just continuing to make fun of MSQ with friends from there on.

Ahahaha yes we remember this. God Meteo say I am so sad that I can not eating the candy apple but I watch the Hermes eat and we turning to the Ayyybeyond and the Madge King and the Tariq and the Hildabrant brother and we can not stopping the laughing. Real traditional masculine story it not cry that can not eat delicious candy apple it hit the apple with the fist. Famous Game of the Throne writer Myhiro would be doing the apple smackdown. The mocking of the game it form the bond of the year to come. Real MSQ treasure are the fiends that are making on the way.