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

[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.

[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.

[Tulvi]

My absolutely satisfied take on EW - Hydaelyn did nothing wrong and EW is a masterpiece. Peace <3

[aveyond-dreams]

My absolutely satisfied take on EW - Hydaelyn did nothing wrong and EW is a masterpiece. Peace <3

Neither did Emet-Selch. EW however, is far from a masterpiece.

[SaitoHikari]

Neither did Emet-Selch. EW however, is far from a masterpiece.

At this point, I tend to agree that Venat/Hydaleyn didn't really do anything wrong. I don't think there was any clear good option available to her - every option available to her was bad in the context of what we know from the future. The only thing she knew was that the status quo would not have survived a future reckoning with Meteion in the long term.

The real issue is that no one really gets to call out Fandaniel for the complete bullshit he puts the world through, both in the past and the present. He only escapes actual consequences because 'lol memory wipe machine'. Meteion should have come back to disintegrate his ass for bringing her into existence, only to have her endure all of the suffering his question put her through. For all the preaching he did about caring about flawed creations, he didn't really seem to care about her well-being, only that she was an experiment for a question that's impossible to answer. Asshole doesn't get to suffer enough when he's the real culprit behind everything that happened.

[Xirean]

Anytime people try to say that any one party is completely free from blame and thus "did nothing wrong" is just very cringe. You can critique the faults of all parties individually without trying to pick a side over who you personally believe was right.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Anytime people try to say that any one party is completely free from blame and thus "did nothing wrong" is just very cringe. You can critique the faults of all parties individually without trying to pick a side over who you personally believe was right.

whats this? a sensible outlook at how people should engage with viewpoints? Get that thing out of here, we can only accept things in black and white even though we like to pretend that we enjoy seeing things grey.

[Lelila38]

Anytime people try to say that any one party is completely free from blame and thus "did nothing wrong" is just very cringe. You can critique the faults of all parties individually without trying to pick a side over who you personally believe was right.

The problem is, the game calls one party out for their crimes, the other though gets a free pass.

[Xirean]

The problem is, the game calls one party out for their crimes, the other though gets a free pass.

Oh I'm well aware of that issue. It's something I spent several pages criticizing.

Kinda the point of the thread to be honest.