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

[BaconBits]

The entire Venat discourse could have been completely avoided if:
A. She got mind wiped along with the other 3 Ancients.

B. The Sundering was a complete accident on her part, a result of her not being used to the sheer amount of power being an Elder Primal brings.

C. We never engaged in more time-travel shenanigans to begin with. Alternatively, we engage in timeline chicanery a little more and end up with a split timeline where Venat takes the information she gleaned from us and decides to not entertain Hermes' insane ploy. We already have one split timeline that a certain red-headed catboy came from, what's the harm in adding another branch?

Hermes was a goober that shouldn't have made his appearance near the very end of the expac and was better as Fandango Moneybags.

[Fiel_Tana]

Alternatively, we engage in timeline chicanery a little more and end up with a split timeline where Venat takes the information she gleaned from us and decides to not entertain Hermes' insane ploy. We already have one split timeline that a certain red-headed catboy came from, what's the harm in adding another branch?

I honestly don't know why they didn't do that. It would have tied it all up nicely giving everyone a happy ending and made the WoL a hero. Even fits their "power of friendship" theme without messing up anything else in the story they wanted to tell. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Venat even says something (I can't remember the exact quote offhand) about the future we came from doesn't need to come to pass. I had such hope there lol. Honestly thought "Oooh, maybe when we go back to our time the graphics update kicks in and we get to keep our new-old companions". Yoshi had mentioned wanting to upgrade the graphics in interviews leading up to EW, seemed such a great way to add excitement about the next arc. *Sigh* I was still so hyped and trusting of the writing team back then, only to have it come crashing down soon after.

[Eisi]

I honestly don't know why they didn't do that. It would have tied it all up nicely giving everyone a happy ending and made the WoL a hero. Even fits their "power of friendship" theme without messing up anything else in the story they wanted to tell. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One hundo percent! It would have been so cool if we as sundered beings could have helped the ancients build a better future for themselves.

Imagine if that was the secret hope that Elidibus hinged on when he sent us back. That there was this tiny chance that at least the ancients from another time might have a chance.

We would leave them behind to deal with the coming final days themselves, but this time they'd be in the know, not lost and entrusting their fate to false gods of their own making.

[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.

[Brinne]

One hundo percent! It would have been so cool if we as sundered beings could have helped the ancients build a better future for themselves.

Imagine if that was the secret hope that Elidibus hinged on when he sent us back. That there was this tiny chance that at least the ancients from another time might have a chance.

We would leave them behind to deal with the coming final days themselves, but this time they'd be in the know, not lost and entrusting their fate to false gods of their own making.

We only overcame the Final Days with the knowledge regarding them gained from the Ancients' direct help and even self-sacrifice for our sake, so in some ways it seems kinda unfair and callous to not grant them the same in turn, huh?

Anyway, back to Elpis to raid their treasure maps and collect some more quest rewards, I suppose!

EDIT: As far as Ishikawa goes, who knows exactly who is responsible for what components of the Huge Mess (tm), but considering the material she's confirmed to have directly written after 6.0 - the Omega quests and the NieR Reincarnation crossover, along with her being responsible for the narratives that started pushing "grey" for Hydaelyn to begin with - I'm not really inclined to think that my own issues with EW's storytelling can be laid at her feet particularly. But we'll probably never know for sure what exactly went down in that crowded, crowded kitchen.

[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.

[Rosenstrauch]

Anyway, back to Elpis to raid their treasure maps and collect some more quest rewards, I suppose!

Don't forget harvesting their creations and exploiting the familial trauma of a young man and his father to satisfy Sharlayan curiousity!

EDIT: But seriously, I hope we go back to the past for the final wing of Pandaemonium. Having it set in the present, without any of the cast anyone actually cares about, would be a massive waste.

[ReynTime]

The entire Venat discourse could have been completely avoided if:
A. She got mind wiped along with the other 3 Ancients.

B. The Sundering was a complete accident on her part, a result of her not being used to the sheer amount of power being an Elder Primal brings.

C. We never engaged in more time-travel shenanigans to begin with. Alternatively, we engage in timeline chicanery a little more and end up with a split timeline where Venat takes the information she gleaned from us and decides to not entertain Hermes' insane ploy. We already have one split timeline that a certain red-headed catboy came from, what's the harm in adding another branch?

Hermes was a goober that shouldn't have made his appearance near the very end of the expac and was better as Fandango Moneybags.

I still don't know why they opted to the convoluted time travel with the Kairos crap when the Echo has allowed us to physically manifest in the flashback we see and even interact with people without them remembering we were there in the present.

[KageTokage]

Don't forget harvesting their creations and exploiting the familial trauma of a young man and his father to satisfy Sharlayan curiousity!

EDIT: But seriously, I hope we go back to the past for the final wing of Pandaemonium. Having it set in the present, without any of the cast anyone actually cares about, would be a massive waste.

I'm feeling like it's going to be set in both as Themis instructed us to come back and inquire about the crystal after they had done some clean-up pertaining to the warders and stray creations.

We'll probably end up learning how/why Pandaemonium ends up appearing in the present..but it's going to be difficult to get a proper read on the situation without telling him the truth of things, so I'd like to hope it happens somehow so I don't feel dirty.

[Talonk]

Can I say something that has been on my mind forever.

Why did we have to tie up a closing loose end with a character that was only around for a patch in the final portion of the story where we should have been defending against blasphemies but instead we move boxes and watch urianger hug the parents of this character who barely had any major impact in the story?

Am I the only one who didn't really care about an ARR character? Of Course I'm talking Moenbryda. She had zero impact on me. And having her parents forced in for 15 minutes of a critical end of story prep it was just more on the fire for bad pacing.