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

[PeaTearGriffin]

To this day I still cant wrap my mind around this statement. It makes him look so out of touch.

Yeah it's like he's checked out of FFXIV, and the game isn't that important to him anymore.

What exactly was the statement he made that gave him this reputation?

[Atelier-Bagur]

What exactly was the statement he made that gave him this reputation?

That he was surprised that people cared deeply about the game's lore. Honestly this kinda proves my whole point made in another thread about answering some lore questions in one of the recent live Q&As. Basically the whole thing about him coming up with a reason for why Venat purposefully allowed some of the big Convocation members to escape unsundering like Lahabrea, Emet-Selch and Elidibus etc. That answer felt...half-assed since:

1. It wasnt a detail that was ever brought up in the main story (as far as I'm aware) and

2. Its goes against the entire purpose of sundering. Although we could debate that her reasoning of seemingly leaving those 3 members intact was for the belief of preserving the WoL's timeline as she believes that "us" were the key to solving the dilemma. After all, the WoL explained the events that transpired in his timeline to Venat, Emet and Hythlodeus so the plausibility of her basing her actions on what has already come to pass is warranted. However I still go with the fact that usually with these kind of stories its never too well to try to rationalize a story as long as it feels reasonable grounded but obviously some people dont think so and that in of itself is a whole 'nother debate.

But basically my idea was that Yoshida isnt too wrapped up in the game's story details and its almost always the writing team themselves whom come up with the meat and potatoes of the plot with Yoshida supervising and giving direction and layout to the game's plot. Which makes sense for his position. So him giving such a out of the blue answer like Venat letting them go, feels so out of the left field. Well...at least for me it does.

[Boblawblah]

That he was surprised that people cared deeply about the game's lore. Honestly this kinda proves my whole point made in another thread about answering some lore questions in one of the recent live Q&As. Basically the whole thing about him coming up with a reason for why Venat purposefully allowed some of the big Convocation members to escape unsundering like Lahabrea, Emet-Selch and Elidibus etc. That answer felt...half-assed since:

1. It wasnt a detail that was ever brought up in the main story (as far as I'm aware) and

2. Its goes against the entire purpose of sundering. Although we could debate that her reasoning of seemingly leaving those 3 members intact was for the belief of preserving the WoL's timeline as she believes that "us" were the key to solving the dilemma. After all, the WoL explained the events that transpired in his timeline to Venat, Emet and Hythlodeus so the plausibility of her basing her actions on what has already come to pass is warranted. However I still go with the fact that usually with these kind of stories its never too well to try to rationalize a story as long as it feels reasonable grounded but obviously some people dont think so and that in of itself is a whole 'nother debate.

But basically my idea was that Yoshida isnt too wrapped up in the game's story details and its almost always the writing team themselves whom come up with the meat and potatoes of the plot with Yoshida supervising and giving direction and layout to the game's plot. Which makes sense for his position. So him giving such a out of the blue answer like Venat letting them go, feels so out of the left field. Well...at least for me it does.

Do you have a source on that quote?

[Atelier-Bagur]

Do you have a source on that quote?

There's an official transcript thread of the entire Q&A section in LLXVIII

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/456921

And looking back to the question that was asked about Venat intentionally letting Emet and others survive sundering. Ok, so I guess I forgot there was that bit of dialogue from Emet after he appeared to save the day where he says “So, here I am Venat. I suppose you needed me to tie it all together…”

Alright so they do address it in game, however it seemed the intention was a gamble as she wouldnt know if they would've survived or not. But I guess this goes with my theory that her reasoning for allowing them to survive so that they can one day help the WoL and she wanted to preserve the original timeline rather than risk changing it. Yoshida even says in a later answer that his interpretation of the timeline mechanics with Elpis is:

"With that said, my personal interpretation is that the past and present were always the part of the same timeline. Although there was still a possibility for the timelines to diverge, the Warrior of Light was unwittingly acting in accordance with Venat’s plans, which unified the past and present. Another interpretation might be that Venat worked really hard behind the scenes to ensure that the timeline wouldn’t go awry.

Seeing how Argos took to us on our first meeting, I’d say that proves that the past and present were already unified."

So basically Venat did what she did to make sure the timeline that she was given account by the WoL didnt deviate and preserve him having to come to the past (to play the shitty games that suck ass) to foretell Venat, Emet and Hythlodeus of the future events being still possible. At least this again is just my interpretation to her actions and to me this makes sense, whether you still find it ethical or not is a debate.

Although I will also add to that debate whether its ethical to alter events to prevent a tragedy only for it to lead to a butterfly effect and possibly allow an even greater one to occur in the future.

[Teraq]

I am in the minority, but I hated Elpis. I'll use it to segue into your statement "Endwalker was popular and a success". I'm just going to be blunt, but I have been working in a specific environment that has brought my attention that people's comprehension levels are absolutely abysmal and it's embarrassing. People do not read. People do not have patience. People do not give an f-bomber plane about anything beyond surface level. People just want their hand held because it's easier. […]
I'm not going to say my comprehension levels are great. People liked endwalker because they saw a pretty game with great music and a neat story. They're not going to look into it much more than that. I don't need my hand held for the story, I don't need it held for the lore, and I don't want it held for the combat.

Absolutely this. I don't deny there are lore people who actually pay attention and still somehow love Endwalker, more power to them, but it honestly just seems the vast majority does not care this much and is just in it for a fairly enjoyable, "don't think too hard about this" romp, like most blockbuster movies are. Most people don't care to dissect a story and point out every little plot hole. It's the irony with FFXIV: it's touted as this amazing story, but at the same time, people will chide you for analyzing it too closely. "It's just a video game!". Yeah, it's just another media to tell a story. This does not mean it has to be subpar and not stand up to scrutiny.

That is when people are not giving you the ol' "Have we played the same game? / Pay attention to the cutscenes sweetie…" while in the same breath spouting headcanon like "Ancients were going to keep sacrificing lesser humans to their blood god" like it's the truth. Christ, dude. I've been obsessing over Ascians and Ancients for the past three years. I have this big folder of collected fan art right here. I can recite every Convocation seat and the color of their associated crystal in the order of the zodiac. I've done every side quest and spoken to every single NPC I could in Amaurot and Elpis, sometimes in multiple languages. If only I had never cared enough to pay this amount of attention. I truly, truly wish I hadn't.

This argument is especially bad when it's followed by the person regurgitating Endwalker's bad plot and aesop at me. Yeah. I got it the first time around when I suffered through it, because I happen to have a functioning brain. You repeating this stupid story but embellishing it with personal insults is not exactly making its case any better. People will just reply to criticism of Venat with a link to her martyr-o-vision cutscene, as if they think they are making a point that is completely new to me.



Here it is: Endwalker having all the subtlety of a brick the writer is throwing directly at your face, featuring everyone's favorite race. To be fair you must have a very high IQ to understand…

All in all, I cannot figure out what precise amount of attention I had to give Endwalker to enjoy it. I can only suppose that paying simultaneously too little and too much attention works exactly the same as the logic that the Ancients were both too perfect to live (the sheer gall of them to have been born with biological immortality and creation magics that instantly make their society post-scarcity!) and too flawed to be brought back: the answer is You Are Wrong.

Elpis was a frustrating mess for me for the bad dialogue and the pointlessness of conversations. To use an example, the scene where Hades is teaching the critter to fly and Hythlo would not shut up. Look, hes a great person. Look at him helping! I am not joking in that Elpis helped people realize that Hades wasn't always a big meanie pants. I mean, I thought that was obvious in Shadowbringers. That he was a normal person until 12k years of suffering.

You are entirely right, of course. However, I would posit that the subtle brick being thrown directly at the player's face is exactly what most of this player base needs. This reminds me of that post-5.3 interview where Yoshida says they made the incredibly unsubtle parallel between G'raha and Elidibus with that one line explicitly so players could better understand Elidibus through G'raha. I honestly found that insulting. Who even needed that to empathize with Elidibus??

YoshiP knows his audience, I suppose. Even as Pandaemonium bashes you over the head that the guy was nothing but the most precious of sweethearts (which was already made plainly obvious in 5.3 and its accompanying short story), you'll still find people wishing they could be hostile to Themis in dialogue options, because I guess they enjoy roleplaying their WoL as a moron with a grudge and no grasp of time and logic. Even though everyone and everything is telling them the Unsundered have been warped by trauma and 12k years of suffering and loneliness. Glad these people got the option to accuse Lahabrea of things he did literally twelve thousand years into the future, though. Gotta throw the Minority Report pre-crime people a bone, after all.

Yet, the worst part of Endwalker is Yoshida's attitude toward it. Him not knowing people cared about the lore so much. I'm sorry, but he doesn't have an excuse to not understand. Does he just forget about all the lore QandA? Is the game not marketed for its story? Do you not have lore books? A major complaint people had about WoW was the lore being retconned. This and Yoshida clearly wanting to be done with the story so he can "move on" to other stories.

Happy anniversary to this Q&A, by the way. The nail in the coffin of 6.0.

I particularly love that this was his immediate response to a question about Ascians in particular. It's like he's surprised people even care about them when they aren't named Emet-Selch.

It comes across as the polite way to say "wow, you guys care so much more about Ascians than I ever did!". I know, man. I know. I've played through Endwalker. I know you don't care about Ascians, you don't have to say it out loud.

And even Emet he expresses confusion about, sometimes bordering on resentment it seems, when he draws a false equivalence between him and Hermes and Venat in the very same Q&A, asking why people would resent Venat and Hermes but not Emet. This man truly, absolutely does not get it.

(And in case you were wondering, yes, of course I'm still mad about the obvious lion mask apparently not being Fandaniel's. I still refuse to accept YoshiP's answer. This is stupid. It's a lion, not a goat! At least PRETEND it was big brain foreshadowing for a main antagonist instead of "uhhhh random lol")

[kpxmanifesto]

What exactly was the statement he made that gave him this reputation?

During the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII, Yoshi P just seemed kind of unprepared to answer the fans' questions about EW's lore. He'd make comments like "I didn't actually imagine anybody would ask this" (3:40:57) or "wow you guys are paying close attention to this game!" (3:45:55). Like, dude this game is renowned for its story. Why is he so surprised that fans are looking for closure and want to ask questions that tie up loose ends?

He also couldn't answer basic questions about FFXIV's timeline, like how long has it been since 1.0 - "As far as the actual story is concerned, I don't really have an exact figure in mind or an exact imagining of how long it has been since 1.0 (3:49:20).

He would also deflect some of the questions by saying things like "when you're making this world you'll just sort of sometimes ignore things that are inconvenient" (4:25:35) and "I think you guys can come up with your own theories for this one" (4:08:49).

Overall, it just wasn't a very satisfying Q and A session for people either seeking answers to unresolved storylines or trying to fill plot holes.

You can watch the whole thing here at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRpdIL7_NII

[PeaTearGriffin]

He would also deflect some of the questions by saying things like "when you're making this world you'll just sort of sometimes ignore things that are inconvenient" (4:25:35) and "I think you guys can come up with your own theories for this one" (4:08:49).

I suppose we have our answer as to why there are continuity errors between how shadowbringers and endwalker describe the sundering. Perhaps sticking to shadowbringers' version of the sundering might have been too inconvenient for the devs, so they glossed it over with a different version.