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

[FlatLined]

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

[AwesomeJr44]

There's some stuff I like in endwalker. It's just that I feel the rest was terrible enough to bring it down to "hates endwalker". What was good, was really good and it just contributes to the frustration as I feel that endwalker "almost had it".

I'm in the same boat with Endwalker. There are indeed some good parts in the expansion, even some that I loved, but none of that makes up for how terrible the rest of the expansion was. For every great scene like 'Anxiety Elephant', there's countless parts that are trash-tier like the fish selling, the 'fake-out' deaths in UT, or literally anything including the Lopporits.

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.

This is a big reason why popularity doesn't necessarily equal quality. Most people quite frankly have terrible taste in most things as they don't bother to think about what they consume beyond a surface level. I've compared Endwalker to a typical Marvel movie in the past for this reason. Both are very skin deep with their logic and rely on the viewer to turn their brain off to enjoy it. However, both will always make bank as their viewer/playerbase is completely willing to ignore gaping plotholes if it means they get to look at a pretty screen or hear some sad music play at the right times. Both Marvel Studios and the FFXIV dev team know that they can churn out low effort stories with very skin deep writing and they'll still have their main audience raving for more. There's no incentive to make a proper gourmet meal when your target audience will not only gobble up any old slop you feed them, but thank you for it and ask for more. It's sad because both franchises used to hold themselves to a higher standard.

I'm still here because I still have hope that Endwalker was a fluke. I enjoy playing this game with my friends and the other content it has to offer, just not the story.

Hopefully once 7.0 is released, the 'current expansion' honeymoon phase can end and we can all look back at Endwalker as a fluke while enjoying a great expansion. At least that's what I hope for anyways. For now, I'll keep enjoying the gameplay (when it's not riddled with bugs like TOP is) but I'm waiting for the day when I can enjoy the story again too.

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

He looks out of touch because he is out of touch.

[kpxmanifesto]

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.

[Absurdity]

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

Maybe, but it could also simply be a case of priorities.

His focus is entirely on 16 and why wouldn't it be? It's a singleplayer mainline FF game, there isn't going to be a "we'll do better next expansion", it's either a hit on release or a disappointing meh forever.
14 is just going to keep trucking along anyway, people have already shown that they gladly eat up mediocrity when it comes to this game and defend it like it's their child.

[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?

[Striker44]

Maybe, but it could also simply be a case of priorities.

His focus is entirely on 16 and why wouldn't it be? It's a singleplayer mainline FF game, there isn't going to be a "we'll do better next expansion", it's either a hit on release or a disappointing meh forever.
14 is just going to keep trucking along anyway, people have already shown that they gladly eat up mediocrity when it comes to this game and defend it like it's their child.

Perhaps because "mediocrity" is simply your opinion and their own opinion is that it's excellent...

There's also a point in there somewhere about people playing a video game and expecting it to be the next Lord of the Rings in terms of quality. I don't expect an absolute masterpiece when I play a video game, so I'm very much satisfied and have a lot of fun playing something that's simply very good. A common thread I seem to find running through the complaints are people taking a video game way too seriously imo.

[aveyond-dreams]

Had a lot of fun going in and fixing the travesty that is the current Myths of the Realm storyline. All 3 acts posted here.

[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.