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

[BRVV]

I would like to hear some peoples examples of good storytelling in rpgs.

FFX all around, Operation Mihen in particular. Spoilers for the operation:

We were told that SIN can only be stopped by the high summoning, yet here we are. A lot of people carring out a differnt plan and using all they have. Even unlikely forces (Seymour, Kinoc) support their effort. Cue the action music. The battle starts. We get a boss. We fight a tiny bit of SIN. Just something it shed. SIN doesnt really fight back. Then it directs the big laser back. Silence. Bright lights. We wake up surrounded by bodies. The operation failed. We now know the high summoning is the only way. Auron tells us to hurry up. The pilgramidge is still long.

The "twist" in Persona 5. For a little context, without spoiling it: You can guess it early on and after a few hours there is a big reveal for it if you catch it. Even so, the actual twist later on is actually built on top of that. Ok all of that was vague, so here in full spoiler mode:

We know that we will have a traitor in our ranks. We are told that and since most of the game is actually us remembering what happened in the last few months..
So... who could the traitor be? It's obviously Akechi. The guy who kinda hated us and wanted to stop us. The guy who only joined us under a threat of exposing us. The early reveal? He claims to have gotten his powers recently (he says so in November). Back in May he inserted himself into a conversation. He refered to something Morgana said. Morgana can only be understood by people with our power. So he had this power at least since May. So why did he lie? Because he is obviously the "mysterious black figure". The real kicker? It's not about him being the bad guy. It's HOW the good guys stop him: by combining a lot of what they know about the supernatural powers and how they work and tricking him (too long and convoluted for me to even try to explain). THAT is a story

[RyuDragnier]

I have no idea what game you were playing because this isnt true at all.

The second you enter Disc 3, Freya's role in the story basically dries up and she never grows as a character again. Amarant and Quina never grow to begin with, and while Eiko basically moves the plot along, she doesn't get much development either. They dropped the ball completely with them. Which is sad because Disc 1 and Disc 2 were really good story up to that point. I love the way the world looks, love how unique it is, love the designs...but dear god they fumbled the rest of the story the second you hit Disc 3.

[ReynTime]

The second you enter Disc 3, Freya's role in the story basically dries up and she never grows as a character again. Amarant and Quina never grow to begin with, and while Eiko basically moves the plot along, she doesn't get much development either. They dropped the ball completely with them. Which is sad because Disc 1 and Disc 2 were really good story up to that point. I love the way the world looks, love how unique it is, love the designs...but dear god they fumbled the rest of the story the second you hit Disc 3.

Eiko does get her development though. Accepting she's not going to get anything from her crush on Zidane is one of the first things that she goes through in Disc 3. She also pretty much becomes Garnet's sister and ends up finding a new family in Cid and Hilda.

[Vyrerus]

My favorite part of IX is when Steiner trances for Beatrix in Alexandria. Have we had a romantic situation do that yet in XIV? The power of love power boost.

[KageTokage]

I also feel like the filler from ARR has a ton of interesting storytelling, although it does suffer from the quest design. The whole politics drama is actually fairly interesting, but they erase most of the consequences of everything as always. Which is also a point that gets me with FFXIV lore: a lot of things happen, all those giant things... and there's little consequence for any of them. I'm not even saying "hahaaaa kill characters!" but any feeling of despair, fear or any kind of dreadness are... cheap, simply put. It is really hard to actually feel threatened in the story, especially a story with so many baits to the point that you can see them coming miles away. I'm not even against the trope "friendship wins everything!", but at this point it is, well, tiring.

It's this precedent that's giving me very strong doubts that the "great change" supposedly coming to the world as part of the lead-in for 7.x is going to actually amount to much in practice.

The tower business resolving with a whimper felt particularly disappointing after spending months of seeing the things ominously looming over places I frequented.

[Vyrerus]

It's this precedent that's giving me very strong doubts that the "great change" supposedly coming to the world as part of the lead-in for 7.x is going to actually amount to much in practice.

The tower business resolving with a whimper felt particularly disappointing after spending months of seeing the things ominously looming over places I frequented.

Towers being wrapped up in a single dungeon without so much as a cursory set of scenes with people rejoicing was a big letdown. I mean, at the end of 5.5, didn't Nanamo say that the Eorzean Alliance would marshall forces to contend with the Lunar Primals and anything having to do with the towers?

Something along the lines of, "We're a strong independent Eorzea, we don't need no WoL!" (Actually it was more along the lines of, "We can't rely on you for every nation's defense."

But like so many other potentially interesting, LARGE plot threads, they were flayed out by EW as nothingburger with a side of unsalted, cold fries.

[MikkoAkure]

Towers being wrapped up in a single dungeon without so much as a cursory set of scenes with people rejoicing was a big letdown. I mean, at the end of 5.5, didn't Nanamo say that the Eorzean Alliance would marshall forces to contend with the Lunar Primals and anything having to do with the towers?

Something along the lines of, "We're a strong independent Eorzea, we don't need no WoL!" (Actually it was more along the lines of, "We can't rely on you for every nation's defense."

But like so many other potentially interesting, LARGE plot threads, they were flayed out by EW as nothingburger with a side of unsalted, cold fries.

The towers took 3 dungeons (Paglth'an, Zot, Babel) and were the major story for half of one zone (Thavnair) and all of another (Garlemald). They're also the reason we actually go to Garlemald, and the reason why we're able to get there in relative safety without a Cartenau or Ghimlyt Dark-scale extreme pitched battle. I wouldn't say it resolved with a whimper since it took us hours of gameplay to finish it. After the we defeated Anima and by extension, the towers, Zenos and Fandaniel fired a laser at the frickin' moon, which was kind of a bigger deal at the time since we had to get ready to fight the hijacked God of Darkness trying to bust out of prison.

The towers were written in as a ways to a means to get the plot moving as an excuse to get us to Thavnair and Garlemald, but they still did take up the first 1/4 of the expansion.

All that being said, it would've been nice if there were a cutscene of Eorzean troops fighting for their lives against lunar primals, only for the towers to disappear and they all watch as a beam shoots out and hits the moon. That would've allowed a better transition from one plot to the next and established the greater threat being seen by the whole realm.

[KageTokage]

There is a lot of "tell, but don't show" that I feel kind of hurt EW's presentation.

Like...it would've been nice to see the burning skies of Thavnair fade and appropriate rejoicing, but all the celebration is reserved strictly for Sharlayan which wasn't even subject to the worst of its effects at the time.

[Vyrerus]

The towers took 3 dungeons

Pagl'than was tower introduction, not the literal introduction mind you, but the first, "We're going to do something about this." Which turned into a, "Nevermind, it's inconceivable to stop even a single tower at this time." Thus setting the towers up to be an insurmountable, big deal.
Which we didn't actually go into a tower or do anything directly with a tower in that dungeon. We went there to kill Lunar Bahamut (And that is Lunar Ifrit's tower). The cutscenes with Arenvald and Fordola going into and scouting the tower was what did stuff with towers relating to that dungeon.

Cut to Endwalker. Tower of Zot is a dungeon by itself, but it turns out that all ya gotta do is blow up the creamy center. Which the WoL could have done by themselves, albeit with casualties. We solved a tower. Ok. Why did I forget this dungeon? I didn't really, but its biggest actual contribution to the plot is confirming Nadhana's Warding Scales work, as well as cluing in the Scions on to a possible way to take out the rest of the towers. Though the actual reason we gamble on Garlemald is limited resources and the logic of cutting the head off the snake by killing Fandaniel and Zenos, rather than knowing that the towers will all go bye-bye for sure if we do that.

But what of every other tower? Taken out when we take out Anima in Tower of Babil. Right then, in that very second, all of the towers dissipated and were wrapped up. Never was there to be a tower conditions or related fights in Dravanian Forelands, Yanxia, The Lochs, South Shroud, or anywhere else. The first world spanning threat cast to the wayside by the result of one dungeon. Heck, one dungeon boss. Even though all of Anima's tempered in every land were given the order to destroy the world. We only ever hear about the result in the immediate area of Garlemald, and everywhere else doesn't even to seem to have had issues with losing all of those kidnapped to serve as fuel for the towers (because they surely fell and were not caught by Deus Ex Catboi Sage Deluxe Ultra Levitation spell.

More like Convenient Walker.

[KageTokage]

I remember they hand-waved it by saying something along the lines of the towers in the other regions not disappearing as abruptly as Zot did which somehow allowed them to safely rescue the captives.

I really don't feel like there was enough closure surrounding that or the Final Days, and I was expecting the latter to get some attention through more then the final role quest. The writers really seem like they're in a big hurry to just move on to...whatever the heck it is they have planned after the void filler by cutting off as many plot threads as possible.