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

[CelestiCer]

The story was engaging... it grasped my attention... well...

































Up until they removed my " Kaiten ". After that I kinda can't care? I am trying to care about the story. Genuinely trying? but I just end up skipping everything. -> /at <- if you know you know.

[Rosenstrauch]

Not gonna lie, I miss Kaiten too. Its removal just sort of sapped the fun out of Samurai, and I can't be bothered to level it past 80 anymore. It was arguably my most played DPS in Shadowbringers, too.



EDIT: It's a patch or two late, I think, but I finally dipped into Eureka Orthos. I tried soloing at first, hoping to use the experience to grind Monk up to 90. That... is not happening, lol. Dunno if it's because I'm coming in fresh or if the content is just straight up harder than HOH/POTD, but it feels like the barrier to entry for solo runners is a lot higher this time around. Matched party was an interesting experience—I had to wait a full 30 minutes for a party for the first ten floors, and got the same three people for 11-20. 21-30 was more active, presumably because those're the grinding floors, but I don't recall HOH or POTD being this dead while in their respective expansions.

As for what little story there was, at least from 1-30...

As funny as I find G'raha being reduced to a glorified key, it's clear the only reason he's here at all is because of the personal connection to the Doga/Unei clones. As otherwise, he could've easily been replaced by one of the spirit vessels he crafted. It was also neat to see a clone of Tiamat as the final encounter for this leg of things. But the sheer commitment in trying to paint the Allag vs Meracydia conflict as morally gray—without changing or adding any new information in Allag's favor—is nothing short of amazingly weird. The same expansion where it was revealed that Allag started the war by unleashing an army of voidsent, on top of their already existing crimes of invading Meracydia unprovoked, killing Bahamut, then capturing Tiamat, her children, Bahamut, and the Warring Triad to use as components in their plans for infinite renewable energy, then going "fuck it, burn the world" and unwittingly triggering a calamity in the process...

It is wild for that same narrative to then go "But you see, the dragons fought back" and act like that's enough balance the scales.

That said, I do appreciate being able to listen to Noah try and spin these developments in a positive sounding direction, even citing the Doga/Unei clones... and straight up being able to tell her "No, it was all fucked up".

I suppose on the bright side, the writers not letting us say that to a certain someone in 6.0 is one of the reasons I ended up writing Amidst the Ashes of Paradise. If they'd given me that option back then, I might not have done so, wouldn't have followed it up with Ascilia, Scion of Light, and might not even be here (because I need to be subbed to experience the story, natch).

... Also the aforementioned "But Allag did good, too!" bit reminds me of the Dachau Hypothermia Experiments, which I've been reading up on again today. It seems they've been thoroughly discredited. Neat.

[Vyrerus]

The dragons fought back

It's been a few months since I did EO now, but Noah's point was less that Allagans were sympathetic, and more that the dragons were both inhuman and inhumane. Taking no prisoners, heeding no surrenders etc. Obviously that still doesn't make the Allagans good, but Noah's angle was less, "Allagans good!" and more, "Allagans were people too."

It also has the added layer that dragons are literal alien refugees allowed onto the planet by a deity that keeps herself absent from major conflicts except to maintain a causal time loop. They weren't the natives to Meracydia either, and likely displaced and killed people who didn't want them there to begin with (though there's no tangible lore for that, it's not improbable). While that's not the Allagans' reason for going to war with them, it's a little odd that aliens get to claim regions of Etheirys for themselves just because they're here now and one Ancient says it's OK.

It'd be like if Aliens showed up on Earth, and one country's leader said, "Ah yeah, it's cool if y'all just settle anywhere you want, homies." Then the homies claim a continent or two, and start clearing out people that are in their way.

I mean, this is just another example of lackluster writing in Endwalker. It would have been really easy to give the Allagans concretely good reasons to fight the dragons, but they opted to not do that.

[Dikatis]

It'd be like if Aliens showed up on Earth, and one country's leader said, "Ah yeah, it's cool if y'all just settle anywhere you want, homies." Then the homies claim a continent or two, and start clearing out people that are in their way.

This is incorrect. The dragons of Meracydia were explicitly guardians of the continent who worked alongside mankind to repel Allagan conquest.

The native peoples of the southern continent banded together under the leadership of the dragons who also claimed dominion in Meracydia. While without equal on the Three Great Continents, the Imperial Army’s chimerical warbeasts were no match for the dragons’ fiery breath, and countless casualties were suffered. This, however, only served to further motivate the scientists of Allag in their ungodly pursuit of might through biological manipulation, and it was not long before they had created abominations which exceeded the might of the Meracydian Horde. In a decisive and bloody battle, the Allagans slew the dawn wyrm, Bahamut, paving the way for immediate occupation… or so they believed.

Together with my brood-brother Bahamut, I journeyed south to Meracydia. And together, we brought forth innumerable children into the world. We abided in peace, and all was well...until the men of Allag came, some five thousand years since. They slaughtered my children in droves, and took from me my beloved Bahamut.

The dragons didn't "clear out" anyone and lived in peace with the people of Meracydia just as the Ishgardians did with the Dravanian horde prior to Thordan's betrayal.

Please don't villainize the dragons for no reason.

[Rosenstrauch]

This is incorrect. The dragons of Meracydia were explicitly guardians of the continent who worked alongside mankind to repel Allagan conquest.

The dragons didn't "clear out" anyone and lived in peace with the people of Meracydia just as the Ishgardians did with the Dravanian horde prior to Thordan's betrayal.

Please don't villainize the dragons for no reason.

Yeah, that really was the problem with trying to present this as a morally gray conflict. This ain't no Three Houses or Binding Blade—the worst thing Midgardsormr's Brood did was be alive. And they could've done so much more to make it that, but they didn't. At least when they touched upon the start of the Dravanian/Ishgard thousand year war, they had the good sense to suggest Thordan I felt threatened by Nidhogg's preening about being the world's protector. Not that that justified murdering Ratatoskr and kicking off that war, but it's a far better reason than "we needed a round of war crimes to rouse our society of decadent wastrels and Meracydia was one of the few places we hadn't already crushed beneath our heel".

I can see why folks would want to headcanon their way into the Meracydia/Allag conflict being more nuanced than it is. But it really isn't. Allag was, and continues to be, an object lesson on the worst excesses of human depravity. And it's just... really damn weird to see the writers trying to angle that depravity as a positive.

Which is why I'm happy they gave me the option to say, more or less, "No, Allag crossed a line and then kept going". And I suppose for that choice to have weight, the opposite choice must also exist. Otherwise it'd just be forcing a view point on the player.

But man. It's like listening to someone try to justify slavery by citing the reduction in labor costs.

EDIT: To clarify the above line, I'm referring to Noah bigging up her collaborators and protégés during the Eureka Orthos questline.

[Vyrerus]

This is incorrect.

In so far as we know right now. You really think that the dragons just showed up in Meracydia, and were 100% accepted? The tribes banded together under them after an outside threat showed up at their doorstep. Not before.

What did those innumerable children eat? Who did they displace? You're not gonna get answers to that.

We are told the, "first men" didn't show up on the continent, at least within the Sundered's current record of history, until the 2nd Astral Era (and because of Elpis and the Ancients we know this record of history isn't without flaw/gaps). But before that, there was Sephirot's Treant race, as well as Zurvan's Reptile Centaur race. Zurvan's race can call down meteors.

You also seem to forget that St. Shiva had to work a peace before the Dravanians lived in any peace at all with man.

I'm not trying to say the dragons are evil. I'm just being realistic. In order for beings of their magnitude to live, they have to have space, hunting grounds, and uncorrupted aether. What bargains and accords were struck with Zurvan's race, if any? Given that they're reptilian, perhaps the dragons ensnared them in mind control, as they do scalekin in Eorzea. How about with Sephirot's treants?

Also, again, look at the entry you quoted's wording. "...dragons who also claimed dominion in Meracydia." That means to claim rightful rule or authority over a land. Doesn't sound peaceful to me. And even if it was, how much of that peace was bought with fear? Dragons, afterall, are unsundered beings from an unsundered star that are also physically imposing even in their smallest forms.

Have you no memory of Aiatar from Brayflox Longstop? It decided it wanted to roost there, and then took control of the scalekin in the area, and ousted/killed the goblins. Not all dragons are good, and they are more than willing to take what they want.

[Deo14]

Recently I was checking some SAM logs and realized something disturbing - about 20-23% of all SAM's actions are Shinten. "Kaiten was bad design" my ass, spending 1/5th of your time mashing single button is so much worse. Just for comparison, WAR does Fell Cleave for ~21% of all actions and Inner Chaos for ~7%, but at least both of those are actually satisfying to use, and are not just boring, bland oGCDs.