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

[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.

[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.

[Theodric]

The common trend is that Venat actively offered aid to everyone but the Ancients. Granted, that aid was minimal and indirect but the trend is that she never stood in the way of the Sundered or the dragons yet sabotaged her own people at every turn. Nothing they did was ever good enough, yet also somehow necessary for her plans. She'd be an intriguing villain/antagonist if she were treated honestly by the narrative. Very much the sort of tragic misguided figure along the lines of Yunalesca from FFX.

[BRVV]

The Sundering was an inside job

[Atelier-Bagur]

The Sundering was an inside job

An Italian or a Nut Job?

[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.

[Kyrj]

Im afraid that won't be possible because they need to cater to 40 IQ folks who need Y'shtola to handhold them to explain what a shard is for the 10000th time

Yoshi P mentioned something about players getting confused about lore once, since then they insert explanation sequences for every single little trivial detail in case players just don't get it. And we also got Active Time Lore, which is probably a good way to cater to people who absolutely can't follow the story at all.

The writing in FF14 is full of disrespect for the player's intellect. Maybe if they put ATL into FF14 too they can start trying to cut back on the "telling" portion of the writing.

I mean it's Square, the people who thought Westerners were too stupid to understand their masterpiece of a story that is Final Fantasy and gave us Mystic Quest. I like FF and Square has its moments but they're not nearly as deep, clever, and subtle as they think they are with their stories.

[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.

[Theodric]

As an aside, it's both amusing - and rather sad - to see some of the usual suspects in certain threads still try to trot out the tired proclamation that anyone who has criticism of Endwalker's handling of its themes and narrative just don't understand the story and didn't pay attention to cut-scenes.

Or they're just a 'minority' who would better suit just shutting up and going away rather than using the forum for its primary intended purpose - submitting feedback.

It's also rather interesting how many of these people only weigh in the moment Venat, specifically, is criticised. Whilst others seem to have been so broken by World of Warcraft that they seem unwilling to admit that the grass isn't actually all that greener elsewhere in an industry that, at present, is rather stagnant.

I reckon if FFXIV were truly one of the best games ever made it wouldn't require such knee-jerk irrational reactions in response to even the slightest bit of polite criticism.

[VelKallor]

- to see some of the usual suspects in certain threads still try to trot out the tired proclamation that anyone who has criticism of Endwalker's handling of its themes and narrative just don't understand the story and didn't pay attention to cut-scenes

When said persons comments clearly show they WERENT paying attention, yes.

Ill also note that when I see " Didnt have time to read your wall of text" which was less than HALF A PAGE, then you will forgive me if I very much doubt whether or not said person had the patience to read MSQ text and skipped THAT as well.