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

[SieyaM]

As an aside, I'll be vague to avoid spoilers since it touches upon another game entirely but having played FFXVI...

I'll say that I enjoyed it for the most part. That being said, it's hard not to see many of the same story issues that afflict FFXIV as well. Everyone and everything ends up revolving around Clive in the same way as how everything in FFXIV ends up revolving around the Warrior of Light.

This is very different to the other Final Fantasy games. My favourite, FFXII, has a character - Drace - who the protagonists never meet directly. She's shown in cut-scenes that take place in the heart of the Empire and advances the story without coming to blows with the protagonists or even speaking with them.

In my second favourite game in the franchise, FFIX, almost all of the characters you play as have their own agendas outside of Zidane. For much of the game, Steiner is wrestling with his loyalty to his Queen and his sworn duties. Freya is looking for her lost love and so on and forth.

It's a real shame. Both FFXIV and FFXVI have interesting characters and factions, but they're stifled by being written not as part of an actual world but just set pieces to feed the player's ego.

It's a stark difference to the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics and The Witcher 3 where you have all these varied characters and factions with their own goals and agendas separate to the protagonist(s).

I guess that's the root of most of my issues with this game's story and if I'm honest I don't see the style changing or the world building maturing.

Twice now CBU3 have promised Ivalice style depth and intrigue but not quite managed to provide it. It rapidly falls away after a certain point, usually when it'd become inconvenient for the protagonists.

Not to be caught agreeing with you too much, but that seems to be a problem with a lot of games lately. Characters have no motivations or goals beyond plot relevance. No one seems to be a whole person they seems to exist solely to advance the plot, they have no dreams or ambitions beyond what the plot demands and have no existence when the plot ends. The scions seem to have no real purpose now that the arc has ended, which is why it's so easy to pick them up at a moments notice when the story demands. They are ostensibly pursuing thier own interests now, but they just kind of fell into these things as they linger on from our previous plot points, it's nothing they have ever had an ambition or desire to do before we met them.