Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[dies_irae]

There would've been more meat to Zenos if there would've been a... I don't know, GARLEMALD expansion where we'd get to look at the royal family, the nobles, the political turmoil, instead of ALL OF IT being done in the backround and them using ZEnos as a convenient "Oh ooops he destroyed Garlemald offscreen" button because they wanted to rush two expansions into one in Endwalker to rush for.... Dawntrail? (That didn't end up too well, though we got patches still coming.)

I didn't like Zenos, but I respected him after our first "final duel". He was an honest animal. But when they resurrected him, and worse yet, DIDNT DO ANYTHING with him for the longest time I really started hating him. He was eating screentime, doing nothing. He lingered around for far too long like a wet blanket, because I'm a 100% sure the writers had no idea what to do with him. THeeeen he barged into the last duel, and gave us a "devs talk to you" speech breaking the 4th wall. That wasn't ZEnos talking, that was the devs.

Don't get me wrong, he's cool, his english VA is amazing, but damn oh damn does he suck as a part of the story after Stormblood aside from anything than bringing the "cool".

Even the devs give you options to answer 10 different colours of "Go away" "I've had enough" in the speech options. That should be hint enough.

My theory is that they rushed to end the current arc to free up all the talents that made FF14 great. Either because they themselves wanted to move on from FF14 (YoshiP, Koji, Ishikawa, ...) ,the company decided to move them to other projects, or they wanted to leave because they did not want to deal with outside influence (consulting companies) interfering with their work.
So they "solved" every mystery/threat that was left in this arc:
-Garmelmald killed off screen
-Omicron threat killed off screen
- Hydaelyn and Zodiark
- Zenos
- Ascians
- What happened to the dragon star
- the twelve just being ancients that we help committing suicide ... (i really hated that story)

At first i thought they did that because they had this great new arc ready to go but after playing DT it is obvious that they have nothing.

[DonutSteel]

the twelve just being ancients that we help committing suicide ... (i really hated that story)

I don't think I've had a bigger 360 on a story than the twelve questline.

I was annoyed at first because it was going to be one god trope I dislike for being overdone (The gods are evil and we have to kill them because we're ahh-sum), then it turned out they were just testing us which I was fine with, then it turned out to be the other trope I dislike (the gods are nice but they die shortly after meeting them).

Made worse by the fact that most of the twelve were "just there" at best, to almost maliciously negligent at worst (Nophica and Menphina being the biggest offenders).

[dies_irae]

I don't think I've had a bigger 360 on a story than the twelve questline.

I was annoyed at first because it was going to be one god trope I dislike for being overdone (The gods are evil and we have to kill them because we're ahh-sum), then it turned out they were just testing us which I was fine with, then it turned out to be the other trope I dislike (the gods are nice but they die shortly after meeting them).

Made worse by the fact that most of the twelve were "just there" at best, to almost maliciously negligent at worst (Nophica and Menphina being the biggest offenders).

I was suspecting something like that from the beginning, it was just so predictable but i was hoping to be proven wrong until the end.

I wanted them all to just become adventurers like Deryk and spread all over the planet so we could meet them in future expansions. Or they could have just used them as future trust characters so they dont have to lobotomize the scions into generic trust npcs all the time.

[DonutSteel]

I was suspecting something like that from the beginning, it was just so predictable but i was hoping to be proven wrong until the end.

I wanted them all to just become adventurers like Deryk and spread all over the planet so we could meet them in future expansions. Or they could have just used them as future trust characters so they dont have to lobotomize the scions into generic trust npcs all the time.

Admitted I was initially worried, but was so relieved at them avoiding the "evil gods" twist that I was gaslighting myself into thinking "surely they won't just kill them all off at the end either, right?"

But then I finished Euphrosyne and got that "We're gonna accomplish our dream!" line from Menphina and I was just "Oh no. Surely not..." Then they did.

[ForteNightshade]

My theory is that they rushed to end the current arc to free up all the talents that made FF14 great. Either because they themselves wanted to move on from FF14 (YoshiP, Koji, Ishikawa, ...) ,the company decided to move them to other projects, or they wanted to leave because they did not want to deal with outside influence (consulting companies) interfering with their work.
So they "solved" every mystery/threat that was left in this arc:
-Garmelmald killed off screen
-Omicron threat killed off screen
- Hydaelyn and Zodiark
- Zenos
- Ascians
- What happened to the dragon star
- the twelve just being ancients that we help committing suicide ... (i really hated that story)

At first i thought they did that because they had this great new arc ready to go but after playing DT it is obvious that they have nothing.

Yoshida admitted they initially planned Endwalker to be two parts in one of the LLs. Ishikawa decided it would be better to condense the story into one as she didn't think there would be enough material. That was also a concern of Yoshida's, alongside whether people would like a potential cliffhanger that wouldn't really have a full resolution until two years later.

So assuming all that to be correct, they absolutely rushed to the conclusion. It hurt Endwalker in my opinion but also left them with next to nothing for Dawntrail. My own theory is they were wholly unprepared for a brand new story and vastly underestimated the position it put them in. Hence why Dawntrail feels like a big filler arc because, well, I suspect that's exactly what it will become. An expansion made to buy them another two years.

[Daralii]

Yoshida admitted they initially planned Endwalker to be two parts in one of the LLs. Ishikawa decided it would be better to condense the story into one as she didn't think there would be enough material. That was also a concern of Yoshida's, alongside whether people would like a potential cliffhanger that wouldn't really have a full resolution until two years later.

So assuming all that to be correct, they absolutely rushed to the conclusion. It hurt Endwalker in my opinion but also left them with next to nothing for Dawntrail. My own theory is they were wholly unprepared for a brand new story and vastly underestimated the position it put them in. Hence why Dawntrail feels like a big filler arc because, well, I suspect that's exactly what it will become. An expansion made to buy them another two years.

The first half definitely didn't have much material unless they massively expanded Garlemald(which I wouldn't have minded) and maybe Thavnair, but there needed to be a lot more after Zodiark's death to actually make things feel dire, as opposed to the Final Days fully manifesting in only 2 zones and then everything else happening in the past, underground, and in space, and Meteion needed to be introduced sooner. Hythlodaeus had some dialogue in either ShB or in Mare Lamentorum about them receiving reports of the Final Days gradually spreading across the planet before it finally reached Amaurot, and we needed to see that gradual spread as we tried and failed to find ways to get to Ultima Thule.

[ForteNightshade]

The first half definitely didn't have much material unless they massively expanded Garlemald(which I wouldn't have minded) and maybe Thavnair, but there needed to be a lot more after Zodiark's death to actually make things feel dire, as opposed to the Final Days fully manifesting in only 2 zones and then everything else happening in the past, underground, and in space, and Meteion needed to be introduced sooner. Hythlodaeus had some dialogue in either ShB or in Mare Lamentorum about them receiving reports of the Final Days gradually spreading across the planet before it finally reached Amaurot, and we needed to see that gradual spread as we tried and failed to find ways to get to Ultima Thule.

That was seemingly the idea: an extended Garlemald and I'm assuming other areas that were in the first half. Anima would have been our final trial. So I suspect the whole Varis becoming a Primal would have actually had some substance instead of being kind of tossed in without much fanfare. Sadly, none of this left the concept phase.

I do agree though, and have frequently criticised how lackluster the whole Final Days aspect felt. It essentially boiled down to the Final Days: Screw Thavnair. It literally followed the Thavnair refugees and impacted nothing else to the point of feeling completely irrelevant. Which kind of undercut the whole back half of the story. I get they were likely afraid of repeating Shadowbringers with another "flood of light" equivalent but there were ways around that.

[TaleraRistain]

Yoshida admitted they initially planned Endwalker to be two parts in one of the LLs. Ishikawa decided it would be better to condense the story into one as she didn't think there would be enough material. That was also a concern of Yoshida's, alongside whether people would like a potential cliffhanger that wouldn't really have a full resolution until two years later.

I can kind of see their point there, though. Everything seems to be getting split into two. That new Wicked musical movie is apparently going to be 2 parts. Can you imagine the hate if they had explicitly made Endwalker a part 1 and part 2? They leave little breadcrumbs now for future expansions but they've never segmented an expansion's story arc like that.