Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Alleo]

Hmm... interesting.

Hm, good point. But even if she can't recognize the color of your soul like Emet and Hyth, why doesn't she at least recognize who you are in Elpis based on your physical appearance? She claims that you've never met before when you first encounter her on the island. Emet at least seems to know what you look like, based on his comments when you first meet him. Or is that because everyone wears masks?

About that part

Because the Azem who is her pupil is the old Ancient soul of us. We are not Azem. We are *insert your character name here*, who are a reincarnation of Azem but not the same person.

So she knew the soul we have now when it was alive at the Ancient time but of course she does not know about her reincarnation.

Also she would not be able to recognize you on your look because at that time races like the Au Ra did not exist. One of the people in Elpis even said how cute my horns and scales are and what kind of familiar I am. Her Azem and us could be very different.

It just begs the question if she ever shared what she learned with her Azem and if she did its quite clear that they did not agree with that because they never answered her call. I wonder if the Azem was similiar to us and believed to find a different path while Venat was choosing the known path that we told her as the only right one. But sadly we will probably never know.

[Drkdays]

Endwalkers plot: #AlwaysTooLateToHelp.

[iheartlove42]

Wow now that I think about it, the song Answers basically revealed everything from the get go.

[baklava151]

Thoughts on one major plot point

I think they could have written a similar story without introducing dynamis into the mix. Any of the effects of being overloaded with dynamis, like how we see with minor creations during the first Final days and basically everyone during The Final Days 2: Electric Boogaloo, could have also been caused by aether, ala the effects of tempering as established in 5.5 but 100 times more potent. Maybe instead of Meteion becoming the big bad, she could have discovered a being out there that was capable of this. Mainly it'd just do a better job of working with established lore rather than inventing an entirely new concept that we may or may not hear of ever again.

[Loggos]

Like "I get it SE" everything will end bad, our world too, even if you have a happy world where nobody dies, they yearn for death...I am not sure what was so bad about it? I mean they can live a long life that may at some point lose its meaning and then get the choice to die. Thats not that bad imo. Even the Ancients in a way lived like that. If they felt they have done enough for the planet they choose to die. Bascially they were "immortal" but still had their meanings in life. And some like Venat even continued to live even when their duty was done.

I absolutely agree with this.

It's a bit strange that they tried to empahise the point that immortality is so bad (as we see with the Ea and the nameless golden dungeon people) that it leads to despair for all immortal civilisations when at the same time they had created a society that had a really good solution for a similar situation and they were all quite happy.
I'm not really sure whether the Ascians were a conscious contrast to all these negative examples (although I want to believe they were) but because they repeatedly said that our planet is pretty much the only one that hasn't fully despaired yet it makes it sound as if this immortality-->suffering pipeline occured relatively reliably. And that felt a bit too simple to me.

The Ascians did have one key factor that helped them which is that they as immortal beings watched over the planet. I mean, this is the narrative of most gods: They watch over mortal life (or sow chaos in it). I can imagine that if you are immortal but engage heavily with mortal life then you might find ever renewing "meanings of life" because the world you are watching over is always changing. Even if you are "static" the world around you is dynamic which should influence your own life, as well. So the immortal-mortal pairing might be one solution to combat immortality fatigue.
Surely our planet wouldn't be the only one where both mortals and immortals exists?

But I think even in a fully immortal society without any changes caused by mortals long-lasting happiness could be possible.
Maybe it's because we can't really fathom it as "short-lived mortals" but perhaps immortal beings would be able to find new sources of meaning that we are not even aware of or able to comprehend.

And exactly as you said: If you have lived a happy life as an immortal and want to "go" that is completely different from a mortal person aging and ceasing or somebody dying of other causes. Being immortal inherently reframes death. We are judging this as aging, dying humans so it's terrifying for us. For an immortal being it might even be a joyful affair, just like it was for the Ascians.

All of this is also why I disliked the idea that a planet ending in a catastrophy is somehow indicative of life not being worth it as a whole. As if all the life that led up to that point could not have been filled with happiness. Especially if people are mortal. If the Earth ended today this would be bad for everyone alive but the lives of the people who came before us would not be affected by this at all. They could have lived the happiest lives imaginable and this happiness would not suddenly cease to be relevant.

[Bright-Flower]

It did feel a bit odd to me.

Like, in all those planets, not ONE of them was in a good spot? Not one earlier along than Ethairis that hadn't run into an existential crisis yet? Not one that was finding a way to cope with it? Instead it's just everything sucks everywhere? You'd think she'd find SOME worlds in a good spot along Ethairis' level or even less developed. It's like her report was generated by an AI seeded with a bunch of cautionary tales.

[Loggos]

There were two more things I didn't like.


The first is that the story often offered us very underwhelming reactions whenever our character had travelled on their own and came back with worldview shattering revelations.

There were two situations in particular where a really major event had happened and when we told the Scions about it all we got was an unvoiced cut-scene with everybody doing their standard thinking pose and going "Hm, so that is what happened.".

I hope I'm not mixing it up but I think it was

1) when we returned from the moon and had killed Zodiark and 2) after we returned from Elpis and revealed the true origin of The Final Days.

I don't know, I had kind of expected to get a voiced cutscene and strong reactions to the message that the primal we had been so afraid of for a long time was suddenly dead but also that his death basically destroyed the safety net of the earth and set our own Final Days in motion, that the moon is an arch and that we probably have to leave the planet to survive. Is that not...shocking? Mind-boggling?
I mean, Alphinaud and Alisaie were (understandalby) shaken to the core when the two Garlan girls died but the fact that we might have to leave your planet very soon leads to more of a "Hm, what to do next" reaction...? This is even stranger in light of the fact that space travel is not a thing in modern day Aldenard (minus Sharlayan's secret) and at best known from the legends of the Allagans, right?

The same goes for Dynamis and Meteion. If somebody had told me that the cause of the Final Days is an entity that is able to channel the despair of the whole universe and convert it into world-destroying powers, running on a completely different force than those we know of and also btw pretty much every planet in the universe has fallen victim to its personal The-End-Of-It-All apocalypse (at least according to Meteion) then this should really challenge my understanding of the world?

I don't know, I just thought these revelations were really important and it didn't feel believable that the storytelling made our companions treat them more like organisational problems to be solved and not like the mind-blowing revelations and WOW (or Oh My God! or What the Hell?!) moments that they were for us.

The second part is that I wished they would handle story that is based on optional content differently.

I would have liked it if the game tells you that it might be a good idea to revisit Crystal Tower before you play EW or that it just gives you a heads-up that Crystal Tower is important. Even though I have played CT it was some time ago and I didn't really remember what had happened.

I have to admit I couldn't remember who Amon was, at all, so his reveal just left me with a big "huh"? I had to read his and Xande's story up on a wiki.

I think it's easier to remember events of the main story because you know there will be continuity in the future so it's obvious need to retain some memory and understanding of the events that have happened and if you forget anything - which I did - you know what to look for when you want to brush your knowledge up. I watched a MSQ lore video before I went into EW.

Had I known Crystal Tower is important I would have refreshed my memory on that, too.

And that doesn't even address people who have not played Crystal Tower (e.g., newer players who until now might not have been interested in doing lvl 50 content).

Also, not everyone follows Live Letters or reads the forums or the Lodestone. Some people don't engage with FF14 much outside of playing the game but they should be addressed, too.
And the easierst way to do this is inside the game. They even recapped important plot points of the ShB MSQ in EW cutscenes.

I'm sure they could inform you about other content, too, even if it's just a small pop-up that says "please remember to do XYZ before starting the MSQ" or "re-read the following quests in your diary" or a book lying around in the sunstone that G'Raha Tia forgot right next to the MSQ NPC that conveniently talks about relevant CT history. Although I'm sure you can also find a lot more creative solutions.

I think incorporating optional content in the MSQ is in itself really cool. But they should also make sure that people actually play/revisit this content, esp. if they want to base important plot points on it.



Ironically, before EW I had heard that Bahamut's Coil would be important for EW so I prepared for that but...I don't remember any moment where BC's story was relevant or alluded to? Am I the only one who thought it was important?

[QT_Melon]

Oh I want to say something about the Trust system

I have not done the trial yet with them, but the Elpis dungeon with our Ancient Trio was a hoot. Emet and Hyth are total cheats with their teleportation, but Venat being the mentor she is actually shows you how to deal with mechanics.

[yajnaji]

Oh I want to say something about the Trust system

I have not done the trial yet with them, but the Elpis dungeon with our Ancient Trio was a hoot. Emet and Hyth are total cheats with their teleportation, but Venat being the mentor she is actually shows you how to deal with mechanics.

Emet-selch is a terrible tank though. Many times I had to check that he had grit on, he did, but every pull he lost all enmity instantly to Hythlodaeus... dunno if it's a lore thing or...

[QT_Melon]

Emet-selch is a terrible tank though. Many times I had to check that he had grit on, he did, but every pull he lost all enmity instantly to Hythlodaeus... dunno if it's a lore thing or...

Sounds like good ol' Bard to me Since they took away Quelling Strikes. That and I believe it's because he was doing AOE and Emet didn't have hate on all of them just yet.

Also Venat was not above doing DPS as a healer.