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.

[Alleo]

Actually this isn't the case.

When first meeting Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus on arrival to Elpis, Emet explicitly mentions that we look like Azem when saying he doesn't want to deal with us. Another NPC 'Pompous creator' also mistakes us for Azem when you speak to him, I actually screenshotted this bit so I can quote: "Azem?! What in the blazes are you doing here?! Hold on - you seem...thinner somehow." So I think we look like Azem facially, just with added extras like horns/cat ears like we're cosplaying or something I guess lol.

I remember that he talks about our souls. But honestly that would be quite funny when you play a Lala or a Hrothgar.

[EdwinLi]

being a "Normal person" for one instance spoiler....

I like how we are given a moment to play as a Garlean for a moment. It gives a perspective on how life fighting is for Garleans compared to every other people living outside of the Garlean Empire due to Garlean's lack of magical abilities.

From this one instance we experience how difficult it is just to fight. The lack of Magical abilities also appear to deny them the ability to passively heal outside of combat. This implies being born with Magical abilities also provide people with passive self healing abilities to their body when their bodies are not being strained by tense events such as combat.

However, due to Garleans lacking magical abilities they do not have this type of rapid self heal when their body is in a calm state. Thus they have to depend more on med kits and other self healing tools to cover up any injury sustained.

In a way Garlean body is very much similar to our own body in our world. They must do everything we do to heal and improve our own strength. Those with magic abilities on the other hand have a much easier since their magical abilities enhances their body in ways our bodies cannot.

[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.

[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.

[dynus]

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.

I believe I have the answer to that;

It's speculated by Urianger that if the world she was visiting didn't have a problem already, she might have accidentally caused one because of her nature and the sorrow her sisters felt over what they found, making a feedback loop. Good job Hermes

[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?