I think most of my concerns with the story can be summed up by branding it poorly paced, saccharine and needlessly convoluted. Endwalker really needed to be two expansions as originally planned so that every element could be properly expanded upon and given its fair share of time in the spotlight.

As it stands, there's periods in the story where things move at an agonisingly glacial pace with awkward busywork and senseless chatter...but then it is as if there is a pendulum forcing things to swing in the opposite direction which leads to things happening too quickly with little room to breathe or see the characters properly absorb or discuss what they just learned.

Each to their own, I guess, but as far as I'm concerned FFXIV jumped the shark in a similar manner as WoW did and I now find my interest in the PvE and PvP side of things far greater than my interest in the story. Perhaps that will change as of 6.1 and beyond or maybe it won't. I guess we'll see.