Endwalker was "meh" (for reasons other than technical issues)

[Rulakir]

Out of all the characters in EW, I am confident in saying that I actually hate Hermes the most. Can't stand stuck up characters like him who is so convinced about his self-righteousness that he is blinded to other things, a blindedness that in the end killed so many and almost destroyed everything.

Same. He went from empath to psychopath too quickly for me to believe he was ever truly a good person. Given the sheer amount of screen time Fandaniel had the lack of development excuse doesn't apply here either. He along with Venat were the two characters I felt like EW was trying to gaslight me on, with multiple NPCs telling me how wonderful they were while their actions spoke differently.

Agree on this, especially the last part. Made a mistake of doing it on reddit, and ho boy, it's not pretty. So much "you just don't understand the point" or "you're missing things, are you a skipper". The nerve of some people smh.

r/ffxiv is the worst place to go for objective views of the game, they are notoriously intolerant of criticism. Regulars know not to bother to post anything negative because they'll be downvoted into oblivion and first timers are quick to learn the lesson. r/ffxivdiscussion is much better, albeit smaller. I sincerely hope SE diversifies their social media viewing because if they're only looking at r/ffxiv and Twitter for feedback, gods help us.

By the point you leave her in Elpis, it’s also not very plausible that Hermes was going to be much use in the Convocation, if his discovery was not exposed.

It's not only not plausible, but Elidibus confirms as much before you leave for Elpis saying that, "Your understanding of what caused the Final Days is consistent with our own." Since the WoL had not learned about dynamis at that point, it would mean it was a subject Hermes never brought to the table and thus one of the main reasons Venat decided not to inform anyone was not even applicable.

The more I reflect upon the story the more I dislike her character, which makes it all the more galling that the writers decided to force this 12k year bond between her and the WoL without a single dialog option given to the player to disapprove. Quite the contrary, the game goes out of its way to portray her as a tragic hero with her actions (which I consider morally reprehensible) excused by the NPCs. (Her admitting she's a monster doesn't change the fact that she's still portrayed as having done the only right and just thing given the circumstances, which isn't even debatable it's just statistically false.) It's even worse if you consider that the writers may have gone with a bootstrap paradox, which would mean that the WoL is essentially responsible for all the atrocities following the end of Elpis because we gave her the playbook to follow.

I understand from a narrative perspective why they did what they did, but I don't like it. While I loved Elpis (the Ancients have the more compelling characters & story), it's difficult to not look on it as giving the WoL 'disposable' friends for emotional manipulation because the Scions are untouchable. I also think they liked this 'full circle' idea too much to the point that everything involving time travel is horribly contrived to the extent of being nonsensical. I had feared, but was not surprised, that they went all in on Hydaelyn being 'good' because otherwise players might be uncomfortable with the WoL having been manipulated since ARR - even though that's still ultimately what happened.

I just hope they stick to their ShB guns that Azem ghosted Venat. There's no way I would accept that Azem would be okay with what happened to their civilization and their friends, the WoL certainly wouldn't and hasn't been with their world and the Scions.