My feelings about Endwalker so far

[tdb]

I've just finished the second dungeon and first trial; if you reply, I ask you to kindly avoid posting spoilers after that point.

Positives:

I like most of the story. Specifically the parts about finding out what the Forum is doing and providing aid to Garleans. Alphinaud and Alisaie's family drama is also interesting, and I hope they can reach an agreement with their father.

The new quest mechanics for following an NPC or having an NPC follow you are pretty cool, even if their use is somewhat inconsistent at times.

The winter coat looks nice. Give my thanks to Tataru.

Soundtrack is good, in particular the dungeon boss music isn't as jarring as in Shadowbringers.

Negatives:

The Ascians and their primals are getting old. Really old. Primal is summoned. Warrior of Light defeats it. A stronger primal is summoned. Warrior of Light defeats it too. Rinse and repeat. The escalation of power has reached ludicrous levels, to the point that the feeling of the bosses getting stronger and more threatening is no longer there.

Fandaniel and Zenos are really uninteresting as villains. Driven by primal hedonistic desire as they are, there's no negotiating with them, no chance of reconciliation. It's kind of infuriating really. I want to destroy them and get them out of my face, but the plot won't let me. When it eventually does, it won't feel like a triumphant victory, but more like relief for finishing an arduous chore.

Dungeon design is stale. Two sets of 2-3 trash packs followed by a boss, repeat three times. The end. I'm so done with this.

Healers continue to be broken. I've been a healer main for a long time, but I think this expansion will see me putting them aside and playing dps. Queue times will be longer but so be it, I want to do something else than spam one skill 90% of the time.

[Vahlnir]

You've only really scratched the surface of Endwalker's story at this point. That's about all I can say on that front.

[Eriane_Elis]

...lol.... You should keep playing and report back when you have actually completed EW. This is the final chapter for the Ascian / WoL storyline so of course Ascians will still be the focus. But it ties in everything just right. There is a lot of padding in EW and it starts a little slow but the adventure is worth it. Some people skip the story and complain about the story so don't look for sympathies if you don't take your time and read. Don't be one of them, be patient and it'll be worth it.

[Rolder50]

The Ascians and their primals are getting old. Really old. Primal is summoned. Warrior of Light defeats it. A stronger primal is summoned. Warrior of Light defeats it too. Rinse and repeat. The escalation of power has reached ludicrous levels, to the point that the feeling of the bosses getting stronger and more threatening is no longer there.

Good thing this is their end of an arc expansion that should see them stop using Ascians and Primals so much then huh?

[tdb]

...lol.... You should keep playing and report back when you have actually completed EW. This is the final chapter for the Ascian / WoL storyline so of course Ascians will still be the focus. But it ties in everything just right. There is a lot of padding in EW and it starts a little slow but the adventure is worth it. Some people skip the story and complain about the story so don't look for sympathies if you don't take your time and read. Don't be one of them, be patient and it'll be worth it.

Yeah, and I'm so glad that we'll be done with them after this.

I'm not one of the story-skipping people; I read every conversation and watch every cutscene. I do all side quests when they become available so I don't miss out on that part of the story. But after enduring the Ascians and their posturing for about two and a half expansions (HW didn't have much Ascians at all, and I recall StB having significant parts where no Ascians got in my face), I'm just so done with them. Admittedly I've forgotten much of the details in ARR's story in the four years it's been since I played through that.

Some of the previous Ascians at least had some depth to them; particularly Elidibus and Emet-Selch. But Fandaniel is so hell-bent on destroying everything, it's just, ugh. Zenos was an interesting enough threat back in Stormblood, but now he's just way beyond his best-before date. The "looking for the ultimate challenge" shtick is only interesting for so long. Hopefully we'll get some more nuanced villains in the next expansion. It seems like writing insane villains isn't SE's forte.

In ARR we largely dealt with problems affecting individual villages and cities. In HW the focus was a war affecting an entire nation. Then StB had a different war which concerned two entire continents. ShB had us save a whole world, small as the habitable region was due to the flood of light. And now in EW all the worlds are in peril. Somewhere between the "nation" and "continent" levels the increases to the threat just stopped registering. The scope is so much larger than me, I can't feel the difference. It's like money; going from a hundred to ten thousand and then million dollars feels like huge steps; you can probably grasp the difference between a million and a billion dollars, since things like houses or luxury yachts can cost millions. But what about going from billion to trillion to quadrillion? Can you get any kind of feel for the scale or is it just adding zeroes?

Edit: I hope you're right about the story getting better. Maybe we'll get to dispatch Zenos soon and the story will take a turn to something completely different. I really don't want to watch him continue his posturing about whipping me up to a rage, threatening my loved ones while protected by plot armor, and generally being a vain, narcissistic prick for the rest of the expansion.

[xenahawk]

well i dont want to give any spacific spoilers because what i read looks like you might not have finished the whole story but in general i loved the whole story some quests felt a bit tedious but i love some quests had people fallow with you, the ONLY thing i didnt like about that was being used to using the crystals for quicker movement in the capitals but apparently my friends dont knowhow to use them, lol. about the story itself though man for me it was an emotional roller coaster. im not a very teary type of person but man especially the second half of the story plenty of cinematics left me pretty misty eyed.