Where is all the content?

[RdehlikaJenma]

1. New gearsets include: Level 73 and 75 dungeon sets, 570/580/590 tomestone gear, 19 unique job sets for combat, 15 new sets for tradecraft classes. Add to that, what, a four new weapon sets from dungeons, from one of the EX trials, Savage Raid, and two from tomestones. not to mention at least 13 new 'weapons' for tradecrafts. - Nice try.

2. Hell of a lot of new, fantastic OSTs, as well, what's your point here? Not enough music composed by Soken WHILE HE HAD CANCER?!

3. Ultima Thule is also remnants of shattered worlds, maybe the reason it's the 'smallest one based on walkable terrain' is for thematic/story reasons? Labyrinthos, again, could well be that size because it's literally an over-sized storage facility, while Mare Lamentorum is both a prison, and spacecraft, it's not a 'whole new world' it's a satellite. A satellite which is FAR larger than Ul'dah The comparison to Ruby Sea is laughable too, as it has about as much walkable train as Ultima Thule.

4. There have been TWO examples of voice acting in raids, beyond combat lines: The final two Coils raids, due to wrapping up the story of the Calamity, and Eden because... give Gaia a voice? I'm not sure why. The lac of raid voice acting is the norm, not a deviation from the norm.

5. Something, something lack of purchasable parts and raw materials needed to build servers, combined with an unprecedented exodus to FFXIV from WoW after highly popular streamers started playing, followed by the Blizzard lawsuit scandal driving more players over

On top of this, none of what you have complained about in the OP is CONTENT aside from the zones, which you are intentionally misrepresenting. So, to answer your title's question: Look around. The raids, EX trials, new dungeons, the new treasure dungeon.... about the same amount of content as Shadowbringers. Plus everything before Endwalker you haven't done.


6.

Elidibus states that we would be unable to communicate and affect things because of our intangible form. We also don't affect anything, we tell our story, and Venat acts.

Why not warn us about Meteion? Because Zodiark was keeping the Song of Oblivion at bay. There was also the fact that if Hydaelyn had told us outright, what could we have done? How would we have got to Ultima Thule? The moon was too big to reach the speeds needed. What guarantee was there that we were strong enough to stop Meteion before we killed Zodiark? Before we went to Elpis? There was none. The only way Hydaelyn could know if we were strong enough is if we had gone to Elpis. At that point, we had killed Zodiark, and Venat knew that we had done so before our jaunt to Elpis, considering we told her. For us to have gone to Elpis, we had to have killed Zodiark, had to have proven ourselves through that specific feat, our fight against her was the final test, not the first.

For someone who claims to adore this game, you have a LOT of nitpicking of things that... well, aren't true. Funny, that.

[Iscah]

Elidibus states that we would be unable to communicate and affect things because of our intangible form. We also don't affect anything, we tell our story, and Venat acts.

We do affect things. We affect a lot. Giving information to Venat that she acted on is an effect in itself, and on top of that we helped them find Meteion and force her to give the report and in doing so we form a link in the chain of events leading to the Final Days and ultimately to where we are today.

Elidibus was correct that we would not be able to communicate in the state we arrived in, but that's because he had no way of knowing we'd get spotted by Emet and given enough aether to be turned into a functional entity there.

I am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

That said, the reason she doesn't tell us sooner about Meteion is circular: we were unaware of Meteion prior to visiting Elpis, therefore she cannot tell us about Meteion in the present day until after our visit, or she would risk breaking the timeline.

[RdehlikaJenma]

I am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

I mean, we basically laid down the mother of all prophecies, we are a being from the future, detailing events that happen. For Venat to not do anything about it would be like Rand in Wheel of Time (books) ignoring the prophecy marking him as the Dragon Reborn.

That being said, she clearly states her intentions and motives during the cutscene after Elpis, her whole reason for Sundering the world and making preparations for Etheirys to either flee the Star, or for the Warrior of Light to go and face Meteion is because she believes so fully in the strength of man that she wants them to be completely free, whereas those enthralled to Zodiark wanted to keep the bubble of "Utopia" they once had before the Final Days began. Everything she does is to make us see that while there is suffering in the world, even as fractured, imperfect beings, we are able to overcome despair, overcome nihilism and find light and oy in life, even if it is fleeting.

[Sylve]

We do affect things. We affect a lotI am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

My opinion is that we were in an altered timeline from the beginning of ARR.
Basically, Original WoL goes back to Elpis, finds out about Meteion and then returns to the Original Timeline, leaving Venat to play out her role in the story as originaly described to her.
The Original timeline doesn't have a tagged Meteion, but the new altered time that we've been in since ARR is the one with the tagged bird. Original time goes through the Exodus on the Moon and finds another way to Meteion.
Meanwhile, we get the events of Endwalker. Its the only way the Elpis part of the story gels with the time travel rules they set out in G'raha's story.