What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[HappyHubris]

Maybe in the future they do bring her and Zenos back.

Zenos is I think one of the character that was severely underutilized this xpac. He basically did not do anything except at the end lol. So hopefully they flesh him out more in the future.

No.
No, no, no.
Noooooooooooooo.

I've had more than enough "Zenos is really cool, we should resurrect him and shove him down the throats of the audience."

He wasn't even a good antagonist in Stormblood, and he's aged like fine unpasteurized milk since then.

[KizuyaKatogami]

When she sacrificed herself to make Hydaelyn, she gave up all the research capabilities that Venat had. Hydaelyn was not Venat. She was a single-minded primal imbued with some of Venat's memories

When is this stated? Because as we know with Elidibus, sacrificing to become the heart, they are still them. He was able to leave Zodiark and still converse with people. I don’t see why she would have lost all of her research capabilities.

[StriderShinryu]

No.
No, no, no.
Noooooooooooooo.

I've had more than enough "Zenos is really cool, we should resurrect him and shove him down the throats of the audience."

He wasn't even a good antagonist in Stormblood, and he's aged like fine unpasteurized milk since then.

Yep, and it's actually funny that even Yoshida in that recent radio interview was like "Yeah.. we didn't know what to do with him so we just kind of stuck him in there because he had to"

[Akiudo]

No.
No, no, no.
Noooooooooooooo.

I've had more than enough "Zenos is really cool, we should resurrect him and shove him down the throats of the audience."

He wasn't even a good antagonist in Stormblood, and he's aged like fine unpasteurized milk since then.

thank you for finding this beatiful words to describe the total .... that was zenos.

even if i didn't despised zenos with a passion (and boy do i) i really don't get why people want him back... i mean even freaking zenos didn't want any redemption or whatnots.

so as someone that hates the character, let him rest. but to those that like him ? still let him fucking rest... dude wanted his one glorious battle to burn his life away and he got it, Zenos literally got the one thing he wanted all his life so just let it go, dude had a ton of screentime telling us what exactly he wanted and in the end he got exactly that. i really don't get why people that claim to love the character want to turn him into this deep and complex being when even the guy himself quite literally just wanted to be accomodated in his single mindedness and get some fun out of it, which he got.

[Shuuli]

I don't mind Zodiark, I also don't mind the pet project with Dynamis. But the fact that they did not elaborate a bit more on what Venat did after we left is sad. I really wish they showed a scene where she did try to work on things but for some reason it was impossible because no one knew how Dynamis works... but I realized it would make no sense as they only lost 1 day of memory all together and Hermes was already working on Dynamis before so he would have the basic knowledge to start a project team to work on a solution. Now it felt like Venat is just a mean biatch for testing the poepl like all Ascians seem to be doing... it feels like she just decided herself the full fate of h er people... this is not okay!


I also did not like how Zenos was just standing there most of the time. Doing literal nothing. I liked the fight at the end but it felt a lil underwhelming. But at least his story is now done, hopefully.

[NotACapitalist]

I have overall mixed feelings on the story as someone who recently started as a sprout in patch 5.4 following the hype. ShB was really good to the point I bought EW despite my policy on not buying games at release.

I dunno why the Flood of Light was scarier than the literal Final Days itself. Is it because everyone just casually says Final Days like it's nothing? Or is it because Blasphemies are way too few in the main story, even in Role quests it's usually only a select few people that are infected with it. Compared to let's say Sin Eaters who kill people left and right while also threatening your character to become one. Final boss also feels meh for some reason, is it because she was introduced this late, or she wasn't eldritch enough despite harboring most of civilization's despair. Neo Exdeath's 3D model raid had a more menacing appearance imo.

True to FFIV references, the characters also have fake out sacrifices for some reason. I also have a distaste for Zenos's character as a whole and that one body swap plot which amounted to nothing. Although for some parts that I liked, I like that one hype travel to Garlemald, the rush to Zodiark.

[Ryaz]

If Meteion was introduced in an earlier expansion, I would have liked EW’s story a bit more. As it is, it’s been my least favorite story of all of FFXIV since 2.0. That opinion has not gone off well with a couple of friends, not that I particularly care in the long run. I can see how they rushed a bit with this expansion, and I understand why, but that doesn’t change how I felt about the story. It didn’t suck, but it wasn’t the best.

While Meteion herself wasn't introduced, the noise causing the Final Days was introduced in a previous expac. We just didn't know what was causing it until EW.

And honestly, while Meteion may have been the physical body of the end villain, she wasn't actually the villain herself. We were fighting instead against a concept, the thought that life is meaningless, worthless and that there is no point to living. FIghting against the despair, anger and anguish of who knows how many dead and dying worlds. Meteion was just kind of a vessel for that.

As for the other posts about Venat, we really don't know what she did between the time we left and the time she and her followers created Hydalaen. We have to infer things from what we learned in ShB and from what her personality was like in 6.0. I know for some, it sucks having to fill in the gaps, but it's also what makes the story intriguing. We have huge gaps in our own history on why certain events happened and history that's been changed through the years by stories being twisted. Not knowing what happened allows us to draw our own conclusions.

For me, given Venat's personality, I'd think she'd do almost everything in her power to prevent the Final Days from happening, but not knowing how the future up to that plays out or what events might lead to them, it makes it difficult for her to move much. For all she knew, telling the Convocation may have been the very thing that caused the Final Days. It's one of the traps of time travel. There are no easy answers and why she probably felt she needed to keep it close to the vest. But she did have her supporters, some of whom I'm sure she brought into the fold. I feel she thought the Sundering was the only option left to make sure life continued as she just believed the Ancients would repeat the same folly over and over until they were all dead. She herself said it would some extremely powerful reason for her to become Hydalaen. I'd say the belief that your race is driving headlong towards the destruction of all life on the planet is a pretty big motivator.

[Shinimas]

Venat not doing anything is a giant plothole. Just tell them... they would believe it. Then get all the gang together, build an Imperium-like spaceship (Ancients should've been able to pull it off), follow the GPS tracker from Venat and Exterminatus the hell out of Ultima Thule before Meteion had the time to prepare.

Also, you really want to tell me that a giant memory wiping device didn't record what and whom it operated on?

But I get it. We anime. So emotion, much tears. I just hope further stories will be a bit more logical, because this stuff falls apart the moment you activate your brain.

[Ryaz]

Venat not doing anything is a giant plothole. Just tell them... they would believe it. Then get all the gang together, build an Imperium-like spaceship (Ancients should've been able to pull it off), follow the GPS tracker from Venat and Exterminatus the hell out of Ultima Thule before Meteion had the time to prepare.

Also, you really want to tell me that a giant memory wiping device didn't record what and whom it operated on?

But I get it. We anime. So emotion, much tears. I just hope further stories will be a bit more logical, because this stuff falls apart the moment you activate your brain.

So, emotions bad, logic good. Anime, bad. ������ Got it. I bet you're just a joy when watching movies.

And yeah, they would believe her, maybe? We don't know if they would. We don't know how Hermes would react. Again, telling them might be what sets off the fear leading to the Final Days in the first place.

Also, as beings of basically pure Aether, the Ancients couldn't reallly reach Meteion or fight her. Her realm is pure Dynamis, which the Ancients couldn't manipulate. Also, they needed massive amounts of Aether just to power the ship from a thousand thousand years of gathered energy from the Mother crystal. Chances are, the Ancients would probably have had to sacrifice many of their number just to power the engines. Third, there's the personality of most of the Ancients. They have no clue how to overcome despair. They never dealt with it. They couldn't even recognize the depression in Hermes, much less have a way to treat it.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

It’s strange that it’s typically only done in criticism threads though is my point. Which is why i brought up the stifling discussion. It seems like people only ever post it in hopes of just writing off any form of criticism as trolling. That’s completely counterproductive for criticism.

This is correct.....and it often is "just a little joke" which is why it should be Ignored. Its just trolling, so why are you giving it attention instead of just having your conversation?
A stupid shitpost joke/meme only has the power to stifle a discussion, if you let it.
Dont try to combat something insignificant and get all bent out of shape and defensive over nothing important, and carry on with your discussion.