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

[anhaato]

Then dispute the charge and quit? If i hated something that bad, i would've just called my CC company. You can see we still have our college-esque scions as teammates on the future story. It's not going to get miraculously better.

Just wondering, what's your goal in posting all of this? Like what is your ultimate end goal, what do you hope to achieve by telling us we should stop being disappointed with the story?

[Gaido]

I like Endwalker story, and I was enjoying the plot. My personal criticism is only at these points:

1) Structure of plot is very similiar to Shadowbringers. Dungeons and trials are at similiar points, and Dead ends with expansion villian narrator was just the same idea like in Amaurot. If something is so much similiar, it becomes predictable. And this is something what as storyteller you want to avoid.

2) I was dissapointed with idea of Meteion as last boss. When we defeat Zodiark and it turned out that because of vanishing ambient eather world was in fire, to me it was so much better concept to stand against inevitable, nature caused, world ending catastrophe without specific solution. When it came down to killing one girl, for me it was just like "monster of the week" episode.

3) Second thing that I do not like in Meteion and what I do not like in dynamis that there wasn't nothing foreshadowing them in lore. One of many reasons why people dislike Jailer from WoW is that he was introduced at last moment of story that was talled since Warcraft 3, and he is responsible for everything what happened in game since that time. Much the same you can tell about dynamis and Meteion. of course she is much better wrote than Jailer, but for ending of 10 years ark, I would much more appreciate ending that would use plot points from everything what happened since ARR and use them in finale as checkhov's megaflare gun, than some emo girl and new nature force added to game at last moment as one of most important plot point.

If i'm wrong about this point and dynamis and Meteion were presented sometimes between ARR - SHB expansion or at some page of Encyclopedia Eorzea, I will appreciate if someone show it to me.

4) That is more of my wish than a true criticism: I hope that FF XIV will at some point break world record for the longest cutscene (currently hold by MGS4). Ending was good opportunity for that. But I know that many players don't want long cutscenes, so - as I say - it's only my, personal wish.

[Kozh]

Something I neglected to bring up here is that both Arenvald and Fordola were chosen to investigate a tower in 5.5 (I think?). By this point in development, the devs should've already settled on the Blessing being the source of our immunity, and yet, their immunity is still somehow attributed to the echo.

I guess both blessing and echo now protect again tempering (aether corruption). While echo seems more about soul integrity and memory, the blessing give strength boost aside from tempering protection.

[Nilroreo]

I guess both blessing and echo now protect again tempering (aether corruption). While echo seems more about soul integrity and memory, the blessing give strength boost aside from tempering protection.

I was willing to accept that when Rulakir clarified a few comments later that tempering was an element incorporated into primal summoning only after the sundering. This might've been done in an attempt to retcon Emet's claims of being tempered himself making it easier to just suspend your disbelief and assume both have the ability to protect you... but then Hydaelyn's unending codex entry happened.

Tales of hydaelyn's call and the singular power it was said to bestow-the Echo- have been recorded throughout history. The nature of this power was not wholly understood, and it was often conflated with another of her gifts, the "blessing of light," which ensured one's aether would remain uncorrupted by primal tempering

They address the mix up, then once again single out the blessing as the source of our immunity. Can anyone explain to me why they HAD to be two separate things?

It's particularly disappointing when they had established things like this in the lore with which they could've worked (I don't mean recycling her, just working with the fact that they have this alien being summoned from who knows where, with a very intriguing text description, particularly the bit about the threads of Creation):

Damnit! they blew their Ultima load too early lol!

[Caurcas]

Wait, the blue despair bird and sad man are literally based off the blue bird app. Matsuno's work in XIV died for that. Disgusting.

[Theodric]

Wait, the blue despair bird and sad man are literally based of the blue bird app. Matsuno's work in XIV died for that. Disgusting.

Right?

Honestly, it was the 'Ivalice' vibes that made me check out ARR in the first place. I was always draw to the JRPG's that didn't just lean on silly tropes like the 'pOwEr Of FrIeNdShIp' and which instead leaned into the much more satisfying approach of grey morality. I was delighted when Matsuno was invited to work on FFXIV and it's a damn shame that whatever he had planned was thrown off course by the scrapping of a Garlemald focused expansion.

Now I'm just wondering what, exactly, I should bother being enthusiastic about seeing more of. I'm interested in all things Voidsent related, sicne there's a lot of potential for the sort of aesthetics that I enjoy...but given the trend so far, it might very well just be suddenly wrapped up in the course of a single patch or scrapped entirely.

why is this thread still alive?

The premise of the thread is still relevant and some of us wish to see the game avoid going down the same path as a certain other MMO that decided to sacrifice consistent storytelling in favour of misguided attempts at mass appeal/recreating a past spark.

[Lauront]

I was willing to accept that when Rulakir clarified a few comments later that tempering was an element incorporated into primal summoning only after the sundering. This might've been done in an attempt to retcon Emet's claims of being tempered himself making it easier to just suspend your disbelief and assume both have the ability to protect you... but then Hydaelyn's unending codex entry happened.

I'm just going to have to write off the in-setting author of the codex as a bedazzled fanboi, who's lost all touch with reality, especially given Zenos's research into the Echo. The lore book even states primals of all sorts confer blessings, and hers is quite explicitly similar in function to other primal blessings (have they forgotten SHB or something?)... the only reason I can think that would make sense for them to try (and I stress that word) rewrite it this way is so she could recognise you as a time traveller... but it still doesn't undo the fact that the Echo is why even individuals without a blessing, like Fordola or Arenvald, can withstand a primal without being tempered. So that lore stands.

[Rulakir]

Does Arenvald have the BoL? I don't recall that being addressed and given that Hydaelyn's 'call' goes out to everyone with the Echo, why wouldn't he have it? Even still, neither Zenos or Fordola* have it and they're both immune to tempering.

* I haven't done the role quests, but unless they've retconned it so that she obtained the BoL at the same time she acquired Krile's version of the Echo it should still be the case that she doesn't have it.

Frankly, this just feeds my theory that Venat/Hydaelyn was rewritten at the last minute to be 'good'. I can't shake this feeling that either 1) they went with sUbVeRtInG ePeCtAtIoNs, 2) it's a case of someone at corporate getting their knickers in a twist at Hydaelyn being anything but good, or 3) some combination of the two. Not to mention it's curious that Ishikawa would write Venat to be permanently gone when she doesn't like killing off her characters and uses any opportunity to bring them back. Maybe I'm just off in conspiracy territory, but it's like a "blink twice if this isn't the character you wanted to write" kind of thing. :P I've said it before, but if I didn't know better I wouldn't have guessed Ishikawa wrote EW, it doesn't feel like the spiritual successor of ShB. Given it's the same writer and back-to-back expansions there shouldn't be as many inconsistencies as there are.

The lore book even states primals of all sorts confer blessings, and hers is quite explicitly similar in function to other primal blessings (have they forgotten SHB or something?)...

Given that so much in FFXIV makes more sense if Hydaelyn tempers it makes me wonder if that was their original intention. I figured it wouldn't be the case because it would deprive the player character of free will, but they ended up doing that anyway so it seems like a technicality.

[Lauront]

Does Arenvald have the BoL? I don't recall that being addressed and given that Hydaelyn's 'call' goes out to everyone with the Echo, why wouldn't he have it? Even still, neither Zenos or Fordola* have it and they're both immune to tempering.

* I haven't done the role quests, but unless they've retconned it so that she obtained the BoL at the same time she acquired Krile's version of the Echo it should still be the case that she doesn't have it.

Frankly, this just feeds my theory that Venat/Hydaelyn was rewritten at the last minute to be 'good'. I can't shake this feeling that either 1) they went with sUbVeRtInG ePeCtAtIoNs, 2) it's a case of someone at corporate getting their knickers in a twist at Hydaelyn being anything but good, or 3) some combination of the two. Not to mention it's curious that Ishikawa would write Venat to be permanently gone when she doesn't like killing off her characters and uses any opportunity to bring them back. Maybe I'm just off in conspiracy territory, but it's like a "blink twice if this isn't the character you wanted to write" kind of thing. :P I've said it before, but if I didn't know better I wouldn't have guessed Ishikawa wrote EW, it doesn't feel like the spiritual successor of ShB. Given it's the same writer and back-to-back expansions there shouldn't be as many inconsistencies as there are.



Given that so much in FFXIV makes more sense if Hydaelyn tempers it makes me wonder if that was their original intention. I figured it wouldn't be the case because it would deprive the player character of free will, but they ended up doing that anyway so it seems like a technicality.

And there's ways after SHB they could write tempering such that it wouldn't necessarily compromise free will (i.e. Emet-Selch and Tiamat are still able to make their own decisions because of the nature of their tempering.) The reason I think you're right is because the flood of Light on the First is explicitly caused by a plan to have many champions gain the Blessing, which would help tip the world's aetheric balance to light (which makes sense given the type of primal Hydaelyn is) - that went overboard because of what Ardbert did, but the idea here is that tempering is confirmed by Emet-Selch to be a phenomenon that aligns the summoner's/tempered's aether to the primal, and the Blessing is itself acting as a conduit of the primal's aether based on this observation. Ardbert even had throwaway musings about being tempered, and Garuda explicitly calls the WoL for reeking of Hydaelyn's "stench". Not saying all this definitively proves they were going with them being tempered, but it does suggest there was more than enough room and groundwork laid for it, in the sense that the blessing was a "conveyor" belt of the primal's energy... not unlike tempering is described, and so it'd have been reasonable to surmise the two things might be linked.

[AmpelioB]

why is this thread still alive?