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

[CrownySuccubus]

Playing Devil's Advocate again:

Our entire world should be found dead the minute we come back from Ultima Thul because we kill Hydaelyn. The laws which Zodiark governed began to unravel the minute he died, were still talking about shards for some reason after Hydaelyns death.

After Zodiark dies, the Watcher says that it'll take time for the energies he wove together to fall apart again. In fact, everyone is surprised by the fact that Final Days begins starting so quickly after you return from the moon.

What’s rich to me is somehow the sundered word is conveniently exempt from all of this stuff. Apparently it’s just going to be perfectly fine and won’t give in to any of these faults.

No, I don't think that's the point. I think the message of the story is that Etheirys is just as susceptible to any of these problems as any other star, and also, that death is inevitable no matter what (as I keep saying, Mono no Aware is one of the most important philosophies in Japanese culture -- everything, humans, the earth, the universe, and even souls, will one day die out).

The "beauty" of Mono no Aware is for everyone to fight as hard as you can to keep whatever gives your life meaning alive for as long as you can, even knowing that one day it'll all be for nothing.

[Vryn]

It did take time just not as much as people thought.

[kpxmanifesto]

It doesn't and the only villain that didnt have it so far was Emit the fan favourite,

Not anymore at least. It was maybe original the first few times, but it becomes a cliche when it's constantly the norm.

[Atreides]

Looks like I can be glad you guys are not responsible for the story, the suggestions I see here are mostly not to my liking ngl.
I enjoyed the story and look forward for more. And no I'm not just a casual story enjoyer, I'm pretty deep into lore and while the story does have some holes it's not nearly as bad as most takes I've seen here.

[Atreides]

I don’t think the story was bad it just fell into this weird… “bad finale trope”. Take a tv show you had been watching for a few months, and the finale either didn’t live up to the buildup or you already saw it coming. But maybe I’m getting old and bitter. If i was like 14 again I would’ve loved this expansion. To be young and happy to accept any entertainment…lmao

I understand that the story is not to everyones liking, I mean no story ever will be. This is why it's weird to me that people talk about it like their suggestion would make it better, for them maybe, maybe even for some others. But there would be nay sayers aswell. The perfect story does not exist. I think they did an amazing job with the story, yes there are things I found weird too but thats a me problem because of the way I view things.

[Rulakir]

I would've preferred no time loop if they weren't going to let us change anything and the ability to tell Venat she sucked, but we have no choice but to deal with the mess she made. Everything else could've stayed the same, although, I still wouldn't rank EW above ShB or HW because of it. I found most of everything relating to Sharlayan boring AF, the moon was practically a nothing zone, Thavnair and Ultima Thule were so-so, which basically leaves Elpis as the shining star of the expansion with an honorable mention for Garlemald. This isn't even getting into the raw deal that Zodiark got or the fact that thematically EW was a huge miss for me, especially the asinine motivations of the antagonist(s).

[Skyborne]

I mean, of course there's no perfection, as Cookingway so laid out the moral of the expansion to us so very subtly in the Labyrinthos. :^)

I just don't see how that negates any of the criticisms. Also strikes me as odd how this isn't the first person who admitted to having some problems with the story on a personal level but then... compelled themselves to love it. Reminds me of receiving a gift you aren't fond of, but gush about how much you love it and force a smile only to chuck it in the closet... though this is a video game where the writers will probably never ever know your opinion. Unless Yoshida and Ishikawa are reading this now and are having a breakdown.

Anyway, most of the problems are forgiveable enough to me on their own, considering I liked Stormblood's MSQ, it's just the handling of a certain character that totally struck me as wrong on every level and completely destroyed any enjoyment and makes me wonder about the future of the story I was interested in since 3.0. Now I have become a spooky hollow dynamis ghost that posts in official forums of all things.

[KageTokage]

Unless Yoshida and Ishikawa are reading this now and are having a breakdown.

They did apparently realize people were getting the "wrong" impression from some characters like Venat and Hermes by the time the first post-EW live letter rolled around, and while it seemed like they were initially trying to "correct" people's opinions, it felt like they veered away into trying to make them seem more ambiguous in later interviews (Despite the story very much not spinning things that way in the case of the former).

[Sicno]

I’m curious why they make comments about his backstory when he technically already had it and they described it already, although it was in short stories. He was just a bad seed from the beginning and it seemed he was just born to fail. I think at one point the devs even regarded him as the “ultimate evil.” Kind of like michael myers i guess lol. Just born to be a killer

He had a backstory. A very cool one that perfectly explains his behavior and motivations, at that.

It was just in side content.

All of it.

Oh so it's in the side stories... I see. I think I read one of the early ones and while entertaining there wasn't much to be gleaned from it, so I didn't find a time to read the rest as I was always busy with something. Thanks for letting me know it's there I'll give it a read when I can.

That said I would have preferred to see at least some of it in-game in place of some of the tedious filler. I'd have killed a loporrit or 2 for it.

[PawPaw]

Oh so it's in the side stories... I see. I think I read one of the early ones and while entertaining there wasn't much to be gleaned from it, so I didn't find a time to read the rest as I was always busy with something. Thanks for letting me know it's there I'll give it a read when I can.

That said I would have preferred to see at least some of it in-game in place of some of the tedious filler. I'd have killed a loporrit or 2 for it.

I think the one where he's hanging out with Yotsuyu is the only one that's been released on the Lodestone, which...sucks if you're interested in his backstory for sure. His actual story is called "The Hunt Begins" and it can only be found in SE's Chronicles of Light which hasn't been in print in english in a thousand years. No idea why they thought it'd be a good idea to keep any and all information on him locked outside of the story, but there you have it.

Some kind soul on reddit transcribed it so that the rest of us can actually partake, though: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...s_the_offical/