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

[DevonEllwood]

I haven't logged in in a while, but 52 pages is kind of compelling. I haven't read everything but I have read most of the thread and I feel other people have explained adequately my frustrations with endwalker but I'll try to sum it up as best as possible.


I used to be okay with endwalker and then made the mistake of looking further into it and the more I do the more disappointed I am with the direction of the story. I still appreciate the really good "high" areas, such as Thavnair (especially the second half) and I'm one who really like the Garlemald section as well. I feel it captured the desperation and bleak future rather well.

I can forgive the awful pacing in certain areas and the bizarre split choice they had between Thavnair and Sharlayan. Shadowbriger's story split made sense and doing one or the other first didn't conflict with the atmosphere as it did with Endwalker. I went Thavnair first so it was awkward to say the least. Watch cat eat burger while this important character is a captive in a tower, that's nice.

I can forgive the loporrits and how they grind the story to a halt every time they're on screen with their very unfunny "funny" antics. Playing dress-up with rabbits while the world burns is not exactly what I wanted, but I guess I can deal with. What I can't understand is Elpis onward.

Elpis introduced a second type of time travel that was already pre-established in the game from the last expansion by the same head writer. Apparently according to someone on the lore forums this messed with the continuity enough to make it to where the time line we are currently in shouldn't exist at all.
Anything and everything in Elpis doesn't matter because time loop. I can state how poor Hermes's and Venat's reasoning are for what they did but it doesn't matter because time loop. Had to be the exact same, time loop. Doesn't matter.
What Venat did was just as terrible as Hermes, we just need one line of her stating it and we are all good. Just one line. No need to dwell on anything like "necessary evils" or anything to keep with the theme no , just skip it. Give us more stupid rabbits.
Give us a spaceship, some anime action scenes, and some magic that definitely won't bring the scions back from something stupid. We also need to neglect those these that the expansion established in the last zone. We can't have the scions disappear and not come back and win everything. We can't have any meaningful sacrifices or consequences. We win all the time because good guys.

All I've learned from this expansion is that it's not a good idea to look deeper into the story. Just look at it at the surface level and be done. I have so many questions with things that were established in the last expansion and I'm not even sure I should bother waiting on them to be answered. I feel the likelihood of all the leftovers will just get hand waved away or just ignored. I really hope Endwalker was just Yoshi P saying, screw it, just do whatever for the second half of the story and it's not what is to be expected onward. Yoshi P wanted people to get emotions from Endwalker. I felt frustrated and disappointed. I don't think that was what he was going for.

Loporrits aren't funny. Stop letting the scions "win" all the time, have some consequences, not everyone actually cares about them anymore. G'raha Tia isn't "cute" to everyone, he's downright creepy to some. Please, please don't do something like Endwalker again. I don't feel more time would have helped, what they needed was a different direction. It just seemed liek they were too caught up in making twists and wowing people for the sake of it.

[Stachiko]

Watch cat eat burger while this important character is a captive in a tower, that's nice.

I had completely forgotten how urgency felt so misplaced throughout the entire expansion. We just calmly handle everything that comes to us. There's no "Oh cool Emet, that's nice and all, but... MY WORLD IS DYING AND I NEED YOUR HELP!" Instead we pranced around on their whims.

Granted it was time travel and they could just send us back to the same point in time, so that's kind of moot. But there were other instances where a sense of urgency was completely lost. I just uh... can't recall them vividly.

I will say it was a pretty solid anime.

[OhNooo]

All I've learned from this expansion is that it's not a good idea to look deeper into the story. Just look at it at the surface level and be done...I really hope Endwalker was just Yoshi P saying, screw it, just do whatever for the second half of the story and it's not what is to be expected onward. Yoshi P wanted people to get emotions from Endwalker. I felt frustrated and disappointed. I don't think that was what he was going for.

Yep I completely understand where you're coming from. After going through all the expansions again, I really do feel like Shadowbringers may have been the beginning of an end sort of. And what I mean by that is, they had taken the story to a deeper level and added all these layers of complexity that were so compelling, and it drew a lot of people in. But then when EW released, by the time I finished msq I was left scratching my head at how everything was resolved. It literally felt like they decided to go for just trying to get people to just FEEL things but there didn't feel like there was any real substance. It felt all very surface level and also fell apart for me when I looked deeper. By the time I watched another scion stand there with a determined look on their face giving a monologue about hope I had checked out already.

I don't feel more time would have helped, what they needed was a different direction. It just seemed liek they were too caught up in making twists and wowing people for the sake of it.

Maybe they had some other things planned but then were told they had to finish the expansion up way faster than they planned. But yes I also felt like they were very caught up in trying to put as many twists and turns as they could just for shock value but then it would go nowhere (like the body swap scene). So then you're left with a lot of surface level "feels" but no real substance. At least in my opinion.

[Theodric]

It felt all very surface level and also fell apart for me when I looked deeper. By the time I watched another scion stand there with a determined look on their face giving a monologue about hope I had checked out already.

An apt summary. It's as if the game shifted from appealing to players who read between the lines and piece things together to make sense of a deeper narrative...to directly pandering to those who burst into tears the moment another fake death happens whilst sad music plays only to rush to Reddit to tell everybody how they were 'screaming' and 'crying' and they 'can't even right now'.

Meanwhile the characters and factions that actually do face incomprehensible levels of loss and dread are urged to just get over it whilst desperate comparisons are made to pretend as if the loss of the likes of Moenbryda is anywhere near as tragic as the loss of literally every single member of one's family, their friends, neighbours and every single person they have ever known.

It's why I'm raising an eyebrow at the implication that people 'just don't like venat' when the criticism is aimed at more than just a single character!

[OhNooo]

An apt summary. It's as if the game shifted from appealing to players who read between the lines and piece things together to make sense of a deeper narrative...to directly pandering to those who burst into tears the moment another fake death happens whilst sad music plays only to rush to Reddit to tell everybody how they were 'screaming' and 'crying' and they 'can't even right now'.

A thousand times this. I don't want to keep bringing up HW but I still maintain that it's the most well-rounded story expansion for me and I wish they would go back to a similar localized story with some fantasy but not too over the top. EW definitely felt over the top for me, and I felt...for lack of a better word...kind of like my intelligence was being insulted? Lol that sounds harsh to say but I just got the impression that they felt like they could just throw anything at the playerbase and they'd eat it all up, which is kind of the truth if we're basing it off of the reviews from reddit and other places. I felt like I was the odd person out seeing all of the comments about people crying and thinking it topped Shadowbringers.

But I'm glad that there is at least a place where people can express their opinions and have a civil discussion for the most part, because trying to post contrary opinions about the story on reddit will mostly just get you down-voted to oblivion and sometimes harassed in dms telling you to go back to wow even though you've never played it lol.

[Theodric]

A thousand times this. I don't want to keep bringing up HW but I still maintain that it's the most well-rounded story expansion for me and I wish they would go back to a similar localized story with some fantasy but not too over the top. EW definitely felt over the top for me, and I felt...for lack of a better word...kind of like my intelligence was being insulted? Lol that sounds harsh to say but I just got the impression that they felt like they could just throw anything at the playerbase and they'd eat it all up, which is kind of the truth if we're basing it off of the reviews from reddit and other places. I felt like I was the odd person out seeing all of the comments about people crying and thinking it topped Shadowbringers.

But I'm glad that there is at least a place where people can express their opinions and have a civil discussion for the most part, because trying to post contrary opinions about the story on reddit will mostly just get you down-voted to oblivion and sometimes harassed in dms telling you to go back to wow even though you've never played it lol.

The writer responsible for Heavensward went to work on FFXVI, apparently. I hope that means that he'll return to work on FFXIV once FFXVI releases. EW felt like it wanted me to not think too much about the implications or consequences of what was happening at the time in a way that was far removed from what previous expansions had done in regards to noting that the various conflicts and character struggles were but a clash of ideals and different perspectives.

I'm pleased, at least, that we're apparently going back to becoming an adventurer again. Hopefully that'll involve scaling back the situation and distancing our character from being the saviour of the entire universe...to something a bit more humble and relatable. I don't play games to stroke the ego of either myself or my character, so the constant talk about how 'amazing' and 'heroic' my character is simply doesn't do much for me. Each to their own, though!

As for Reddit, the mere existence of a downvote system is unfortunately something that is readily abused. Especially in an era where many seek to echo whatever opinion will earn them upvotes for fear of going against the grain.

[Nilroreo]

...

This. I among many others I'm sure derive my enjoyment from how well everything comes together, as well as my own personal enjoyment of what's happening on screen. my biggest issue with Endwalker is that it didn't quite stick the landing on both fronts and heavily prioritizes the fun aspect of the game's narrative over the practicality of anything that's going on.

To give an example, Heavensward which is my personal favorite expansion has this moment towards the end where Hraesvelgr of his own volition hands us his eye in a historic turning point that calls back to the conclusion of whatever feud the Dravanians and Ishgardians initially had ages ago. Both this conflict and the dragonsong war are ended with Hraesvelgr joining hands with another mortal becoming living symbols of unity between the land and the heavens. the scene also makes sense practically because it's already been long established that dragon eyes are vessels to a near infinite reserve of aether, and azure dragoons are empowered by use of this power. this whole segment is both fun to watch, and it doesn't make you question the logistics of what's going on.

Compare all of that with a scene towards the end of Endwalker where you summon Emet and Hythlodeus to summon a bed of flowers, Meteion gets sad, and Emet says "These Elpis blooms serve as proof that this realm is not utterly devoid of hope. No more can you deny its power. No more is yours the dominion of despair," then suddenly we can just bring everyone back with no repercussions... but why? what's stopping her from just undoing everyone again? What is even going on? I know I'm supposed to feel happy/sad cuz the scene is clearly trying its hardest to illicit an emotion out of me here, but something about this explanation just isn't clicking with me.

Ultimately, I feel the story ventured too deep into fanservice territory this time around and allowed sentimentality to drive the story in place of logic. I mean, I won't lie, they did a damn fine job on that end. If all they wanted to do was give me an adrenaine rush during the last quarter of the final boss, or during the badass fight with Zenos at the edge of the universe etc., then they succeeded. I just wish I could say I loved the expansions story beyond what it had to offer on the surface level.

[Lauront]

An apt summary. It's as if the game shifted from appealing to players who read between the lines and piece things together to make sense of a deeper narrative...to directly pandering to those who burst into tears the moment another fake death happens whilst sad music plays only to rush to Reddit to tell everybody how they were 'screaming' and 'crying' and they 'can't even right now'.

Meanwhile the characters and factions that actually do face incomprehensible levels of loss and dread are urged to just get over it whilst desperate comparisons are made to pretend as if the loss of the likes of Moenbryda is anywhere near as tragic as the loss of literally every single member of one's family, their friends, neighbours and every single person they have ever known.

It's why I'm raising an eyebrow at the implication that people 'just don't like venat' when the criticism is aimed at more than just a single character!

Yep, it's more than just her character, but all the plot contrivances that went into it as well, while glossing over a lot of the subtler points they had introduced in SHB - that stylised scene being a good example of it. It doesn't flatter her much, IMO, and it also doesn't do justice to the established narrative.

A thousand times this. I don't want to keep bringing up HW but I still maintain that it's the most well-rounded story expansion for me and I wish they would go back to a similar localized story with some fantasy but not too over the top. EW definitely felt over the top for me, and I felt...for lack of a better word...kind of like my intelligence was being insulted? Lol that sounds harsh to say but I just got the impression that they felt like they could just throw anything at the playerbase and they'd eat it all up, which is kind of the truth if we're basing it off of the reviews from reddit and other places. I felt like I was the odd person out seeing all of the comments about people crying and thinking it topped Shadowbringers.

But I'm glad that there is at least a place where people can express their opinions and have a civil discussion for the most part, because trying to post contrary opinions about the story on reddit will mostly just get you down-voted to oblivion and sometimes harassed in dms telling you to go back to wow even though you've never played it lol.

Yup, I've seen redditors descend to stalking where criticism is offered, plus exhibiting a level of pettiness seldom ever seen on this site.

[EaraGrace]

An apt summary. It's as if the game shifted from appealing to players who read between the lines and piece things together to make sense of a deeper narrative...to directly pandering to those who burst into tears the moment another fake death happens whilst sad music plays only to rush to Reddit to tell everybody how they were 'screaming' and 'crying' and they 'can't even right now'.

Meanwhile the characters and factions that actually do face incomprehensible levels of loss and dread are urged to just get over it whilst desperate comparisons are made to pretend as if the loss of the likes of Moenbryda is anywhere near as tragic as the loss of literally every single member of one's family, their friends, neighbours and every single person they have ever known.

It's why I'm raising an eyebrow at the implication that people 'just don't like venat' when the criticism is aimed at more than just a single character!

This is exceptionally condescending Theodric.

[Lauront]

See I think we’re actually fairly close to an understanding. I just think the criterion you laid out makes the third sacrifice an abhorrent act of selfishness born out of an attempt to hide from pain, a sign both of the Ancients inability to see life beyond their own as being deserving of true moral consideration and of their refusal to accept the inevitable of suffering in the world. The former is a moral failing, the second would lead to extinction.

This is a species here that faced near total devastation of their planet and their own people. If we're talking about the exchange of souls that went into some entities born of their creation magicks, it is plainly obvious to me why they'd consider the option and exercise a preference for their own people and perform an exchange of the souls held in limbo in Zodiark, particularly since these familiars were rather more childlike entities compared to them and in need of a lot of handholding if they were to inherit the star. The sundered would kill for far less, after all; my own character, if a reaper, powers up their voidsent battery by letting it devour the souls of those who get in their way. As a SMN? I routinely have my egi (arcane construct) get in the way of harm. Nevermind things like how some relics are formed, what goes on in fates etc. So these delicate sensibilities when it comes to the ancients doing it baffle me a bit. If it's ancients for ancients? Then I'd agree that such a course would be contentious but unless and until the devs take the time to clarify it, I maintain it is shrouded in ambiguity.

In any case, had a certain someone explained the practical concerns she had, then it all could've been avoided. Even were I to consider it to be a morally flawed path they were going down, I'd still not consider it adequate to excuse the sundering. For that, we have contrived time travel mechanics to take the brunt of any criticism, of course... all in all a very unsatisfactory mechanism to me that left many of these issues unanswered, obscured (as can be seen from this very thread and the confusion of some people on the topic of the stylised scene vs the more detailed elaborations from SHB materials) and also left me with a very dim view of Venat.