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

[Lauront]

It's just strange how the """"unbiased"""" (according to the playerbase) Unending Codex just straight up erases the twelve people who wanted to stop the sacrifice, in line with the solo Venat-wank cutscene post-Elpis. Do the developers know that people have a memory and know that 5.2 happened? It was just puzzling since I wanted to see the perspective of these individuals... maybe have them be actually named. I suppose there is still a slight chance for this in the 24man story as it is meant to be an "epilogue" but I just don't know... they couldn't even really give us info about the full Convocation, and left 5 or so of them in the dust.

Even that is something I dread, because it'd just become more word vomit about her "love". Still hope they tie it to man's memory of the Convocation in some capacity or other, and don't link it to her.

[Xirean]

You know the WoL really shouldn't have brought their friends back. They died, don't try to undo that, forge ahead.

[CrownySuccubus]

*Awkwardly stares at the Venat genocide that was hand waved from the story*

Sure.

*Awkwardly stares at Ala Mingo not getting flak after they failed at forcefully taking Gridana*

Pretty sure they established that this was why nobody wanted to help Gyr Abania after they were invaded by Garlemald, and why people hated Ala Mhigan refugees.

*Awkwardly stares at Sil'Dah*

Huh? They specifically portray those people as antagonistic or villainous. Nanamo's entire storyarc is about reclaiming her power from those people.

The game picks and chooses what atrocities it wants you to feel bad about, don't think too much about it. lol

Thus why I said "inconsistent" in my first post. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

[PawPaw]

You know the WoL really shouldn't have brought their friends back. They died, don't try to undo that, forge ahead.

They gave their lives so that our character could live past the worst of it. Bringing them back would be an insult to their sacrifice, right? I'm pretty sure I've heard that argument before somewhere...

Good thing we had that Deus ex Machina to fix everything so that we wouldn't have to struggle to regain what we'd lost or make it difficult to "forge ahead" or anything crazy like that.

[RyuDragnier]

Huh? They specifically portray those people as antagonistic or villainous. Nanamo's entire storyarc is about reclaiming her power from those people.

You must be thinking of something different here. Sil'dih was the sister neighbor of Ul'dah. It created a way of flood control which resulted in a war between it and Ul'dah over water, which Ul'dah ultimately won due to their thaumaturges creating a powder that brought the dead back to life as zombies, which they used on Sil'dih via catapults tossing it into the city. They then lied to the populace of Ul'dah that Sil'dih had been bringing back the dead, and used it as a preface for war, and then sealed Sil'dih so everybody would die.

[Theodric]

*Awkwardly stares at the Venat genocide that was hand waved from the story*
*Awkwardly stares at Ala Mingo not getting flak after they failed at forcefully taking Gridana*
*Awkwardly stares at Sil'Dah*
The game picks and chooses what atrocities it wants you to feel bad about, don't think too much about it. lol

Yeah, it's why I'm not a fan of this game's obsession with trying to moralise everything - because it isn't prepared to follow through with it when and where it makes the protagonists and their allies look bad.

I really don't care about a lot of this stuff beyond the double standard. If I get a quest to go and kill some kobolds, I'll go and kill some kobolds. If you give me a quest to go and negotiate with some kobolds to try and form trade deals for ore, then I'll go and do that as well.

I just want a consistent approach. If the game presents something as 'unforgivable' and worthy of violent reform then I don't want it to then double down and say that the same thing is actually fine, so long as 'mommy' is the one partaking of it.

I also want variety in the sort of cultures and nations that we interact with. Just because some people dislike the idea of the monarchy as a concept, I'd rather we didn't do away with the concept of a monarchy everywhere just to push through some lazy copy and paste of real world modern day 'democracy'. Equally, I wouldn't want the likes of the Imperials to be removed from an Elder Scrolls game just because some people dislike the idea of an Empire.

I just want an interesting and complex game world to explore at the end of the day.

[CrownySuccubus]

You must be thinking of something different here. Sil'dih was the sister neighbor of Ul'dah. It created a way of flood control which resulted in a war between it and Ul'dah over water, which Ul'dah ultimately won due to their thaumaturges creating a powder that brought the dead back to life as zombies, which they used on Sil'dih via catapults tossing it into the city. They then lied to the populace of Ul'dah that Sil'dih had been bringing back the dead, and used it as a preface for war, and then sealed Sil'dih so everybody would die.

Ah, okay. I honestly forgot about Sil'dih.

Yeah, that seems to fit with FFXIV's history of "This was grossly unjust, but doing anything about it now would disturb the status quo. Sooooooo...."

I just want a consistent approach. If the game presents something as 'unforgivable' and worthy of violent reform then I don't want it to then double down and say that the same thing is actually fine, so long as 'mommy' is the one partaking of it.

Then the game needs to start treating the WOL as a villain after taking certain actions. Even if we look at the case of the kobolds, a player character can go around and kill kobolds and then go on a diplomatic mission to make peace with the kobolds, and nobody is going to stop them.

If we want "consistency", then players need to be prepared to have the game stop coddling them.

I also want variety in the sort of cultures and nations that we interact with. Just because some people dislike the idea of the monarchy as a concept, I'd rather we didn't do away with the concept of a monarchy everywhere just to push through some lazy copy and paste of real world modern day 'democracy'. Equally, I wouldn't want the likes of the Imperials to be removed from an Elder Scrolls game just because some people dislike the idea of an Empire.

The game seems fairly neutral on concept of monarchy, to be honest. Nobody in-game is up in arms for Nanamo or Hien or Titania or the Moogle King to give up their thrones, and most countries that chose to forego monarchy did so for understandable reasons. Gyr Abania, Garlemald, and Eulmore all had literal tyrants that led their people to destruction. So it's not really surprising that they're not interested in putting another one on the throne.

[Raoabolic]

I also want variety in the sort of cultures and nations that we interact with. Just because some people dislike the idea of the monarchy as a concept, I'd rather we didn't do away with the concept of a monarchy everywhere just to push through some lazy copy and paste of real world modern day 'democracy'. Equally, I wouldn't want the likes of the Imperials to be removed from an Elder Scrolls game just because some people dislike the idea of an Empire.

I just want an interesting and complex game world to explore at the end of the day.

That's just a western problem. Personally, I wish we could have high fantasy stories that don't try to "teach a socially moral lesson" because all that does kneecap the writer from the get go. I guess at the end of the day the publishers will always call the shots over the devs so if the publishers want a bland story that caters to everyone over an engaging story that might not be for everyone then we will get the monetarily safe option.

[Lauront]

Personally, I wish we could have high fantasy stories that don't try to "teach a socially moral lesson" because all that does kneecap the writer from the get go.

I couldn't agree more.

[CrownySuccubus]

Schrodinger's fans typically want it both ways. They want their stories to be deep and relevant so they can brag about how sophisticated they are for enjoying it. But at the same time, they want to be able to dismiss something as a game they can just kick back and enjoy with no brainpower when it makes a point they don't agree with.