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

[Rulakir]

It's my sincere hope that our arrival and adventures in Pandaemonium are paving the way for an eventual "Split Timeline" reveal. The first tier capped off with the guy who asked us to time travel more or less saying "You've changed the past, but somehow it hasn't affected the present", which could easily be seen as supporting such a development.

Unfortunately, I suspect this is going to be more time loop nonsense, but EW turned me into even more of a pessimist. :P

Elidibus' fate in our timeline is likely unchanged unless they retcon it. I would love something after Pandemonium where we find out Emet & Hyth were able to retrieve Elidibus' soul from the First, especially because that would make the intervention in SoS not appear so brutal given EW context. As much as I'd like an AU, I still want to 'fix' our timeline as much as possible and part of that is Elidibus not having burned through his soul for time travel fuel.

[AziraSyuren]

snip

Now that you’re done, I can say that the reason I think it’s not the best comparison is because ME3 set up the Reapers as a threat too powerful and too grave to reasonably deal with, so they ended up pulling a mediocre out-of-nowhere superweapon to handle it for us. The tension was there, the sense of dread was there, but too much of a good thing rolled over into being a threat that didn’t make sense to beat. By comparison, as anti-climactic as it was, at least we nipped the Final Days in the bud before it became a threat so grave that it’d require Catalyst-level nonsense to actually deal with.

And while it was still nonsense in its own way, Dynamis was nowhere near as nonsense as the Catalyst (both the object and the character).

[Rosenstrauch]

snip

I agree that they built the Reapers up too much to have a reasonable solution to them. But I don't think it bothers me all that much that the unreasonable solution was "blow them up with a really big bomb". That it was such an oddly specific bomb... yeah, that bothers me.

Otherwise it's just like... Lavos. So powerful it can manipulate the flow of time and space, brainwash people to do its bidding, alter and guide the genetic evolution of an entire planet's lifeforms... but Crono whacking it in the face with a sword a dozen or two times is enough to put it down for good (until the sequel).

EDIT: Also, I think I'd hate the the Crucible a hell of a lot more if I'd played the game before the endings got expanded on. Back when it was just "pick the color of your ending".
Also also, I can't believe this slipped my mind, but the very idea that you can only use the weapon made to destroy the Reapers with their explicit approval just baffles me. But that's just another reason for me to say "Removing the Starchild would make the ending better".

Where Dynamis gets me is that it's not even remotely clear that it was necessary to enable the final confrontation with Meteion. All it's ever used for is emulating things that other power sources could already do. Limit Breaks were explicitly aether-based until the Endsinger opened her mouth to squawk "dYnAmIs?!" at us. The telepathy and universal translation stuff was stuff the Echo could reasonably do... or already did. As was the whole "transcending your limits" thing. It's literally called Transcendent Power or something rather than "the Echo" in the Japanese text, iirc.

It's like Dynamis is trying to be the Unreasonable Solution to the Insurmountable Problem, like the Crucible/Catalyst was to the Reapers. Except the problem doesn't seem nearly as insurmountable as the writers wanted it to be, and more reasonable and less genocidal means of dealing with Meteion seem plenty viable as well.

[CrownySuccubus]

I agree that they built the Reapers up too much to have a reasonable solution to them. But I don't think it bothers me all that much that the unreasonable solution was "blow them up with a really big bomb". That it was such an oddly specific bomb... yeah, that bothers me.

Otherwise it's just like... Lavos. So powerful it can manipulate the flow of time and space, brainwash people to do its bidding, alter and guide the genetic evolution of an entire planet's lifeforms... but Crono whacking it in the face with a sword a dozen or two times is enough to put it down for good (until the sequel).

EDIT: Also, I think I'd hate the the Crucible a hell of a lot more if I'd played the game before the endings got expanded on. Back when it was just "pick the color of your ending".
Also also, I can't believe this slipped my mind, but the very idea that you can only use the weapon made to destroy the Reapers with their explicit approval just baffles me. But that's just another reason for me to say "Removing the Starchild would make the ending better".

Where Dynamis gets me is that it's not even remotely clear that it was necessary to enable the final confrontation with Meteion. All it's ever used for is emulating things that other power sources could already do. Limit Breaks were explicitly aether-based until the Endsinger opened her mouth to squawk "dYnAmIs?!" at us. The telepathy and universal translation stuff was stuff the Echo could reasonably do... or already did. As was the whole "transcending your limits" thing. It's literally called Transcendent Power or something rather than "the Echo" in the Japanese text, iirc.

It's like Dynamis is trying to be the Unreasonable Solution to the Insurmountable Problem, like the Crucible/Catalyst was to the Reapers. Except the problem doesn't seem nearly as insurmountable as the writers wanted it to be, and more reasonable and less genocidal means of dealing with Meteion seem plenty viable as well.

What annoyed me more about the Reapers is that the first and second game set up a perfect "Achilles' Heel" for them -- that is, the whole "Assuming Direct Control" thing.

In the first game, Sovereign BSODed when he tried to assume control of Saren, and that's the only reason the Citadel Fleets were even able to beat it. Until then, Sovereign was stomping them. Then, when Harbinger was introduced in the sequel, we see that the workaround the Reapers have come up with for this is to assume control of someone who can also assume control of someone else. That way, as long as the direct host is not killed, the Reaper themself doesn't have to worry. I thought for sure that they were setting this up for an organic way to stop the Reapers in the third game.

But then, nope....Eleventh-Hour superweapon. Hell, the Collectors don't even reappear for the entirety of the third game outside of DLC and multiplayer. From what I heard, the reason for taking out the Collectors was that the dev team were upset with how overused Harbinger was as a meme. Which is....childish, to put it mildly. Harbinger was ridiculously quotable, yes, but the Collectors were also such an enjoyable part of Mass Effect 2 that the third game was absolutely worse for it. Especially if their removal also resulted in the aforementioned foreshadowing, and made Harbinger completely silent for the literal finale of its saga.

[YukikoKurosawa]

So.....what WAS the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[aveyond-dreams]

I had a longer post typed up but decided against posting it. Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

[Kuritzkale]

I had a longer post typed up but decided against posting it. Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

You're a king bro, don't worry. As someone who has felt disconnected from the community from the start, I understand the feeling. But don't worry about it, you've got supporters, and are one of the few people on here who care enough to write out long responses to things, while remaining pretty reasonable.

Side note, mass effect has a better story than FFXIV could ever hope to have. Not that the FFXIV story is all bad, but even with the bad ending mass effect absolutely sweeps every single FF game, including 14. This has been an OBJECTIVE statement from the Mass Effect Follower. Don't even know how it was brought up, just thought I'd share my objective opinion on it.

[GrizzlyTank]

I had a longer post typed up but decided against posting it. Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

But... It's always been theirs...

[Theodric]

I had a longer post typed up but decided against posting it. Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

It's unfortunate but the recent Live Letter simply made it clear that this isn't actually a story driven game any longer. It just pretends to be one. Anyone invested in the story is punished for paying attention and even more so if they dare to want depth rather than lazy 'hApPy EnDiNgS' that mysteriously clad the protagonists in plot armour, give them everything they want and force the antagonists to lose absolutely everything they care about - including their ideals. Even the antagonists that stick around - such as Fordola and Gaius - are forced to admit that they were 'wrong' in a way that punishes them disproportionately.

I've already got one foot out of the door. The shift towards slice of life and 'comedy' already annoyed me but now the relic weapons are being tired to something that I loathe and find to be beyond childish. I'm going to be using Elder Scrolls Online as a stepping stone until Ashes of Creation comes out. This is no longer the game I fell in love with and it isn't going back to where I want it to be. Players who actually liked the setting for what it originally was have, unfortunately, been thrown under the bus.

I agree with Rulakir's suggestion, though - you're certainly not alone in your thoughts.

[Katoar]

until Ashes of Creation comes out.

I actually can't wait for it to release. I played in Alpha and healers lvl10 there were better designed than in FFXIV.