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

[kpxmanifesto]

don't like how they suddenly bring up meteion and make her a last boss, i don't even pity her because the time we spend together is pnly a few hour... bit that's all that bugs me

Yeah I think the general consensus is that Meteion was shoehorned in a little too suddenly to be a convincing last boss for the game. Also, dynamis is pretty silly.

[Melorie]

I feel kinda disillusioned with the '' mainstream '' where games like GoW and TLOU or even HZD are put up on a pedestal as '' the greats '' of game story-telling, if they were movies they'd be average at best, and they try too hard to be '' artsy '' imo.

I mean, if you're really into narrative games, I don't think you would put these on a pedestal regardless. But I agree that if we're comparing these triple AAA games that get praised to oblivion, then yes, FFXIV storytelling is indeed better suited to my tastes (even though the anime tropes can get old fast).

[Ryaz]

Yeah I think the general consensus is that Meteion was shoehorned in a little too suddenly to be a convincing last boss for the game. Also, dynamis is pretty silly.

General consensus of the forums anyway. Plenty of others have enjoyed the story and Meteion (who to me wasn't actually the last boss... she was just representative of the whole despair vs hope theme that has been going since day 1). To me, EW was less about saving the world and more about how the characters you've been with since the beginning have grown. If players aren't fond of the Scions, which some have outright stated they dont like, it's not going to land as well.

[Caurcas]

On the topic of why EW might be disappointing for some, I would also point a finger at ShB. While beloved by many, I feel its story kind of wrote the narrative into a corner it really couldn't get itself out of. It also kind of jumped the shark in alot of ways. SB and HW were way better structured overall.

[KizuyaKatogami]

General consensus of the forums anyway. Plenty of others have enjoyed the story and Meteion (who to me wasn't actually the last boss... she was just representative of the whole despair vs hope theme that has been going since day 1). To me, EW was less about saving the world and more about how the characters you've been with since the beginning have grown. If players aren't fond of the Scions, which some have outright stated they dont like, it's not going to land as well.

Just because it’s the forums that’s talking out about it more doesn’t make it any less relevant though. The main reason it may be spoken about more here is because twitter/reddit is a much more toxic environment to state opinions than an official forum page that is (somewhat) moderated. The problem with EW being “less about saving the word” is that this isn’t how it was advertised or built up at all. Especially if you read up on Yoshi p’s interviews or statements pre expansion. As for the whole scion thing, i think the scions growing thing is a bit hit or miss. For example Yshtola was hardly an afterthought in this entire expansion.

[Rise-chu]

On the topic of why EW might be disappointing for some, I would also point a finger at ShB. While beloved by many, I feel its story kind of wrote the narrative into a corner it really couldn't get itself out of. It also kind of jumped the shark in alot of ways. SB and HW were way better structured overall.

Yes. The more I think about it the more I think Shadowbringers should have been the climax since the devs refused to give us an expansion where we get more involved with the Garlean Civil War. The thing is you don't even have to eject Emet Selch to give us a Garlemald: Civil War expansion, he could be folded into it very easily and still be his charming self. So we wouldn't have lost anything important from Shadowbringers!

Instead Shadowbringers gave us silly time travel, a very boring antagonist in the form of Vauthry, introduced a lot of lore that completely derailed the fascinating build up to Garlemald and now...we have this.

Tea parties and standing in fields of flowers to defeat the villain. Well, okay.

[Lauront]

Perhaps it could've worked. I think part of it is that Yoshida wanted to do a more high fantasy rendition of Eorzea. But in the end, while I enjoyed SHB, I wasn't all that satisfied with how few differences there were between two worlds which drastically differed in aether density (they've been quite emphatic that this can have drastic effects on locations in the world) and also had very different passage of time. With that said, a Garlean civil war expansion, making full use of Varis and Elidibus (and I suppose... Zenos), and Emet-Selch picking up the next expansion, eventually culminating in driving back the cause of the Final Days (with something a bit less lame than bird girl as the ultimate cause... I still would've liked something styled after Lavos or Jenova better), I could see working.

IMO, part of the issue is that they probably regretted some plot aspects seeded into SHB and so had to find a way to untether themselves from them, so if you followed SHB closely, some of it comes across strangely (mainly referring to the cause of the dispute between Venat's faction and the other ancients here... EW handles this quite differently in its montage.) EW still could've picked up where SHB left off had it chosen different narrative devices (e.g. using the echo to peer into the past), but what killed it for me was the time travel and forced nature of the narrative that went with it...

[KariTheFox]

General consensus of the forums anyway.

Given the number of threads that have dozens of pages arguing back and forth about whether or not people liked the story, I don't think you can say there is a "consensus" on the forums either.

[Jybril]

i find it OK, good for mmo standard, but really mediocore for rpg/books/movie standard...

don't like how they suddenly bring up meteion and make her a last boss, i don't even pity her because the time we spend together is pnly a few hour... bit that's all that bugs me

the worst part is how people who like it treat it like a godly story and refuse to disscuss whats good and bad, because to them yoshida and ishikawa is god that can't make any mistake

Players here will maul you the moment you say anything bad about this game.
EW is way less enjoyable, story-wise than SHB to me, I actually put it below SB if you ignore the Ala Mhigo part, which was really badly handled.

EW suffers from terrible pacing issues that should have been told across the entire expansion. I found it hilarious when we had the Forum people in the game say the sky is about to fall, you had a NPC literally ask "How long do we have?" the response, "Soon tm" then that night you choose your lover to come to see you, the next day all hell broke loose but no one really seems like they're in a panic and the rest of Eorzea is chilling.

Pacing, pacing, pacing. I'm still sorely disappointed how Garelmeld was held and the Moon too. Hopefully the next patches redeem itself because EW is not that great to me by any means.
Not to mention Meteion who was shoehorned. Sorry, I did not care about Hermes' love doll going evil or how Zenos had fook all to do with anything. I hope he's gone for good.

I'd say from best to worst in story expansions:
SHB > HW > SB > EW > ARR.
SB was saved for me because Doma/Steppes were actually a really good arcs. To hell with Ala Mhigo lol.

[OhNooo]

Pacing, pacing, pacing. I'm still sorely disappointed how Garelmeld was held and the Moon too. Hopefully the next patches redeem itself because EW is not that great to me by any means.
Not to mention Meteion who was shoehorned. Sorry, I did not care about Hermes' love doll going evil or how Zenos had fook all to do with anything. I hope he's gone for good.

I'd say from best to worst in story expansions:
SHB > HW > SB > EW > ARR.
SB was saved for me because Doma/Steppes were actually a really good arcs. To hell with Ala Mhigo lol.

I actually enjoyed Garlemald. As far as the moon goes...I definitely thought we got there way too easy, but seeing all the souls aimlessly wandering was sad to see. Then it felt like you blinked and we were fighting Zodiark. The pacing after this just didn't make sense to me.

For story I actually put HW slightly over Shb so my story list would be HW > SHB > EW > SB > ARR but for gameplay I'd have to say I had the most fun in Stormblood; I greatly enjoyed Omega, the trials and the Ivalice Raids and had some of the best times I've ever had in this game during that time.