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

[Renathras]

Slander is spoken. In print it's libel. (Joking... it's just a Spider-Man 2 reference...)

Let me just say this, and I mean it in all honesty and with all respect: it's not worth it. These same folk been complaining since 6.0 and will complain until 6.55 and probably beyond. If you liked it, that just has to be enough; ignore the hate, because it's not going to stop.

It might not feel right but in the long run ignoring it and letting it slide is the wiser course. It's not worth the time, effort, or frustration... and I know from experience dealing with the same crowd.

Yeah, understand that. The reply to you kind of proves the point.

And fair enough, libel.

[Lunaxia]

Yeah, fair enough. You're right in that I can't convince people beyond reason or understanding.

...I was talking about you. Under no circumstances is it ever acceptable to fly into an absolute rage and respond like that because you feel slighted against or attacked. You might feel hurt, or frustrated, or misunderstood by what people say, and that's normal, but the way in which you perceive what you hear and how very deeply and personally you take it is incredibly aggressive and concerning, to the point if I knew you in real life, I would feel quite wary. You take remarks on your posts and behaviour as attacks on you and can't differentiate between the two, and you also need to learn that while you may say one thing, that is not how it is coming across or appearing to someone else. Sometimes unconscious biases can seep through you're not aware of, and at times like that, perhaps reflect on what you hear rather than screaming at everyone else.

I'm also going to offer you some advice here, and I hope you will take this as advice and heed it, and not an attack: consider seeking professional help. If by any chance you are the good person you are purporting yourself to be, then I think a lot of it is being lost in personal issues you might not realise you're carrying. I really do mean this with the best of intentions, for you and those around you.

Let me just say this, and I mean it in all honesty and with all respect: it's not worth it. These same folk been complaining since 6.0 and will complain until 6.55 and probably beyond. If you liked it, that just has to be enough; ignore the hate, because it's not going to stop..

Are we still pretending this entire thread is just "hate" when the criticism is now being largely shared by the community across the board? Why would it be any different when if anything, most people actually agree the story has taken a stark downward slope since Endwalker?

This is what everybody here has been saying: mindlessly tarring everything said here with the same brush to lump it into one dismissive category is not reasoned discussion, and acting shocked when you get a rebuttal is silly on the face it.

[Renathras]

...I was talking about you.

In that case: Then you were wrong.

And look, you need to stop insisting things about people that aren't true. I was in no "absolute rate", and look, you were the one that read me saying "some people hate stuff, but some people just have different tastes, and that's okay", and you perceived that as a personal attack to which you responded very aggressively, did you not?

I differentiate between people critiquing arguments I make and people insulting me personally. For example "I disagree with your argument here, and here is why..." is not an attack on the person. "You are responding in bad faith and have a history of..." is an attack on the person. That should be clear...

...but why am I bothering? You aren't going to listen and you, despite your own sage advice, don't see you're doing the things you're accusing me of.

That said, I appreciate your best intentions and take that at face value of you being a decent person. My recommendation to you is to read what you just wrote here and in the post that I replied to above. Then go back and read this post:

...

And this post:

...

And ask yourself if you might need to listen to your own advice. In both cases, you took what I said as some kind of piercing personal attack, even though it wasn't (my first post wasn't directed at anyone, didn't mention anyone, didn't quote anyone, and I don't even recall interacting with you like this before such that you'd have any reason to think it DID apply to you in the first place). And in both cases, you responded aggressively. And in the second case, when you accused me of something - your first post accusing me of expressing false concern is an attack, btw - and I explained to you it was genuine concern, what was your response?

"No, it wasn't". You didn't listen to what I said, you didn't let me explain. You already decided you were personally insulted and you weren't going to let go of that since it was justifying your behavior. If you were wrong and I wasn't personally insulting you, it would mean your first post (and second) were uncalled for.

In essence, it looked like you flew into an absolute rage and responded like that because you felt slighted against or attacked.

You just said it is under no circumstances ever acceptable to behave as you did, right?

Yet...you did.

.

Again, I know you won't listen, but on the off chance maybe you aren't beyond reason, I'm saying in the hopes that you do. I don't believe you're a bad person, but you did what you just accused me of doing. And before I did it, at that.

[Theodric]

I think a lot of people would be rather surprised by who, exactly, is sitting behind the screen when it comes to individuals who choose to play MMO's. Though for obvious reasons - and especially given how volatile elements of this community repeatedly prove to be - a lot of us opt to keep silent on details regarding our private lives.

It's also very easy to claim to be pretty much anything under the veil of anonymity so anything revealed is going to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt in the first place. So any given statement may or may not be true but more importantly often it isn't really relevant to what's being discussed.

All that aside, I think Lunaxia has the right of it - after multiple pages of back and forth there's still bad faith attempts to frame criticism of the story as 'hate' and so the thread itself risks being entangled in a lengthy back and forth that ultimately doesn't amount to anything in the end.

[Banriikku]

Hate for Endwalker ? NO.
So whats wrong or my problem?

1. We have many NPC's with the sole purpose of Checkbox marking. No story telling or worldbuilding, just existing as "end in itself".
2. Endwalker ? More like "NO-Consequence-Walker". Many things happen without changing or shaping the world.
3. Repetition of outcomes and of gained information as if we would not listen and need a refresher EVERY 5 MINUTES.
4. Flat charchter arcs without progress, many even with regressing to old behavior without notice or reason.
5. We, as the protagonist, are not necessary for the story... at all we could be dead and still it would end up the way it is.
6. Deus Ex machina. ALL THE TIME. Here and there, its ok but damn Endwalker is based on this.
7. inconsistent story telling: All is dreadfull but my little pony with the power of friendship is the next logical step or "oh my god the stakes, we could loose so much" but here is Pudding.. funny ... haha.
7a. No real villains.... almost all and everybody is "not so bad" and has a redemption arc.
8. Almost no Worldbuilding in Endwalker itself. The most of it is already told through old expansions as if they had nothing to add.
9. Powerlevel... Where are we ? So what is our purpose again? It looks like we went from "we are Superman" to "we are Jimmy" and oscillate between those two for no reason.
10. Pacing. We go to learn something new and every aspect of it dragged out for no reason.

So my problem is not that "i hate" the story, its more like "Why the bad writing?".
The dialouge quality has dropped. NPC's talk with us as if we are toddlers. Repeating and always nice. We have no journey, we go from Deus Ex machinca to the next in which us Krile/Yshtola/Graha explains what/when/how we do things without earning them in any shape or form. And everybody is a sholar, diplomat, leader, magic expert, fighting expert, etc. without weakness except for us. And that leads to no telegraph for outcome or behavior. NPC's behave diffrently and weird, tools or knowledge are at our disposel that we should never have but we do and this makes many things obsolete and is therefore a huge problem in the lore and already told story.

And last but not least we are not allowed to come to a conclusion for behavior or expierence. We are told what to think and what is morally good and what is not. We are not allowed to draw our own conclusion. My best friend thinks Venat was right, i think she was not but the game tells me on repeat SHE WAS RIHGT instead of telling me the world of FF14 thinks she was right ... no she was right, stop thinking AND THINK WHAT WE WANT ABOUT IT. Absolut bonkers.

No hate at all but this is not good writing from SE.

[Renathras]

Oh, and I have critiques of Endwalker as well. A lot are mechanics (2 min meta, Job homogenization, fight tuning, lack of Eureka/Bozja type content, etc). As to the story:

I disliked the "do some chores" part of the story in Labyrinthos late in the 6.0 MSQ. I don't always oppose slowing the pace of a story or making a emotional break to something more lighthearted to cut tension. After Zodiark's defeat, I remember thinking "Well, crap. Now what do we do?". The transition to the Lopporits there I liked as a break from the weight while we recalibrated. We were given a lot of new information and lore, and pointed forward in the story when we didn't know where to go. It served as an intermission after the first act, and ultimately led to the second act. That, to me, is acceptable. But the Labyrinthos part was not.

When we return to Labyrithos, we know what we're doing and where we're going next (well, more or less). We have our mission and we're actively on it. We know the stakes, they've been built very high, and we know we've ended the second act and are ready to hit the third act running. Then we do busywork. Yeah, part of the WoL's character is that they help people, but helping someone find some lost research notes while the literal universe is in danger is KIND of a case of misplaced priorities. While the Urianger's in-laws scene was completely worth it, the pace break while we're waiting on the Ragnarok's engines to be completed was just waiting around busiywork. They could have had us help with the installation - it wouldn't be the first time we've done something technical, especially since the WoL has some knowledge of machinery at this point. We could have been collecting rare stuff - again, not the first time we've done that. Or we could have had a "night at the inn" scene with the gang and time skip and then launch day. There were so many better ways of dealing with it and that particular part still irks me to this day.

I liked 6.1, and the start of 6.2. But 6.3 after 4 months and which lasted for 4 months was completely pointless. What new story did we get? "We were distracted! Let's go to where they're trying to keep us from! Okay, we fixed that, come back in 4 months!" That was a patch story. Why?

I don't mind the Four Fiends story, but they really should have built them up more, shown us the armies each of the four command, let us get a sense of scale and danger, and then fight and defeat them.

Then what happened in 6.4? Well, we were told by Sharlyan that they had a massive oil field (basically), and it was totally theirs and we couldn't have any...but 9/10ths of the law it was in possession of monsters that the entire might of the city-state couldn't beat, but our team of 4 can handle. And if we do, do we own it now? Well, no, they still do (despite 9/10ths of the law saying otherwise at that point...) but they would LET us borrow some. Then we did some politics, made a barrier, and went to fight Golbez, only for him to "defeat in combat, win in cutscene" us and, "oh no, our shields are out of power, come back in 4 months!" just when the story was actually GOING SOMEWHERE.

I contend that the Void story should have been a full MSQ so we actually get the Fiends and their armies developed, fight and explore zones in the 13th, fight and kill the weaker one first, then the second one in a trial, then the latter two join together and we have a two boss second trial for the X.0 MSQ, then the final dungeon ends fighting Golbez for him to power up Zeromus for the final Trial. That would give time to flesh out and develop the characters, instead of that being relegated mostly to that sidequest with the Hecteye.

ALTERNATIVELY, Sacliromonge(sp?) should have been the 4.2 Trial, then 4.3 and 4.4 should have been us fighting through the armies and defeating the other Fiends, not this "distraction!" "clear out some monsters!" silliness, with 4.4 ending with us readying everything for the portal to the 13th, then 4.5 would have had what we had but the Golbez fight would have been the end of the dungeon, and then Zeromus the trial. I feel like there would have been better pacing and more story flow that way.

And don't tell me they didn't have time to build up the Fiends as threats and characters - considering how many times we got to see hat tipping and eating foods with different emotes, they could easily have devoted that time to story instead.

.

Oh, don't tell me I have no issues with EW's story. I very much did. I did think overall it wasn't bad, I liked most of 6.0, I liked 6.1 and part of 6.2, and I liked 6.5. But 6.3 and 6.4 were just so...well, my critique is above, so that's that.

[Lunaxia]

Well, I could have predicted that coming from a mile away. Let nobody say I didn't try.

[Nebelheim]

Well, I could have predicted that coming from a mile away. Let nobody say I didn't try.

At this point it seems there deflecting and saying everyone else are the ones taking offense at everything and feeling attacked. I don't think any amount of help will change anything. I thought you were being pretty helpful and not attacking him in anyway.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

At this point it seems there deflecting and saying everyone else are the ones taking offense at everything and feeling attacked. I don't think any amount of help will change anything. I thought you were being pretty helpful and not attacking him in anyway.

That's been their tactic everytime I actually see 'em lol.

Good thing internet never forgets & credentials cross checking always helps.

[Nebelheim]

That's been their tactic everytime I actually see 'em lol.

Good thing internet never forgets & credentials cross checking always helps.

It's funny he sees everyone else as the bad guys but never looks at themselves and why people respond to them the way they do. He acts like a victim and goes on angry rants on people who in no way attacks him then when they reply back deflects after reading into things the wrong way and calls people names when no one calls him any. People have gone out of there way to even be helpful to him but sees it as an attack then attacks the people helping him. It seems he is even using being former ex military as some sort of way to hopefully get people to shut up and not respond or shut down any sort of debate.