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

[Carin-Eri]

I will agree for all the focus the concept of The Final Days had in marketing and EW lead up it pales in comparison to most threats that came before it. I always find it a bit sad The Calamity in the long term had way more effect on the world and story then something called The Final Days.

It also would have felt a bit more impactful if it had lasted longer and had effected more zones throughout the MSQ. I am amazed Sharlayan never had to deal with it for example. At the end of the day it added to EW feeling like a rushed job expansion because the writers wanted a new story and were sick of the old one.

Forced to agree.

I'm actually not in the 'Endwalker sucks' camp here - I enjoyed it and I'm not willing to pretend otherwise. And I wasn't exposed to the pre-launch marketing/hype since I didn't start playing the game until shortly after EW launched and avoided anything related to it for the sake of not spoiling the MSQ for myself. Playing the MSQ at my own pace, I didn't actually reach Endwalker until the following March.

And I watched the Footfalls Cinematic right before I started Endwalker. To this day I still think that cinematic was incredible - I recall watching it that first time. The music and the lyrics, the promise of a 'end of the world' scenario story. The emphasis on the moon and the question of it's role in the story, not to mention the question of why the Warrior of Light was on the moon - alone no less! I was completely blown away by it and couldn't wait to see how it would all translate into the story.

But even as someone who very much enjoyed Endwalker.... I don't think the story quite lived up to what the cinematic portrayed.

As you say, 'The Final Days' should've been a world-changing, almost apocalyptic, event - but it doesn't feel as if it had as big an impact, or long-term consequence, on the world as Dalamud/Bahamut did.

[Haru304]

Off the back of Shadowbringers, it was not really on the same tier to be quite honest, though I think Shadowbringers had the benefit of mostly being in its own segmented universe for the most part and while it had an enormous impact on the meta story, it did not solely revolve around the meta story of Eorzea. The Final Days was introduced in Shadowbringers, then imminently carried out in Endwalker. What we have in Endwalker, which I feel is the major problem, is far too much all happening at the same time.

- Destruction of the one major power in the world that's extremely militaristic
- A genocide that lasts for all of five minutes
- A very disappointing Zodiark reveal accompanied by the existence of moon rabbits
- Even more overt time travel themes
- Introduction of three different cultures and socities, unfortunately all extremely condensed (Garlemald, Sharlayan, Thavnair, etc) (actually, include Elpis and the Ancients in that too)
- Now, if you subtract the advent of Dawntrail, Eorzea has borderline Utopian feels. Beast Tribes have been brought into the fold, the Empire has been crippled over night, the Ascians are no more, the world is no longer ending, tempering is no longer an issue, etc. I'd hope by the time we return from overseas, there's some actual stress to deal with.

All in all, as far as MMORPG story content goes, it's not horrendous but it definetly could have been better. It had MGS4 vibes. "Let's tie up nearly every single loose thread ever as quickly as we can while clumsily introducing new ideas"

[LilithRose]

I personally don't mind how Zodiark was handled.
It would have been a bit too predictable to have him being the end goal
+ he's still a primal, we know how to deal with those by then, no matter how strong.

Having said that, I have always hated time-travel + memory spells as story elements, so I can't say I was a big fan of the whole Elpis chapter

Yeah, Zodiarc could've been a bit more impressive. But ehh, I agree more with the time-travel + memory spell story elements in the Elpis character. I feel like it also soiled the great legacy Emet left behind in Shadowbringers.
Or the happy sappy ending where all the main team's characters just make it through happily ever after. I would've loved to see some shake up/party change for the new expansion. Cause I feel character development has become quite stagnant in a lot of them. Far gone are the days where we were uncertain if some characters would make it through alive, and the impact THAT left us.

- Destruction of the one major power in the world that's extremely militaristic
- A genocide that lasts for all of five minutes
- A very disappointing Zodiark reveal accompanied by the existence of moon rabbits
- Even more overt time travel themes
- Introduction of three different cultures and socities, unfortunately all extremely condensed (Garlemald, Sharlayan, Thavnair, etc) (actually, include Elpis and the Ancients in that too)
- Now, if you subtract the advent of Dawntrail, Eorzea has borderline Utopian feels. Beast Tribes have been brought into the fold, the Empire has been crippled over night, the Ascians are no more, the world is no longer ending, tempering is no longer an issue, etc. I'd hope by the time we return from overseas, there's some actual stress to deal with.

All in all, as far as MMORPG story content goes, it's not horrendous but it definitely could have been better. It had MGS4 vibes. "Let's tie up nearly every single loose thread ever as quickly as we can while clumsily introducing new ideas"

This hits the nail on the head. It feels very much like this expansion is mostly there to tie up loose ends, and adds the areas we were still missing. So they had a lot they wanted to do, and kindoff rushed through each one. Not giving them the proper build up, no space to properly experience the drama of it and emotional tension that ties into such supposedly big events, nor the pay off for having aspired to many of these points for so long.

It didn't suck completely, but it's a far cry from reigniting my passion for this game, which has sadly been dwindling along with the job design choices, and the kindoff lackluster content this expansion.

My favorites will always be Heavensward and Shadowbringers.

[Vyrerus]

Forced to agree.

I'm actually not in the 'Endwalker sucks' camp here - I enjoyed it

My hype for Endwalker was higher than any other expansion, and it didn't really fade until a few weeks after it was over, and I was redoing the story on my as of yet unfinished LP character (stopped near the end of 6.1 on him iirc).

I wholeheartedly agree with you that it did not live up to the hype it generated. It was the first expansion I even requested off time from work to play ASAP.

[Dorito_Burrito]

A Garlemald expansion would've just been Stormblood 2.

[Vyrerus]

A Garlemald expansion would've just been Stormblood 2.

Probably someone's quip in the board room when they shelved the Garlean war expansion.

Stormblood really didn't give us a proper taste of a full on war with the Garleans until Ghimlyt Dark.

Paratroopers dropping down from the dreadnaught overhead. Magitek everywhere. Wrecked Magitek everywhere. Ceruleum oozing into the depleted soil that's been shelled to hell and back. Loads of side characters taking to the battlefield.

We basically got the 2.0 version of that in Bozja/Zadnor, and those had some of the finest content in the game. Castrum Lacus Litore and Dalriada. Particularly the Dalriada being lowkey a Final Fantasy II Dreadnaught mission reference.

[Supersnow845]

Garlemald didn’t get enough time but I don’t think outright war with them was ever on the table of a good idea, it is far more thematic to the story that they collapsed under their own weight when it was revealed they are being run by ascians in an attempt to facilitate a rejoining

SB wasn’t “big enough” on the conflict side but skirmishes over the territories (doma, gyr abania, Bozja) was all conflict with garlemald should have been, not open war

[Iscah]

The Final Days section with Thavnair was so infuriating I was screaming. The newborn section was just emotional manipulation with no sense, like a lot of EW. Why would a newborn "succumb to despair"? They're a newborn. All they know is "this is a stranger running with me", not "my parents just died". They aren't "in despair", they are crying because they're a newborn. Are you going to tell me that every child who cries in Thavnair is going to turn into a monster? That brings up such an important point, too: this story doesn't even seem to know what despair actually is. Most of the time the transformations are due to *fear*, not despair. It's just plot convenience, like the whole expac.

Actually I think the part with the baby makes perfect sense, because it is such an extreme circumstance and to me it just seemed like a natural conclusion that a baby doesn't have complex thinking yet and is just going to feel everything at its keenest. It doesn't comprehend "my parents have died" but it can comprehend "I want Mummy and this is not Mummy", "a strange person is holding me uncomfortably and shouting", "I am cold and wet", "I am being jolted around", probably there are all sorts of eerie noises and sensations going on around it, and it all becomes too much for a tiny mind that has no comprehension yet of staying calm or controlling emotions.

To be fair, yes, it seems that the transformation is more about reaching an immediate threshold of negative emotion that doesn't have to be long-term despair at all, but an underlying mood would perhaps bring people to that threshold sooner.

And yes, it is likely that some other children were thrown into a similar situation and had no last-minute reprieve, while others were kept safe and did not reach that threshold of utter misery.

[Vyrerus]

The most charitable I could be about the baby turning is that a baby's corporeal aether would naturally be thinner than an adults, so it could be turned without needing to give into despair at all.

Part of the Sundered's problem with The Final Days is that they are too thin aetherially and interact with Dynamis more readily, meaning they are at Dynamis's command if they slip into negative emotions too poignantly or for too long.

Remember, Alphinaud even counsels Jullus against getting too angry at Zenos.

I still don't think it delivers the baby scenes well, though, and they are definitely cheap, emotional manipulation, since I don't think we even learned the mom's name before her neck was broken. I would think given the trauma it experienced, even with Alphinaud wanding a healing hand over it, the baby would be unconscious after nearly drowning.

I still did really enjoy Matsya in that scene. All of Thavnair was one of the stronger points in Endwalker, even if it still has its issues.

[MikkoAkure]

This gambit was really, in my opinion, done to give them time to actually craft a war setting for the Garlean expansion that we were supposed to have, but the unexpected popularity surrounding Emet-selch and the Ascians' backstory and ancient civilization caused them to change course again.
[…]
[Bozja] was leavings leftover from the cancelled Garlean war expansion.

It feels like your point is based too heavily on a lot of wild personal speculation than anything substantial.

We already know that they didn’t begin to formally discuss the next expansion until after 5.0 had already released for players so it’s really doubtful to me that they already had plans for Shadowbringers as a buffer for 6.0 with a story and even assets made before 5.0 even came out and then abandoned or repurposed all that work just because players liked Emet-Selch. I don’t really think that we were “supposed to have” anything, it was never set in stone to begin with and they just write as they go.

A potential Garlemald expansion was never “cancelled”, that would mean that it would have actually had to have existed as something beyond just a vague idea. They said in an interview that they could have ended the story in one or two expansions, decided on one, and IF they had decided on two instead they just said that the first one would have been the Garlemald bits of what we already had in Endwalker without saying anything had actually been fully planned out more than that. I feel like a lot of people took that snippet from the interview and ran with it.

This narrative that they would have made assets for a potential future expansion in Garlemald way in advance that early and ended up having to reuse them in Bozja after that was scrapped doesn’t make much sense either. The first Bozja content came out in April of 2020 after the next expansion had already been decided in autumn/winter of 2019 so it’s likely would have needed to have been planned long before. You would think that the main content for Field Exploration/relics, hiring of a third party (Matsuno), and all the writing, gameplay, and assets would much more likely to have been planned well in advance of Shadowbringers’ release let alone just after “cancelling” Garlemald, and wouldn’t have anything to do with fan reactions to Emet-Selch.