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

[Lunaxia]

Probably shouldnt quit their day job if thats the material theyre going with

It's not quite up to the standards of ripping story material straight from other games or using ancient space rocks as a Chekhov's gun to bludgeon character development to death, but I'm trying my best.

[KageTokage]

My sole thought at the end of Pandaemonium was "Am I supposed to feel good about any of this?".

I already had a bad feeling once the first tier was confirmed to be in the past, and while the story was interesting, I had a nagging hunch there was no way anyone was getting a happy ending, but hoped I'd at least be able to end it with a clean conscience by telling the truth to Themis and company instead of just acting to maintain history's twisted course; especially because the law of causality dictates that we literally can't change the future and fate would either conspire to keep things the same, or we'd spawn an alternate universe while our own timeline remains unchanged.

Themis opts for willful ignorance so he could continue to feel good about us despite having even more reason to hate us after knowing of our involvement in the past and Ericthonios consigns himself to a lonely solitude in Pandaemonium until the day he died in the Sundering out of duty to his people and no amount of praise and comforting words from them is going to keep me feeling like my WoL was a terrible person for not telling them anything to try to spare them from cruel fate.

[RyuDragnier]

It's also what is commonly referred to as a joke.

You say that, but remember certain posters here will make comments like that and 100% mean it. They're also the reason why criticism on the game/story isn't taken seriously a lot.

[Vyrerus]

It's also what is commonly referred to as a joke.

[Fiel_Tana]

My sole thought at the end of Pandaemonium was "Am I supposed to feel good about any of this?".

I already had a bad feeling once the first tier was confirmed to be in the past, and while the story was interesting, I had a nagging hunch there was no way anyone was getting a happy ending, but hoped I'd at least be able to end it with a clean conscience by telling the truth to Themis and company instead of just acting to maintain history's twisted course; especially because the law of causality dictates that we literally can't change the future and fate would either conspire to keep things the same, or we'd spawn an alternate universe while our own timeline remains unchanged.

Themis opts for willful ignorance so he could continue to feel good about us despite having even more reason to hate us after knowing of our involvement in the past and Ericthonios consigns himself to a lonely solitude in Pandaemonium until the day he died in the Sundering out of duty to his people and no amount of praise and comforting words from them is going to keep me feeling like my WoL was a terrible person for not telling them anything to try to spare them from cruel fate.

I felt it heading the same way (Pandaemonium spoiler)

When we were sent to the past again near the end I wrote in the private instance /say the entire history of what would happen to them and asked Elidibus to promise to save everyone.

Silly and sentimental perhaps, but the RP value for me at least meant that my WoL is still my WoL, she wouldn't have let it all come to pass without trying to warn of the final days and Venat killing everyone they loved.

Split timelines are possible in the story, I'd rather headcannon that a better future may yet be possible for them even if I never see it in the game.

[Akamadoshi]

Yeah, I think they really did Zodiark dirty. He was this epic evil-god figure, until EW hit and he became a muppet.

I wanted to meet Zodiark so much since Shadowbringers.............
Not only did they do Zodiark dirty....... I wasn't even done fuming and being disappointed how his ark ended and they threw Leporitto in our faces as if it all was a joke.
Unfortunately as somebody who LOVES FFXIV story more than anything in the world of stories......... THAT hit me harder than ANYTHING the story threw at us before....
And sadly that resulted me into disliking the moon allies......... and I still dislike them. Surely they are cute.... But they were introduced when I wasn't emotionally ready for it.
That's what made me--regardless how it ended--dislike Endwalker more than any expansion this game released. My favourite was Stormblood. (ARR is not an expansion, we don't talk about 1.0!)

[Khet_Fyth]

And then made it emo.

[DevonEllwood]

My sole thought at the end of Pandaemonium was "Am I supposed to feel good about any of this?".

I already had a bad feeling once the first tier was confirmed to be in the past, and while the story was interesting, I had a nagging hunch there was no way anyone was getting a happy ending, but hoped I'd at least be able to end it with a clean conscience by telling the truth to Themis and company instead of just acting to maintain history's twisted course; especially because the law of causality dictates that we literally can't change the future and fate would either conspire to keep things the same, or we'd spawn an alternate universe while our own timeline remains unchanged.

Themis opts for willful ignorance so he could continue to feel good about us despite having even more reason to hate us after knowing of our involvement in the past and Ericthonios consigns himself to a lonely solitude in Pandaemonium until the day he died in the Sundering out of duty to his people and no amount of praise and comforting words from them is going to keep me feeling like my WoL was a terrible person for not telling them anything to try to spare them from cruel fate.

These points were the only points about the raid I didn't like. There is enough wiggle room for me to at least pretend that there was an offshoot from the stupid time loop where things ended differently. I will continue to believe that something changed whether I'm told otherwise or not because with all the meddling we did in the past, things not ending differently somewhere seem entirely unlikely.

Over all I was generally okay with the raid story. It was just...okay. I feel elements in the raid were handled much better than in Endwalker itself including lore elements. There feels less shoehorning and less subverting expectations just to do it. There were two things I really appreciated with it though:

The first being when Laha asked if they managed to deal with despair and there was no dialogue option and his response being "it's a complicated answer". This is the best that could have been done. It is a complicated answer because I feel they did "whether through despair" but a certain someone thought it wasn't good enough. Not everyone is going to react to tragedy or stress the same way. Endwalker stating there's a "correct" way to react to tragedy completely completely undermines people with depression, anxiety, past trauma, etc. and I did not appreciate that. the raids I feel handles it a bit better by giving no dialogue option to pick from, just "it's complicated".

the other point is that Elidibus's soul did not burn up with him opening a time portal as people suspected. I'm happy about that, though his last times are weird and and wanting to know what they were outside of English. It seems like there may be a continuation, or a warning for the future.

I'm half asleep, but I wanted to get my thoughts out before I forgot or felt like not bothering anymore. I'm actually reading the forums from home for a change and not pre-typing this up at work.

My expectations were low, truly. I just had a feeling somehow. But somewhere between the Puella Magi Magical Goth Fairy and "aliens did it" I felt my sanity called into question.

I think the heart came from a meteor or "falling star" since they mentioned it came from another star.

This text limit needs to be increased, tired of having to edit everything I post.

[Eisi]

You say that, but remember certain posters here will make comments like that and 100% mean it. They're also the reason why criticism on the game/story isn't taken seriously a lot.

I have not seen a single person on this forum who cares about the story and doesn't criticize it.

[Dzonathan]

What could they even throw at us with our current power level that could be remotely threatening?

- Pincer movement force WoL to commit to one front and sacrifice the other
- Natural Disasters
- Sickness, Pestilence
- Societal Collapse
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Assassination during sleep or meal
- Betrayal