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

[Lauront]

Undecided. Comes down to how much freedom she has in practice, especially if they reshape things based on focus groups and how the story is received.

[Jandor]

It should at least be interesting to see what they can do when they outline the whole thing from the start.

I, for the most part, have liked all the MSQ and think they did a reasonable job tying it all together, but it's also incredibly obvious that they didn't have the end in mind when they started.

[EaraGrace]

Opinion poll time! :P Are you more confident, less confident, unchanged, or undecided about Ishikawa possibly (I'm not sure it's been confirmed) having done the outline for the next 10 years?

I'd have to say undecided. I wish they'd talked about Venat. Ishikawa admitting despite Hermes being her favorite character she thought 80% of players would hate him indicates she has her finger on the pulse more than Yoshi-P does, but without knowing the same about Venat it's hard to say.

I'm significantly less confident regarding Yoshi-P. I don't know how much influence he has in the story, but I'm as baffled by his responses to things as he is to ours.

I really gotta side with Yoshi P on this one. Both were motivated by emotional needs and wants, both acted to bring about death on massive scale in service of those emotional needs, and both were wrong to do so. Hermes existential crisis and need for meaning is no less understandable to me than Emets loneliness as a motivator after all. There’s not much reason to be ok with one over the other morally speaking.

I’ve liked Ishikawas work since Ysayle and Moenbryda so she’s got my support. Endwalker has only made me more a fan.

[PawPaw]

I'm between undecided and less confident. Depends on the direction the next couple of patches take. I'm not terribly interested in going back to an ARR-style of questing and waiting ages for something interesting to happen. Also depends on how much interference there is in the writing process, I guess; Though I'm not sure how much of the Disney feelsy crap was due to her or Yoshi-P.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I'm between undecided and less confident. Depends on the direction the next couple of patches take. I'm not terribly interested in going back to an ARR-style of questing and waiting ages for something interesting to happen. Also depends on how much interference there is in the writing process, I guess; Though I'm not sure how much of the Disney feelsy crap was due to her or Yoshi-P.

Honestly we could use the break. Doesnt necessarily have to be exact ARR pacing but the low scale stories pre-waking sands massacre is something I would want to just setup back into just adventuring

[SeverianLyonesse]

Opinion poll time! :P Are you more confident, less confident, unchanged, or undecided about Ishikawa possibly (I'm not sure it's been confirmed) having done the outline for the next 10 years?

I'd have to say undecided. I wish they'd talked about Venat. Ishikawa admitting despite Hermes being her favorite character she thought 80% of players would hate him indicates she has her finger on the pulse more than Yoshi-P does, but without knowing the same about Venat it's hard to say.

I'm significantly less confident regarding Yoshi-P. I don't know how much influence he has in the story, but I'm as baffled by his responses to things as he is to ours.

I think she has poor taste if Hermes is her favorite character. Between Hermes' poorly developed metanoia at the end of Elpis, the utterly contrived "test of humanity" and time-reversal plot devices, the vague hand-waving of the continuity of his soul post-sundering, the overall lazy and unnecessary retconning of Amon into his backstory, and the general insufferability of Fandaniel--imo a poor example of how to write a flippant character, as far as mannerisms, dialogue, and plotting are concerned--I think he is possibly the worst character in the series. I understand what Hermes/Fandaniel was supposed to function as in the story--I think it was horribly handled.

I think she's overrated. As much as I enjoyed ShB as a self-contained side story, I think it stands out as the least necessary expansion to the Hydaelyn arc. And Endwalker felt too splayed and rushed conceptually, and in several ways just a retrod of ShB ideas. So I don't have much faith in her ability to plot a whole multi-expansion arc. I wish I could say otherwise because she seems like a very nice person and despite being largely superfluous ShB had some outstanding ideas. But if Hermes is her barometer of her writing style, I think it quite likely that I will not like the ideas she puts forth in the future.

[Kozh]

Less confident. Though this is more likely because I don't have any connections with the remaining characters anymore. Every npc I love are dead now. Among the living, I only like thancred, alphinaud, and lyse. The rest can burn for all I care. And we all know lyse will be non-existent for the next adventure. So that shorten the already short list.

Sure, there will be new characters, but I hope to God they don't introduce characters who worship the WoL. Because that's the kind of character that get popular, and in turn become more focused on due to writers wanting to satisfy the fanbase. Sort of a loop I guess.

I just want the next story to be less "feels", and definitely less "shove down the writer's ideology and morality into the player's throat".

[Atelier-Bagur]

I think people got too enamoured by the edgy, emotional stories such as DK questline and Shadowbringers that honestly dampens too much the mood with the story sometimes. Im happy we got our lighter moments in EW and in general still enjoyed the expansion experience but yeah I miss the tone style of ARR and I hope 7.0 leans into it with more emphasis on adventure and less melodrama

[Skyborne]

I think she has poor taste if Hermes is her favorite character. Between Hermes' poorly developed metanoia at the end of Elpis, the utterly contrived "test of humanity" and time-reversal plot devices, the vague hand-waving of the continuity of his soul post-sundering, the overall lazy and unnecessary retconning of Amon into his backstory, and the general insufferability of Fandaniel--imo a poor example of how to write a flippant character, as far as mannerisms, dialogue, and plotting are concerned--I think he is possibly the worst character in the series. I understand what Hermes/Fandaniel was supposed to function as in the story--I think it was horribly handled.

I think she's overrated. As much as I enjoyed ShB as a self-contained side story, I think it stands out as the least necessary expansion to the Hydaelyn arc. And Endwalker felt too splayed and rushed conceptually, and in several ways just a retrod of ShB ideas. So I don't have much faith in her ability to plot a whole multi-expansion arc. I wish I could say otherwise because she seems like a very nice person and despite being largely superfluous ShB had some outstanding ideas. But if Hermes is her barometer of her writing style, I think it quite likely that I will not like the ideas she puts forth in the future.

This.
Guys... dying is sad, and I think we could treat these animals summoned from our own aether better. You want to judge them? Well, what if... they judged US? Huh? Huh? This says a lot about society. Are we... the baddies? Really makes you think about the meaning of life... oh, and FF3 funny clown theatre man because it's Yoshida's fave.

I do think planning out everything from the start, at least in a basic skeletal form, would benefit the next story though. It seemed obvious they were improvising things as they went along to an extent, though I've seen many who think that the writing team all planned everything out meticulously for the entire 10 years as if a writer looking at old things and going "Hmm, this will be useful" is something new. And as much as I liked parts of Shadowbringers for actually showing the antagonist's pov in a slightly more fair way than what we got in EW, it was also ground zero for all the "forge ahead!" "stand tall!" "better brighter tomorrow!" "hope hope hope!" nauseating and cloying preaching.

On top of that, it doesn't make me look forward to FF16 or its story much...

I
I’ve liked Ishikawas work since Ysayle and Moenbryda so she’s got my support. Endwalker has only made me more a fan.

She wrote Ysayle? Never knew that. I liked her since she was flawed and more gritty and had an actual spine. Her "delusion" of being Shiva reborn was shattered, but her sincerity and conviction wound up winning over Hraesvelgr. The game also never gave me the impression of forcing me to love her. Horsefarts seemed to get most of the acclaim, though.

[Rulakir]

I just want the next story to be less "feels", and definitely less "shove down the writer's ideology and morality into the player's throat".

I like emotional stories, I'm just over having my heart ripped out for people we're forced to kill and are never given another chance. The only 'redemption' stories I can recall are Gaius and Fordola, neither of whom I felt sympathy for or felt bad about defeating. Even after said 'redemption' I'm still not particularly a fan of them either. Next antagonist they make us fall in love with better switch sides and join us in the end is what I'm saying. :P

Agreed 100% about the ideology and morality.