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

[Rulakir]

They are most assuredly the Lambs of Dalamud. I remember a while back that Koji was asked about them and wanted to see more done with them. Then before EW it was said they'd be featured again, although, I don't know for what purpose. I don't get the appeal, but whatever. I believe they're also in the Tam Tara starter dungeon as well.

There wasn't anything in the trailer that struck me as interesting. I'm glad at least Azeyma doesn't appear to be Venat. The 'Twelve' bosses look cool, but I hate raiding so other than that it's meaningless to me.

Alternatively, we could also have encounters with characters with motivations similar to Ardyn

I loved Ardyn and frankly wanted to see him win. I didn't particularly like Noctis or most of those on the protagonist's side except for Ignis. Now that I think about it, similar feelings regarding the Scions and the Ascians.

I'm over sympathetic antagonists who end up losing everything and, worse, because after the complete and utter defeat of them the Scions are on the sidelines cheering and patting themselves on the back. It's tasteless. I've said before that FFXIV's narrative comes across as Saturday Morning Cartoon at times, like we need to drive home that the "villain" is beyond redemption and must be condemned despite claims of nuance and no one right side. Well, the 'right' side is always the Scions and whatever they're championing and the 'wrong' side is always who the WoL is sent to crush underfoot to joyous accolades. As we've seen with Venat, it doesn't even matter how atrocious the actions of those on the protagonist's side are, as long as they are in support of the WoL/Scions they are presented as good which is a whole host of issues in itself.

I need a break from being made to feel bad for antagonists, even ones I don't like such as Hermes. Please just give me someone who's fun to love to hate for a change or, barring that, someone who if we're made to like doesn't have to be permanently killed off especially while the Scions won't even break a fingernail in the struggle.

[aveyond-dreams]

I need a break from being made to feel bad for antagonists, even ones I don't like such as Hermes. Please just give me someone who's fun to love to hate for a change or, barring that, someone who if we're made to like doesn't have to be permanently killed off especially while the Scions won't even break a fingernail in the struggle.

In terms of unsympathetic antagonists, I believe the best representation of one in the series is Kefka. In stark contrast to the failures of Hermes and Zenos, Kefka accomplished much more by simply being entertaining and not wasting the player's time with teases that never come true or convoluted plot elements like time travel or memory wipes.

Kefka's backstory as the first experimental magitek knight is hardly something an FFVI player needs to understand before they get to really enjoy whenever this character comes on screen, which works well for unsympathetic antagonists because the goal should never be to coax the player into "understanding what they went through" to justify their later actions. I did not appreciate the attempt to get me to feel sorry for Hermes, I liked him better when he was just a psychotic jester.

It was a bad use of screentime, meanwhile when it came to Kefka we got to see him poison and take out Doma in one swoop, a humorous introduction where he literally got his soldiers to wipe the sand off his boots, along various scenes where he betrays his imperial allies and his other acts of cruelty, like him turning various espers into magicite one by one as they threw themselves against him. We do not feel sorry for the character-but we know that whenever he comes on that something worth watching is happening.

The scenes of Hermes in Elpis were a failed attempt to get players to "feel" for him with very little action outside his final scene, but ultimately did more to turn players against him, especially those of us who are no longer affected by the hype from launch and people who were, for logical reasons, sympathetic to the Ancients. Endwalker would have worked excellent without him and with either Zenos or Venat taking on the role of primary antagonist, but I suppose the overwhelming urge to "subvert expectations!" couldn't be resisted by whoever decided to rework the story that the lead writers had already laid out.