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

[anhaato]

The only role quests I've finished so far are ranged and healer, but I'm getting the distinct impression that, despite the actual plots being lackluster, the themes within are far more consistent and realistic than whatever the msq was trying to force feed us. For the healer quest, particularly, Fordola and Arenvald were more compelling characters than the scions could ever hope to be, especially because we actually got the sense that Fordola's life was in real danger. Sure, she didn't die or anything so it wasn't a super dark storyline but the moments where the dread was taking over did get me concerned for her. It made her so much more relatable than the scions, who I assume are supposed to just be the poster children for how to perfectly respond to grief and not be affected by despair thus never actually being at risk of becoming a blasphemy at any point. That's so boring. I'd much rather aspire to be someone who can overcome problems, rather than trying to emulate someone who never has never had them (yes, this is hyperbole) because I inherently can't relate to the scions in that aspect.

The scions' issues 100% of the time boil down to "I'm right and no one else gets it," meanwhile Fordola has actually had to cope with the consequences of her actions and trying to overcome her past, even though she knows she can't be truly forgiven. That's LEAGUES above any of the scions, except maybe pre-EW Thancred who used to have the guilt over Minfilia's parents plaguing him before he turned into cardboard.

[Xirean]

The only role quests I've finished so far are ranged and healer, but I'm getting the distinct impression that, despite the actual plots being lackluster, the themes within are far more consistent and realistic than whatever the msq was trying to force feed us. For the healer quest, particularly, Fordola and Arenvald were more compelling characters than the scions could ever hope to be, especially because we actually got the sense that Fordola's life was in real danger. Sure, she didn't die or anything so it wasn't a super dark storyline but the moments where the dread was taking over did get me concerned for her. It made her so much more relatable than the scions, who I assume are supposed to just be the poster children for how to perfectly respond to grief and not be affected by despair thus never actually being at risk of becoming a blasphemy at any point. That's so boring. I'd much rather aspire to be someone who can overcome problems, rather than trying to emulate someone who never has them because I inherently can't relate to the scions in that aspect.

It really depends on which role quests you do. Phys range, Caster, Healer were imo the best role quests of EW. Phys melee and tank were both very poor. The completion quest follows a similar theme that other quests in garlemald have taken. Which I know some in here have already found lackluster.

[Lucida3b]

I've only done the caster one so far, leveling other classes for them

But from what i've seen at least the caster one continued with HW plot ideas, and i liked how they mentioned that some people do use faith to not fall into despair. Im not religious by any means but I find that a refreshing viewpoint after many games and modern times going full jrpg 'kill the god fuck religion' type deal

Only issue is that i wish the blasphemy wasnt a full recolor, but its not the worst thing and was fitting for the HW areas

[Raoabolic]

I've only done the caster one so far, leveling other classes for them

But from what i've seen at least the caster one continued with HW plot ideas, and i liked how they mentioned that some people do use faith to not fall into despair. Im not religious by any means but I find that a refreshing viewpoint after many games and modern times going full jrpg 'kill the god fuck religion' type deal

Only issue is that i wish the blasphemy wasnt a full recolor, but its not the worst thing and was fitting for the HW areas

You know, for all the hate EW gets there are good parts of the story like the caster role quest. The whole quest line felt a lot more nuanced than the EW MSQ. Near the beginning of the questline I assumed it was going to go full "kill the god fuck religion" but I was pleasantly surprised how it ended.

[aveyond-dreams]

I've only bothered to do the tank and caster ones so far but the caster one beats the tank one by a landslide. There's no way to make me care about Kan-E-Senna or the absurdities of how things work in tree land. Good riddance to Gridania, may the story never take us back there.

Ishgard on the other hand was refreshing to revisit my favourite locales from Heavensward and as annoying as those escort quests are, at least I got to briefly hang out with Estinien. I wish he was the main party's tank instead of Thancred, or goodness forbid G'raha Tia. He's the Cecil to Estinien's Kain, the two fit together well in the same party.

While I doubt those two would ever have the back and forths Estinien had with Ysayle, at least Estinien and Aymeric can hold organic conversations with each other in contrast to how distanced he is from the Scions. As far as posterboys are concerned, I'd much rather put up with twitter gushing over the likes of either those two instead of someone like G'raha who is just...unheroic in both appearance and mannerisms. All his deeds in Shadowbringers are reduced to nothing every time we're forced into another tail wagging sparkly eye scene where he's whining to Krile about how much he wants to chase after my character.

I recall at least once we did have some kind of dinner scene with Aymeric that was interrupted by something. In a total reversal of Endwalker's writing style, it was a slow paced and fitting break from action where we got to spend some time with a character who had been through quite a lot. Subtle, elegant, not much that makes me react negatively to him. He speaks to you like a normal individual, a rare occurrence these days, and without obsessively hammering the point of how much he cares for you!! every other scene.

No one realistically behaves this way, which is why Alisae and G'raha Tia come across as so grating at times. You don't have to tell someone how much you care that often unless it's a piece of straight up fanfiction written for the express purpose of eliciting a sense of comfort. Endwalker is an expansion about the end of the world (allegedly). That kind of stuff didn't need to be as prominent as it was. Instead of repeating it over and over, they could have saved it for a single critical moment and had so much more impact.

[Theodric]

As far as posterboys are concerned, I'd much rather put up with twitter gushing over the likes of either those two instead of someone like G'raha who is just...unheroic in both appearance and mannerisms.

Firmly agreed.

For reference:



Would he even be as popular as he is if not for existing to fawn over player self inserts? I have my doubts.

[MoofiaBossVal]

For the Doma ranged DPS rolequest, I liked how people had a beef with Hien and didn't "forgive and forget", and one person actually tried to kill him. Would like to see more of that. Sadly the story ended in the usual fashion, with the hero giving a speech and then all of his detractors forgetting their grievances and becoming enthusiastic supporters. In FFXIV, it seems that heroes can't have anything less than a 100% approval rating.

Phys melee and tank were both very poor.

I thought that the melee DPS quest in Limsa was really fun. It wasn't yet another sob story. No attempt at "themes" to fall flat on its face on. Just a fun monster hunting adventure with an entertaining character. Also had a decently entertaining solo instance, trying to kill the fireballs as quickly as possible. Best rolequest.

The tank story in Gridania was meh but the solo instance was at least vaguely challenging. Also had me in the edge of my seat towards the end when the bodyguard was at 10% HP and taunted the boss away out of the arena. I thought he was going to sacrifice himself. Maybe I'm just too used to WoW where NPCs can canonically die during gameplay. Warbrave Oro dying right in front of me in Highmountain, or that Pandaren widower being consumed by the Sha in Townlong Steppes was more impactful to me than most cutscene deaths.

[Lustre]

For the Doma ranged DPS rolequest, I liked how people had a beef with Hien and didn't "forgive and forget", and one person actually tried to kill him. Would like to see more of that. Sadly the story ended in the usual fashion, with the hero giving a speech and then all of his detractors forgetting their grievances and becoming enthusiastic supporters. In FFXIV, it seems that heroes can't have anything less than a 100% approval rating.



I thought that the melee DPS quest in Limsa was really fun. It wasn't yet another sob story. No attempt at "themes" to fall flat on its face on. Just a fun monster hunting adventure with an entertaining character. Also had a decently entertaining solo instance, trying to kill the fireballs as quickly as possible. Best rolequest.

The tank story in Gridania was meh but the solo instance was at least vaguely challenging. Also had me in the edge of my seat towards the end when the bodyguard was at 10% HP and taunted the boss away out of the arena. I thought he was going to sacrifice himself. Maybe I'm just too used to WoW where NPCs can canonically die during gameplay. Warbrave Oro dying right in front of me in Highmountain, or that Pandaren widower being consumed by the Sha in Townlong Steppes was more impactful to me than most cutscene deaths.

I really disliked the fact every model for the role quests, and even the finale were just pallete swaps. When was the last time we saw a new model or asset that wasnt a dungeon boss?

[Lustre]

Apologies doublepost but on mobile I cant edit. I didnt really like EW's role quests, although some were better than others (like phys ranged). They suffer from the same issue as the msq, a complete lack of believability. Oooh X is turning into a blasphemy? Haha no they're not. Pranked. Excited to see further the big boss is? Ha you wont be. The constant fakeouts in character deaths has me sceptical anything bad could happen to ANYbody on our side and I'm still yet to see that. The other thing I didnt like, aside from every mob in every quest being recycled from amaurot (same as every mob in the msq, which makes sense from a lore perspective but definately feels like a cut corner on dev time), even the end bosses were recycled. One was a recoloured archaeotania. One was a.. HoH boss. None of them were original. And then, after doing all of the quests, what's the reward? You fight a recolour of a boss from Amaurot and the Garlean story gets conveniently wrapped up and finished. Oh and you get a title that wouldnt look out of place in an ERP community. Thanks. Is it too much to ask for some new monster types, or even new types of monsters that already exist? It's not the 90s anymore. I'm not excited over fighting pallet swap enemies. As much as I agree with everybody else that EW was a contradicting mess of plotholes and fan service, the cut corners in gameplay elements annoy me almost as much as the plot does. I remember seeing the big morbol monsters in elpis and thinking "oooh that's a new mob! Nice!!" And then doing (I think) hw st mocianne arblretum and seeing the same mob there. I was like oh.... if you look for cut corners like this you will see them absolutely everywhere. So I advise against doing that for your own sake lol

All in all it left me with a sense of "I'm fighting things I've faught before, I'm being told things I've been told before, and I'm being gaslit into feeling something about it." Which after msq really left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially because everywhere I turned, i could only see praise and people who had complaints were ridiculed or ignored. Ultimately, I think I set my bar WAY too high for this expansion, and now my bar is on the floor so hopefully I'll enjoy 7.0 a lot more.

[Xeronia]

Apologies doublepost but on mobile I cant edit. I didnt really like EW's role quests, although some were better than others (like phys ranged). They suffer from the same issue as the msq, a complete lack of believability. Oooh X is turning into a blasphemy? Haha no they're not. Pranked. Excited to see further the big boss is? Ha you wont be. The constant fakeouts in character deaths has me sceptical anything bad could happen to ANYbody on our side and I'm still yet to see that. The other thing I didnt like, aside from every mob in every quest being recycled from amaurot (same as every mob in the msq, which makes sense from a lore perspective but definately feels like a cut corner on dev time), even the end bosses were recycled. One was a recoloured archaeotania. One was a.. HoH boss. None of them were original. And then, after doing all of the quests, what's the reward? You fight a recolour of a boss from Amaurot and the Garlean story gets conveniently wrapped up and finished. Oh and you get a title that wouldnt look out of place in an ERP community. Thanks. Is it too much to ask for some new monster types, or even new types of monsters that already exist? It's not the 90s anymore. I'm not excited over fighting pallet swap enemies. As much as I agree with everybody else that EW was a contradicting mess of plotholes and fan service, the cut corners in gameplay elements annoy me almost as much as the plot does. I remember seeing the big morbol monsters in elpis and thinking "oooh that's a new mob! Nice!!" And then doing (I think) hw st mocianne arblretum and seeing the same mob there. I was like oh.... if you look for cut corners like this you will see them absolutely everywhere. So I advise against doing that for your own sake lol

All in all it left me with a sense of "I'm fighting things I've faught before, I'm being told things I've been told before, and I'm being gaslit into feeling something about it." Which after msq really left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially because everywhere I turned, i could only see praise and people who had complaints were ridiculed or ignored. Ultimately, I think I set my bar WAY too high for this expansion, and now my bar is on the floor so hopefully I'll enjoy 7.0 a lot more.

If I may, the Final Days as a whole felt really lackluster. We only saw a few zones affected by it , which for as much as it was present in marketing/hype for the game seems underwhelming. If I had to describe Endwalker with one word it would be "rushed". I personally feel like so much got addressed without satisfying conclusions that I can't say the story was good at all. I also will never see it as a good thing if you have to clarify story points in interviews later.

6.1 made it worse to me with more story that I just felt didn't hit right and characters starting to grate on my nerves, seriously can I take out a restraining order for G'raha Tia?