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

[aveyond-dreams]

I have to wonder what media it is they're consuming that led them to write things the way they turned out recently. Covid pushing people in a lighter direction cannot account entirely for the sort of storytelling we've been seeing. Rather than being influenced by greater works more geared towards an adult audience like Devilman, Game of Thrones, or even recent games like FFXV and Lightning Returns, it appears the "safe" route was chosen far too frequently.

Where are they drawing inspiration from when it comes to the Void? Why is it being pushed onto us so hard early on rather than letting it come into its own relevance later on over the course of the Season 2 plot? I do not want to be over and done with it so soon, nor do I want to be teased by it and get interested in it only for 7.0 to "subvert my expectations" by taking us somewhere completely different. Why couldn't we have actually gone back to being adventurers with a new party? Why are we still keeping characters around whose arcs have long since been over?

Friday brings with it the 6.2 trailer with the Live Letter, and hopefully some kind of clue as to what we should expect. Given the photos up on the patch site I can make a reasonable prediction as to what we might see in the MSQ, though none of it is particularly exciting nor do I expect that a meaningful dialogue will occur between us and Zenos's voidsent.

As I mentioned earlier in another thread, I think that they need to take the time to consider how things feel from the player's perspective rather than a developmental one where in this case, they know what lies ahead and while they may feel assured in the current direction, there are a lot of players who don't. We want to be able to trust in them and gain some confidence back, but what we've been seeing is getting in the way of that. We'd rather not lose out on FFXIV but if things don't get better despite our attempts to call attention to the issues with this game, many people stand to leave for other games though ideally, they want to be able to play the best version of FFXIV that they don't feel they're getting.

Re-asses, reconsider, and restore our trust.