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

[MikkoAkure]

Issue #5 The story actually is organic. Its real trouble is that it's that it's written by multiple people. Your points about having to adhere to content criteria and formula are spot on, but the story itself is definitely organic.

The story isn’t organic because it needs to adhere to an artificial structure and can’t grow on its own accord. The story is made to fit a frame that fits 6 zones and to accommodate trials and dungeons at set intervals.

It's just, how does anyone write a story over the course of a decade, when the writers themselves only got in charge of it in the middle?

Like, of course the Ascians weren't what they became. The writers changed. Those unnecessary flourishes you talk about had not only completely different ideas behind them, but different minds forming the ideas behind them.

Banri Oda has been responsible for the lore ever since at least ARR, wrote for HW as well, has been on the team since 1.0, was main scenario writer in Stormblood and Shadowbringers, and lead story designer for Endwalker. He’s been there this whole time making the story for the game, but there’s been other faces on the writing team alongside him.

Yoshi-P has also had a hand in the story and has obviously been here this whole time. It was Oda and Yoshi-P who said that they didn’t know what to do with the Ascians from ARR through Stormblood and that the lore for their goals didn’t exist yet and they were just “doing bad stuff”.

Shadowbringers going where it went made them have to write the story for the Ascians. It had nothing to do with new writers or thought experiments.