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

[Theodric]

The Twelve were just wasted on something that ended up being wholly inconsequential. I was rolling my eyes and laughing at how they seriously pulled out the predictable 'ur so amazing and they luv mortals liek u' trope. It's telling that the game ignores that the player character and their allies are not actually acting as authentic mortals given that they're frequently empowered by third party sources.

[Supersnow845]

The Twelve were just wasted on something that ended up being wholly inconsequential. I was rolling my eyes and laughing at how they seriously pulled out the predictable 'ur so amazing and they luv mortals liek u' trope. It's telling that the game ignores that the player character and their allies are not actually acting as authentic mortals given that they're frequently empowered by third party sources.

As soon as they announced the myths of the realm after elpis it was telegraphed so damn hard that the 12 would want to return to the star considering anyone could see that the 12 + the watcher basically formed venat’s “convocation”

About the only mystery that was ever present was if us fighting them was a way to help them return to the star or if they just wanted a last hoorah before they disappeared

A shockingly boring storyline for a raid series that has been all style and no substance (bonus points for quite possibly the three most interesting of the 12 being left to have like 2 lines before the raid started (ignoring deryk as deryk) while we get 3 whole raid series with ralghr and 2 with althylk)

[Nayukhuut]

The Twelve were just wasted on something that ended up being wholly inconsequential. I was rolling my eyes and laughing at how they seriously pulled out the predictable 'ur so amazing and they luv mortals liek u' trope. It's telling that the game ignores that the player character and their allies are not actually acting as authentic mortals given that they're frequently empowered by third party sources.

It's even worse than that. Not only what you say, but also we find out that once again it was a plot from Venat to help guide us and keep the mess she created from destroying itself. I did the quests with my sister, and there was much swearing on my end. Which, to her credit, she found hilarious. I have given up on this story applying its morals equally. Venat didn't want people to rely on Zodiark and wanted to give the new life a chance, so she wiped out ALL life and instilled herself and her creations as gods so we could rely on HER teachings instead. Why? Because it's not evil if Light Mommy says so. -_-

It wouldn't be nearly so bad if the story didn't keep treating her as a selfless hero, but it does. I wish I had more dialogue options to tell her actions off. I understand they won't lead anywhere, but it would be soothing at least.

Worst part, the end of the quest doesn't fix anything. We still have to pray energy to the machine they left otherwise Venat's mess still caves in on itself. What happens when people stop believing in gods? When will this story admit that Venat screwed everything up?

Whew, and that was my rant for the evening, sorry. Just so frustrated with the story. Tired of being told one thing as a base for morals, and then having other things play out.

[Theodric]

"What's the point with that quite lackluster X" is not "critical feedback". It's just deriding something.

The OP has long since stopped posting in this thread, which in turn became a refuge for those of us critical of the story given that many of us have been dealing with unhinged stalking, death threats, sexual assault threats, attempts at character assassination and bizarre insinuations from various self proclaimed 'lore enthusiasts' who have proven many times that they will do and say whatever in order to attempt to silence and dismiss anyone even remotely critical of the game's story. Given that you have your own 'stalker' who went as far as to create a parody account to ridicule you I imagine you're well aware of the lengths some here go in order to discredit and harass those they disagree with.

Moreover, it's a free forum. You've posted in positive threads to bring down the mood. People are allowed to have and express opinions. And I have no issue with feedback, critical or otherwise. But when I don't agree with it, or have feedback of my own, I'm allowed to voice that, am I not?

Do you have a problem with people posting feedback on the forum if it's positive feedback? All the time people say "people who like things don't post, they just play the game", so what's wrong with someone posting about it for once? Do you oppose people leaving feedback on the forum that you disagree with? Because you seem more attacking me than my feedback here...

Nobody has claimed that you're unable to post. You're simply being called out for making some rather bizarre stretches, making an obvious parody thread and feigning concern in a rather transparent attempt to portray Lunaxia and myself as being completely unreasonable. Then when someone attempts to correct you the goalposts are moved and you try to insinuate that the shoe must fit after all if someone is responding to such accusations in the first place. (Who else would you even be addressing it to in the first place if you're responding to the very same subject being discussed by the posters in question...?)

I'm not sure what you're on about in regards to posting in positive threads to 'bring down the mood'. I post in threads that catch my eye and primarily use them to leave feedback. That certain posters treat any feedback that isn't to their precise liking as a deeply personal attack against the very fibre of their being is honestly not my concern. I always weave the disclaimer of 'I think' into my own posts to show that I am speaking of my personal opinion and I also frequently dangle the offer of agreeing to disagree on any given subject as well.

It's interesting to note how often it turns out to be the case where the same posters who feign concern over the mere existence of positive feedback towards the story always turn out to have the most bad faith take on Hydaelyn but readily bend over backwards to do damage control for the Ancients/Garleans.

Nice try, though it doesn't quite work - since I actually work off of established sources and back up my arguments. I imagine that plays a large part as to why certain posters never seem to address the actual points being raised and instead resort to either personal attacks or go off on irrelevant tangents unrelated to the subject being discussed. You know, a lot like how you decided to ignore the multiple posts I made showing why I was referring to a retcon within the story.

Also, did you literally go back over a year to posts I made to try and ad hominem/strawman fallacy me? o.O Talk about bad faith!

I did, to more readily tip people off to the sort of tactics that you like to deploy under the guise of posting in good faith. I could draw some more recent examples if you'd prefer, such as this particular gem when referring to yourself:

Not everyone's as rational as I am

Then there's this:

That specific tone and facial expressions - go watch the segment just before 30 mins; that's an angry face, not the face of someone being theatrical for the sake of it - make me think there's deep seated, and misguided, anger there. As people here note all the time when the negative nancies insist everyone who still likes the game is a shill worshiping Yoshi P: People liking the game aren't shills, nor are they saying no criticism at all is allowed or the like. They point out, as I often do, that insults aren't criticism, and insulting the devs and especially other players isn't critique under any definition.

I think that it's not at all uncommon for you to make some rather strange and frankly unwarranted insinuations about anyone critical of the game, right down to policing their, uh, facial expressions if they show their face and if they don't, the tone and content of their posts.

[Renathras]

...

Okay, I'm just done with you and your bad faith.

You can't say someone's in bad faith when they've engaged with people in good faith and posted in such and you have not. When you're having to go back literally years to find things to rag them over. Tell me, if I went back to every post you've made for 2 years, do you not think I could find examples of you acting in poor form? The difference is, I'm not fool enough, or bad faith enough, to do it.

You're trying to shut down people offering their own feedback, engaging in blatant double standards, rampant bad faith, and refusing to engage on the topic, trying instead to disparage people who disagree with you.

"as to why certain posters never seem to address the actual points being raised and instead resort to either personal attacks or go off on irrelevant tangents unrelated to the subject being discussed"

You mean the very thing you're doing right now?

Be better.

[Theodric]

Okay, I'm just done with you and your bad faith.

Great! Hopefully that spares me from further attempts to falsify both my own words and those of Lunaxia in order to ignore what is actually being presented in terms of sources and clarifications of intent.

You came in swinging and making bizarre insinuations, made a thread intending to mock the existence of this thread and tried to gaslight by implying that everyone posting here is just angry and full of hate.

That isn't the case at all and I can safely say that given that I have actually come to befriend and regularly interact with many of the frequent posters present here. You, however, are leaping to some rather strange conclusions and utterly refusing to acknowledge or address the points being raised or sources being provided.

As I mentioned earlier, pattern recognition is a thing and quite a lot of the regular posters here are intimately familiarly with the deceptive tactics deployed by the very same posters who treat any criticism of certain characters or the story as a deeply personal attack against the very fibre of their being.

The offer to agree to disagree in a civil manner was readily presented. Please stop pretending otherwise.

[Theodric]

I'll leave it to other posters to come to their own conclusions. It isn't possible for me to be everybody's particular favoured cup of tea and that's completely fine. I am not the poster who, in numerous threads, has capitalised and italicised random words throughout their lengthy posts. Nor am I the poster who has implied through weasel wording that if someone is critical of the game's story then they are prone to being hateful.

I'm just a regular guy born and raised in the UK who happens to be posting on a video game forum in his spare time. It really isn't any deeper than that and if, for whatever reason, you believe that this is all some sort of personal crusade and conspiracy against you then all I can say to that is that you are deeply mistaken.

I'd claim to be surprised that a post simply pointing out a retcon in the game's story caused such forced controversy though that would be a lie - because as mentioned in a previous post, here, to be precise:

The OP has long since stopped posting in this thread, which in turn became a refuge for those of us critical of the story given that many of us have been dealing with unhinged stalking, death threats, sexual assault threats, attempts at character assassination and bizarre insinuations from various self proclaimed 'lore enthusiasts' who have proven many times that they will do and say whatever in order to attempt to silence and dismiss anyone even remotely critical of the game's story. Given that you have your own 'stalker' who went as far as to create a parody account to ridicule you I imagine you're well aware of the lengths some here go in order to discredit and harass those they disagree with.

Many who post with regularity within this thread are well aware of the tactics deployed by this point.


Furthermore, here's an older post of mine touching on a similar issue:

At the end of the day, it's just a video game. One many of us are varying degrees of passionate about, certainly, though I personally don't care for rivalries to form over something that is entirely fictional. As such, my stance has ever been to agree to disagree where common ground cannot be found. I don't care for endless arguments over morality and I'd like to think I've made it perfectly clear that if anyone has a problem with me, then they're very welcome to come and talk it out in a civil manner.

I like working out and discussing the 'how' and 'why' things happen in the way that they do in any given story or historical event, though my personal preferences drift towards characters and factions that have lofty stakes over those that have everything work out to their benefit most of the time.

One thing I noticed, however, was that some pretty spiteful and nasty accusations were aimed at anyone who ever dared to speak up in favour of the antagonists. This included death threats, homophobic comments and other unpleasant elements. Given that the offending posts were deleted, however, then such will have to be taken with a pinch of salt - though I'd like to think those who are being genuine and who have been around for a while will be aware of what I'm speaking of. Especially since some of the offending comments leaked into Reddit, Twitter and certain Discord servers.

The most fascinating thing I observed was that certain posters would repeatedly launch thinly veiled attacks and sometimes direct personal attacks at fans of the antagonists, implying all manner of horrible things about their person and real world morality. When finally those being assaulted had enough, even a minor quip in response would be treated as some deeply horrific crime and personal attack.

I will say that things have improved somewhat since then. Right around the same time that the game itself revealed that, yes, actually there was more to the Ascians and Garleans all along.

Ultimately any given individual is going to have their personal preferences and interests. I've never suggested that anyone has to like specific characters or factions. I only ask that the same courtesy is extended to others in turn.

In closing, I'd also note that the game attracts players from many different countries, cultures, backgrounds and belief systems. We all have different life experiences, so that is going to influence what we like and we don't like.

Here's the source for that particular post, incidentally posted back in 2021:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5778011

Perhaps that sheds some further light on the situation, since it's been an issue for some time now for even the most polite critique or commentary of the game's story to result in some utterly bizarre reactions at best and spiteful insults and insinuations at the worst. To be blunt, it isn't my responsibility to identify or tiptoe around the personal pet peeves of particular individuals. The only responsibility anyone here has is to abide by the established terms of service/code of conduct - they're not beholden to the whims or specific posters. I certainly do my best to be polite and civil, though that doesn't equal being a pushover and I'm going to take a stand in response to...whatever this is meant to be.

[Theodric]

It's even worse than that. Not only what you say, but also we find out that once again it was a plot from Venat to help guide us and keep the mess she created from destroying itself. I did the quests with my sister, and there was much swearing on my end. Which, to her credit, she found hilarious. I have given up on this story applying its morals equally. Venat didn't want people to rely on Zodiark and wanted to give the new life a chance, so she wiped out ALL life and instilled herself and her creations as gods so we could rely on HER teachings instead. Why? Because it's not evil if Light Mommy says so. -_-

It wouldn't be nearly so bad if the story didn't keep treating her as a selfless hero, but it does. I wish I had more dialogue options to tell her actions off. I understand they won't lead anywhere, but it would be soothing at least.

Worst part, the end of the quest doesn't fix anything. We still have to pray energy to the machine they left otherwise Venat's mess still caves in on itself. What happens when people stop believing in gods? When will this story admit that Venat screwed everything up?

Whew, and that was my rant for the evening, sorry. Just so frustrated with the story. Tired of being told one thing as a base for morals, and then having other things play out.

Yeah, that's the core of it for many of us posting here. The game spent close to a decade insisting that the protagonists clung dearly to a specific set of beliefs and those beliefs involved acts of genocide and racial replacement to be a line in the sand that could never be crossed no matter how sympathetic the motives leading to such acts happened to be.

Personally I never wanted Venat to be an outright villain, I simply wanted her to be held accountable for her actions in a way that didn't push her as a selfless hero. If her actions were directed at the Sundered, the Scions would have very different things to say about her.

A serial killer could go out of their way to protect me, though if I learned they were a serial killer after that fact I would be horrified and disgusted. That wouldn't negate what the serial killer did for me but nor would it demand that I approve of the baggage elsewhere in their life.

A bit of a playful analogy, perhaps, though it fits. Just switch out serial killer with genocidal eugenicist and you have Venat. Even more hilarious is Athena's story in Pandaemonium is really just Venat but honestly written - with characters actually showing disgust and calling out her plans as explicitly involving genocide. As an aside isn't it strange how the English localisation often refuses to call the Sundering precisely that, though does for the Rejoinings?

In all honesty Dawntrail just being a casual romp might be for the best if the writers aren't willing to commit to consistency when it comes to darker narratives with heavier stakes.