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

[Banriikku]

Hate for Endwalker ? NO.
So whats wrong or my problem?

1. We have many NPC's with the sole purpose of Checkbox marking. No story telling or worldbuilding, just existing as "end in itself".
2. Endwalker ? More like "NO-Consequence-Walker". Many things happen without changing or shaping the world.
3. Repetition of outcomes and of gained information as if we would not listen and need a refresher EVERY 5 MINUTES.
4. Flat charchter arcs without progress, many even with regressing to old behavior without notice or reason.
5. We, as the protagonist, are not necessary for the story... at all we could be dead and still it would end up the way it is.
6. Deus Ex machina. ALL THE TIME. Here and there, its ok but damn Endwalker is based on this.
7. inconsistent story telling: All is dreadfull but my little pony with the power of friendship is the next logical step or "oh my god the stakes, we could loose so much" but here is Pudding.. funny ... haha.
7a. No real villains.... almost all and everybody is "not so bad" and has a redemption arc.
8. Almost no Worldbuilding in Endwalker itself. The most of it is already told through old expansions as if they had nothing to add.
9. Powerlevel... Where are we ? So what is our purpose again? It looks like we went from "we are Superman" to "we are Jimmy" and oscillate between those two for no reason.
10. Pacing. We go to learn something new and every aspect of it dragged out for no reason.

So my problem is not that "i hate" the story, its more like "Why the bad writing?".
The dialouge quality has dropped. NPC's talk with us as if we are toddlers. Repeating and always nice. We have no journey, we go from Deus Ex machinca to the next in which us Krile/Yshtola/Graha explains what/when/how we do things without earning them in any shape or form. And everybody is a sholar, diplomat, leader, magic expert, fighting expert, etc. without weakness except for us. And that leads to no telegraph for outcome or behavior. NPC's behave diffrently and weird, tools or knowledge are at our disposel that we should never have but we do and this makes many things obsolete and is therefore a huge problem in the lore and already told story.

And last but not least we are not allowed to come to a conclusion for behavior or expierence. We are told what to think and what is morally good and what is not. We are not allowed to draw our own conclusion. My best friend thinks Venat was right, i think she was not but the game tells me on repeat SHE WAS RIHGT instead of telling me the world of FF14 thinks she was right ... no she was right, stop thinking AND THINK WHAT WE WANT ABOUT IT. Absolut bonkers.

No hate at all but this is not good writing from SE.

[Renathras]

Oh, and I have critiques of Endwalker as well. A lot are mechanics (2 min meta, Job homogenization, fight tuning, lack of Eureka/Bozja type content, etc). As to the story:

I disliked the "do some chores" part of the story in Labyrinthos late in the 6.0 MSQ. I don't always oppose slowing the pace of a story or making a emotional break to something more lighthearted to cut tension. After Zodiark's defeat, I remember thinking "Well, crap. Now what do we do?". The transition to the Lopporits there I liked as a break from the weight while we recalibrated. We were given a lot of new information and lore, and pointed forward in the story when we didn't know where to go. It served as an intermission after the first act, and ultimately led to the second act. That, to me, is acceptable. But the Labyrinthos part was not.

When we return to Labyrithos, we know what we're doing and where we're going next (well, more or less). We have our mission and we're actively on it. We know the stakes, they've been built very high, and we know we've ended the second act and are ready to hit the third act running. Then we do busywork. Yeah, part of the WoL's character is that they help people, but helping someone find some lost research notes while the literal universe is in danger is KIND of a case of misplaced priorities. While the Urianger's in-laws scene was completely worth it, the pace break while we're waiting on the Ragnarok's engines to be completed was just waiting around busiywork. They could have had us help with the installation - it wouldn't be the first time we've done something technical, especially since the WoL has some knowledge of machinery at this point. We could have been collecting rare stuff - again, not the first time we've done that. Or we could have had a "night at the inn" scene with the gang and time skip and then launch day. There were so many better ways of dealing with it and that particular part still irks me to this day.

I liked 6.1, and the start of 6.2. But 6.3 after 4 months and which lasted for 4 months was completely pointless. What new story did we get? "We were distracted! Let's go to where they're trying to keep us from! Okay, we fixed that, come back in 4 months!" That was a patch story. Why?

I don't mind the Four Fiends story, but they really should have built them up more, shown us the armies each of the four command, let us get a sense of scale and danger, and then fight and defeat them.

Then what happened in 6.4? Well, we were told by Sharlyan that they had a massive oil field (basically), and it was totally theirs and we couldn't have any...but 9/10ths of the law it was in possession of monsters that the entire might of the city-state couldn't beat, but our team of 4 can handle. And if we do, do we own it now? Well, no, they still do (despite 9/10ths of the law saying otherwise at that point...) but they would LET us borrow some. Then we did some politics, made a barrier, and went to fight Golbez, only for him to "defeat in combat, win in cutscene" us and, "oh no, our shields are out of power, come back in 4 months!" just when the story was actually GOING SOMEWHERE.

I contend that the Void story should have been a full MSQ so we actually get the Fiends and their armies developed, fight and explore zones in the 13th, fight and kill the weaker one first, then the second one in a trial, then the latter two join together and we have a two boss second trial for the X.0 MSQ, then the final dungeon ends fighting Golbez for him to power up Zeromus for the final Trial. That would give time to flesh out and develop the characters, instead of that being relegated mostly to that sidequest with the Hecteye.

ALTERNATIVELY, Sacliromonge(sp?) should have been the 4.2 Trial, then 4.3 and 4.4 should have been us fighting through the armies and defeating the other Fiends, not this "distraction!" "clear out some monsters!" silliness, with 4.4 ending with us readying everything for the portal to the 13th, then 4.5 would have had what we had but the Golbez fight would have been the end of the dungeon, and then Zeromus the trial. I feel like there would have been better pacing and more story flow that way.

And don't tell me they didn't have time to build up the Fiends as threats and characters - considering how many times we got to see hat tipping and eating foods with different emotes, they could easily have devoted that time to story instead.

.

Oh, don't tell me I have no issues with EW's story. I very much did. I did think overall it wasn't bad, I liked most of 6.0, I liked 6.1 and part of 6.2, and I liked 6.5. But 6.3 and 6.4 were just so...well, my critique is above, so that's that.