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

[Kyohei]

I had forgotten about the first theme of Amdapor keep, and Thunder God really has what I'd call a very "FF" feel which is great. Also was going to add Footsteps in the Snow, Equilibrium, Castrum Fluminis, Elpis night/day, Ktisis, Sharlayan night and Heroes Forge Ahead but figured the list started to be a bit too long.

[Kozh]

And I just...nodded with mouth agape. Because, yes, of course, this is the natural thought process you'd have when you're not an egotistical sociopath. And yet, someone on the writing team thought to themselves that having another character do the exact opposite for the sake of their own arbitrary "test" when placed in the very same position was an equally reasonable way to deal with an impending calamity and it will never not be astonishing to me that this made it into the game and that they actually tried to make me believe that this was completely logical.

Looks like Hermes did manage to pass the idiot ball to Venat after all. Must've been from all the time she spent in elpis. Sadge

Edit: But yeah, this is certified idiot moment from her. Her main reason for not telling people are: 1) avoid mass panic and 2) so people won't get divided (conflict with each other). However, by the time the final days already hit them, people already panic. What's her reason to not tell them at this point?? Even after zodiark is summoned, she still kept that a secret from everyone, including the convocation. Like, Elidibus as heart of Zodiark is there. He can be your strongest ally! Worried about Fandaniel? He isn't needed anymore after Zodiark is summoned, chucked him into Pandaemonium or something. Imagine having the Ancients to work together to solve their problem and learn from it (show them the knowledge of other civilizations), instead of being vague and deny them (what they thought as) their only chance and way to bring back their loved ones.

Whew ok, so...

Speaking of music, even with my displeasure in Venat, I've got to say Flow is one of my favorite. I just like that style of songs. Not sure if it's #1 on my list, but definitely among the top three. If I have to pick top five, it would be:

To the edge, Flow, Revolution, Extreme (mostly because it's my first savage and I made a lot of good memory with my static there), and Garlemald bgm. Runner up are Invincible and Elpis bgm. I want to rank Invincible higher, but sometimes it can be too "high energy" and distracting when doing something else.

It's very hard to rank ff14 music lol, majority of them are just that good.

[Ixon]

Venat insisting on being everybody's mother just reminds me of Marguerite from Resident Evil 7.

Though unlike Venat, Marguerite was simply an innocent victim in the grand scheme of things.

To be fair, how many people did she "create" when she sundered all of Etheirys? A planets worth of people times 13? Not necessarily a great mother, but a busy one.

[Teraq]

(great post)

YoshiP: "Ah but that's just because Venat is an Ancient, and Ancients just did this!"

But I thought they loved debating and knowledge above all else? And that decisions were taken at the highest level by a council of 13 people with a mediator instead of just a single person going off?

Personally, rewatching the Moon quests had made me ponder how Ancient characterisation in Elpis made them sound like they seemed rather space-illiterate, with apparently no Seat of the Convocation dedicated to astronomy, astrophysics or space exploration (in spite of the very design of the Convocation being literally based on stars, I suppose), but once again it turns out these people collectively had zero common sense: they could have simply come up with familiars whose purpose is to research space travel, and wait for them to develop. It doesn't matter how long it took for the Loporrits to achieve all that: a comatose Zodiark managed to protect the planet for that long anyway.

Re: music, I still love Answers, I find it just slaps IMO. Watching the Bahamut world second never gets old.
One particular case where my brain wants to like the music but also gets triggered is the one that plays during the post-Ktsis cutscene as you are escaping with Venat. Oh it sounds cool, yes, but (CRINGE) (brain puts its hands up as it exits stage left)

The mention of Endcaller reminds me of that one part in the launch trailer where most people thought it was (bizarrely) Fandaniel beseeching Zodiark and some (huffs the copium deeply) thought it was Elidibus finally making an appearance of sorts in trailers for the very final Hydaelyn/Zodiark expac. As it turned out, it was just Random Strawman Ancient #1 within Venat's MartyrVision montage. This is an incredibly apt summary of my feelings on Endwalker.

[Ixon]

Translated Famitsu interview with Yoshida, Ishikawa, and Oda on the development of Endwalker's story. Plans to release a EW-related side story confirmed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/

[aveyond-dreams]

Translated Famitsu interview with Yoshida, Ishikawa, and Oda on the development of Endwalker's story. Plans to release a EW-related side story confirmed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/

We lost a Garlemald expansion to this? Seriously?

[Teraq]

This is it this is my whole post

[PawPaw]

Translated Famitsu interview with Yoshida, Ishikawa, and Oda on the development of Endwalker's story. Plans to release a EW-related side story confirmed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/

My takeaway is that the FFXIV team had no idea what they were doing with their story until ShB, and it shows. Makes tons of sense and now I can stop listening to people gushing about how "they've been planning this for a decade".

[Theodric]

Well, that's disappointing. So as expected we did miss out on a Garlemald focused expansion. The way in which Hermes is described is utterly bizarre as well. I also note that they're being entirely non-committal to the idea of the Ancients being fated to follow the path shown within the Dead Ends. They keep using the term 'might have' instead of 'would have' which, of course, means it would not be a certainty.

Ishikawa, at least, seems to 'get it'. I can't say I'm fond of Yoshi-P's takes on many fronts in that interview. No, Hermes and Venat seeking to inflict genocide upon their own race isn't the same as Emet-Selch seeking to reverse that genocide when it was inflicted upon his people with no forewarning. Nor is it a fair 'test' in any rational, logical capacity. Especially when we know that the Ancients and beings forged through Creation magic are most certainly not the same.

I'm losing count of how many times Yoshi-P confessed to 'crying' over something in the game. Moenbryda had closure back in ARR and not everybody even liked her, so pushing her to the forefront yet again felt strange to me. I like Jullus, though I'm tired of this 'everybody's crying and screaming over every little thing' approach to the game's story.

I'm still not seeing why we missed out on a Garlemald focused expansion. We could have then gotten proper closure for that aspect of the story and then had the Hydaelyn and Zodiark/Ancients arcs conclude in the following expansion.

Meh.

[Skyborne]

Introducing suffering and killing millions is a good thing rather than slowly improving society somewhat, actually, if you have an attitude I dislike. It's for your own good, because you might get bored and off yourselves in the distant farflung future. Our heroes...

I'd like to think that they are trying to not offend Hermes fans, but it's kind of hard to tell. Never seen any other game where the 'ancient race died out' trope was used to elevate the player characters so hard. Ultimately a race of punching bags to vindicate the playerbase and make their egoes swell with 'superiority'. It did work, though, overwhelmingly.

Also, Anima going from being a final boss to a dungeon boss. ohnonoonnoahhahahhaha