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

[Rulakir]

I'm not terribly keen on more far east just yet. I finished SB not that long ago, so all of it is still relatively fresh for me. I liked the Azim Steppe because it reminded me of the Calm Lands in FFX, one of my favorite areas.

Personally, I tend to like the more fantastical looking zones that aren't based on anything in real life. I loved the look of The Plenty and wished there were more than 1/3 of a dungeon of it to explore. I also loved Lakeland with all the purple foliage and parts of Il Mheg. It's a video game, they can do anything they want, I wish they'd go nuts more. Azys Lla is impressive too, I just wish the skybox were a different hue.

On a more on-topic subject, I do kind of wonder if a notable figure perhaps making a Youtube video about some of more Endwalker's more...questionable elements would actually succeed at swaying opinions because as far as I've noticed I've seen nothing but gushing praise for it in that regard.

I've about given up on streamers. Even the ones who echo our thoughts all through Elpis end up turning heel at the sundering cutscene. I can only assume there's more controversy surrounding Venat among the Japanese audience for Yoshi-P to feel the need to "communicate she's not a bad guy". I have no idea where Japanese players discuss the game though, the JP forums every time I've checked are mostly gameplay related and not particularly active.

There was a video in my YouTube feed, something about Venat's difficult choice. I didn't watch it, but judging by the comments it was in defense of her.

[Lauront]

There is quite a bit on the forum here and on reddit, to be fair. Even if it's shot down on the latter venue via downvoting, the actual topics remain visible and I'd imagine that at least some of them have come to the dev team's attention, much as the questions funnelled into the Q&A themselves would. Lurina had mentioned there's similar discussions on Venat in the JP community from what I remember.

I don't bother much with streamers, so I can't say I've paid much attention to what they or their audiences say as they generally interest me very little and tend to be disappointing from past experience.

[CrownySuccubus]

If highly polished and well made games are not something that FFXIV should draw from, then what else is there? WoW?

This statement makes the false assumption that any successful game needs to copy every single aspect of another successful game. Which is wrong for several reasons -- not the least of which being that this is how you get "samey garbage" and stale tropes. The exact aesthetic and cultural location of Elden Ring's setting is not an especially essential facet of its success that needs to be copied. We don't need to set every open sandbox game in Fake Los Angeles just because GTA V, the most successful of those games, did.

Sounds great, I am more than happy to allow you to visit these "exotic locations" with Alphinaud et co. while I play FFXVI and Forspoken. Of course I would rather not abandon the game I've played since day 1 of its launch 8 years ago, but if there's no Garlean Empire, no castles, no Ascians, no Gods...why should I stay?

I'd rather not be preached to about more nebulous morals in some "exotic location" lifted from a real world geographic area that I just don't have any interest in. I'll gladly chase my castles in the sky somewhere else if that's the case.

See, this contradicts your Elden Ring argument. You're making it sound that putting FFXIV down to go play some other game for a while is somehow going to result in them never playing FFXIV again. Yet, people here seem to be capable of playing both Elden Ring and FFXIV presently. So who cares if you decide you'd like to enjoy FFXVI and Forspoken for as long as they entertain you? By all means. Have at it.

And even if this did SOMEHOW result in you never playing FFXIV ever again, then so be it. If you don't want to abandon the game, you won't. If you decide that whatever other content in 7.0 and beyond is not worth your continued sub just because we didn't get Xerox Ishgard 2.0, then as I said before: that's a shame, but you do you.

[Asari5]

the thing is... most medieval/fantasy games are based on europe. so sayong they should draw from good/well sold games is like declining any chances for different settings.

[linayar]

It doesn't really matter how many ways you want to phrase it. If anything, he should already be incarcerated and instead is being allowed to take a position of power because of kept secrets. He cannot do a single thing that is worse than what he has already done. He is no longer needed to solve the problem at hand and is only a perceived hindrance because she allows him to be. And upsetting him is a complete nonstarter of a reason. He is absolutely unimportant compared to the problem at hand.

Imagine not telling world leaders about an alien threat because you're afraid of making the President of France sad. Oh no. But he might be the one person to make a difference. Guess we'll all just die instead. Ridiculous.

Of course it matters how it's phrased, because as you've just demonstrated, you've created a strawman with that entire second paragraph of your post. So, yes, that is indeed ridiculous the way you've phrase it, but it's also irrelevant to the story.

the complete inaction of Venat.

How do you know that? As a former member of the Convocation, Venat would be one of the resources used to try to help find a solution. It is only after Zodiark had solved the issue that Venat and her group disagreed with the Convocation in the matters of reviving their dead.

Yeah, the way in which the protagonists react to killing people they know have been given a raw deal is pretty unsettling. It's why I don't consider any of them to be heroes no matter how often the game tries to pretend otherwise.

I think that depends on your moral value.

I don't consider "given a raw deal" an excuse for wanting to kill me, and blaming it on someone else who "put" you in that position is not an excuse either. Everyone is responsible for their own action, not society, not someone else in particular.

So, yes, anyone who is brave enough to challenge these murderers is a hero to me.

[aveyond-dreams]

the thing is... most medieval/fantasy games are based on europe. so sayong they should draw from good/well sold games is like declining any chances for different settings.

Yes they should probably learn from what makes games like Elden Ring so successful. When I first saw footage of it, I was instantly hooked. Twisted demigods who fought a war against each other in a hauntingly beautiful kingdom lit up by trees of golden light? Sign me up. That's an adventure I want to go on. In fact, that's the adventure and world that 12 million people decided to purchase.

Anyway are we seriously pretending that all of Europe is the same across the board here? Last time I checked there were some marked differences between say the UK and Italy, both locations being exponentially more interesting and appealing than the empty savannah of Australia. When I first saw the trailer showing off Stormveil Castle, I knew I wanted to buy Elden Ring. Same for FFXVI when its first trailer showed off older Clive as a rugged hero similar to men like Cullen or Alistair from Dragon Age.

If the 7.0 trailer depicts some arid wasteland or jungle with the Scions...sorry but that just will not have the same effect. Even the Stranger of Paradise trailer would be a step above that.

I look forward to seeing the reception of a game that sees the Scions up to their usual business in the middle of New World's jungles in a world void of Gods or interesting antagonists. Bonus points if they bring Lyse along for the ride. At this point I think I'd rather put up with her than some of the present cast members because at least she is somewhat attractive to me compared to the likes of G'raha Tia, which the game insists on pushing onto me at every possible opportunity.

Of all the men in this game to push on to us, why did it have to be him and Haurchefant? Strangely enough, no women in this game even remotely seem to take on such an overtly "affectionate" role, though I suppose over time that would become as equally aggravating given the lack of an option to avoid such interactions when you're not interested.

...

Of course demigods etc exist in other cultures but forgive me if I'm more interested in the demigods of Greece and Europe as opposed to the Americas or Africa. Forgive me if I am more interested in the story of a rugged knight/forsaken prince like Clive or Hien than I am about Alphinaud and meme-status G'raha Tia.

If you cannot give me a setting or characters to latch on to and continue to shove ones I don't care about in my face, what is supposed to keep me paying? I will absolutely double down on the fact that I believe a traditional fantasy setting would be the best place to start off in 7.0, with a handful of better characters on the side as well. The Scions journeying in Meracydia=Austrailia/Africa or the New World=Americas cannot compare, and I am unlikely to be convinced of otherwise.

[Brinne]

The idea that Europe and Europe alone is inextricably tied with ideas like "demigods," "war," "kingdoms," and above all, "trees of golden light" continues to be completely baffling to me, but all right? (Or "rugged hero," for that matter.) I mean, if aesthetic and architectural style in and of itself is so important that it trumps any possibilities for story, development, and creative potential with those styles for you, there's not much anyone can say but "sure." But those correlations are both very strange, and equally strange is the assurance that one person's individual tastes can definitively speak for the larger majority - both in what they potential settings they'd find interesting in Endwalker, and in what appealed to them in a game like Elden Ring.

Anyway, I'm as on board with the African, Australian, or any other -an-inspired fantasy environments equally, so long as they're used well. Like so many others, I loved Ishgard - and I also loved Thavnair and the Steppe and Ronka too. That they can co-exist in the same world enhances it, not detracts. All the variety for us to hang out in! It's a vast MMORPG that's been running for over ten years now. I think there's room to stretch in any aesthetic or creative direction anyone could want.

But suggesting that the developers should learn to appeal to the masses more if they want to keep customers continues to be very ?????? in the context of this thread in particular, of all threads.

[KageTokage]

People seem to be under a weird misconception that primals are suddenly going to be absent from the story and/or are no longer a threat simply because means to counteract and cure tempering exist now.

At the core, they are still extremely powerful entities that were noted as taking entire regiments of trained soldiers to keep in check even in the case of the lunar primals that were undeniably weaker then their willfully-produced counterparts.

Foreign lands are not at the leisure of having access to those countermeasures, either, so I think it's a given we're still going to be running into them on the overseas continents and likely even in Ilsabard despite the strong Garlean presence.

[Brinne]

If you cannot give me a setting or characters to latch on to and continue to shove ones I don't care about in my face, what is supposed to keep me paying?

Forgive me for being a little abrasive here, but I promise you with absolute certainty that nobody here is that concerned about making sure you keep paying, or convincing you to fall in love with any particular culture. Where it starts to go into "strange" territory was the insistence that you could speak for the wants of the majority of players based on baffling and frankly, fallacious arguments.

All anyone here, or anywhere else, can do, is speak for themselves. I can post here in an attempt to convey to the team, and to others, how I felt about the story of Endwalker, and if that resonates with anyone, or clarifies anything, to someone who reads that post - one way or another, positive or negative - that's great and all I can ask for. When I say I absolutely loved Ronka and its aesthetic - I actually gasped and gushed about how beautiful I found the locale of the Rak'tika Greatwood and all its trappings when first playing Shadowbringers - I know I am only speaking for myself. G'raha Tia is not my favorite character either - and I like Hien far less - but I can acknowledge that I'm in the minority in those regards without asserting that most people definitely agree with me, and the devs had therefore better listen on those grounds.

[Jeeqbit]

It's a fantasy game, but it's also a final fantasy game, which means it can involve technology (mostly in the form of magitek, the garlean empire and ancient allag at the moment). It doesn't quite follow the same rules as other fantasy stories. I was impressed how they managed to make something straying so far into science fiction with space and time travel still feel like a fantasy story.

If you cannot give me a setting or characters to latch on to and continue to shove ones I don't care about in my face, what is supposed to keep me paying? I will absolutely double down on the fact that I believe a traditional fantasy setting would be the best place to start off in 7.0, with a handful of better characters on the side as well. The Scions journeying in Meracydia=Austrailia/Africa or the New World=Americas cannot compare, and I am unlikely to be convinced of otherwise.

I think they should tell whatever final fantasy story they want to tell rather than clickbaiting with an exciting-looking area that doesn't deliver because it wasn't the story they wanted to tell. If it's another desert or jungle that's fine with me.