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

[aveyond-dreams]

Admittedly I skimmed the past few pages but it seems my name was brought up because I happen to like Garlemald, seemingly by a poster who derailed the thread at least twice in the past with tangents having to do with real world cultural influences about Australia and more recently, Japan. There isn't anything particularly complicated about why I like Garlemald:

I like snowy places. I like places associated with Magitek in several Final Fantasy games, I just think they're interesting. (Especially when this game didn't give me a San d'Oria to root for early on, and then proceeded to turn Ishgard into republic.) I enjoy their militaristic aesthetic. Black, red, and gold color motifs made for a strong impression. A lot of Garlean characters are more fleshed out than their Eorzean city-state leader counterparts.

I literally do not care that they invade countries. There is no nation state in FFXIV that is wholly innocent. Garlemald as a snowy empire veiled in darkness made me want to explore it and discover what other mysteries it may have had in store. I think I started to get more into them around the time the game expanded upon Roaille's role as a spy and the scene where Varis spit on his grandfather's grave, offering us our first view of the Garlean Imperial Palace. That's when I knew they meant business, and what initially sold me on Varis as a character early on.

I'm not interested in apologizing for liking the Empire's vibe, its characters, or being able to understand the motivations underlying the actions those characters take. They provided a lot of entertainment and made good use of screentime, or at least they were until the writers decided to wrap everything up so quickly. Now I have to wait and see what will keep me invested in the story moving forward, because the gods, Ascians, and magitek empire have exited the plot.

[Lauront]

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the topic of the Empire. I tend to agree with Aveyond and Theodric on how I approach such factions in a game, and at the end of the day, the discussion is more a case of given that the developers were intent on rendering their motives sympathetic, and also given that they played such a huge role so far, would an entire expansion have been better suited to that end? I'd say yes. Ilsabard is a vast territory as well, and it'd be interesting to see something like the Bozja story given more screentime and possibly more coherent writing. Their plot threads were running in parallel until Elidibus exited the scene anyway.

[Nekokaori]

I just honestly wish the story of endwalker felt like how it was made out to feel, I will admit I'm anti vanat because she is a bad friend and I am emotionally attached to emet-selch like many other characters but taking how i feel out of it. Endwalkers story didnt feel good at all, it felt like i was watching some crappy pg-13 movie that borderlines around stuff, and makes you have no emotional attachments.

To this day, I still feel emotional attached to the little slyph that died in the walking sands, I still cry for niddhogs sad story, I still feel bad for papalymo (believe thats how his name was spelled) hell I even feel bad for bahamut, and his lover. I was emotionally engaged with emet, with almost all big named ascians, outside lahabread. But there was no reason no rymh to get attached to any of the endwalker characters that matter. I mean god damn I even cried for ryne when we left the first.. every expansion from reborn to shadowbringers felt like it should for the theme and for the story..

but endwalker I felt numb during up to the very end, and WE DIDNT EVEN GET TO ANSWER ZENOS QUESTION... it should have let us answer him at the end that bothers the hell out of me


I was invested in other expansions even though i sided with villians more so than the "heros" but endwalker I didnt care for if anything i was reliefed to get the trash over with thats all

[CrownySuccubus]

WE DIDNT EVEN GET TO ANSWER ZENOS QUESTION...

Which question are you referring to?

[Nekokaori]

Which question are you referring to?

was it a gift or a curse this life, and what of us after our fight with him that both our characters and he enjoyed at the end of the world (is the question im refering to, where ur both there in your time of dying.. that felt like a huge slap in the face we didnt even get to answer slightly

[Xirean]

was it a gift or a curse this life, and what of us after our fight with him that both our characters and he enjoyed at the end of the world (is the question im refering to, where ur both there in your time of dying.. that felt like a huge slap in the face we didnt even get to answer slightly

Did we enjoy it though? We have the option of "That I cannot deny." But I very much just wanted to make him go away at that point.

[Nekokaori]

Did we enjoy it though? We have the option of "That I cannot deny." But I very much just wanted to make him go away at that point.

honestly i enjoyed it personally, I know alot of people hate him but on many levels i understand and feel for him the most.. and i wish I could have had the chance to enjoy our date with him without being in some nameless imperial body

Eh, we wouldn't have been able to answer it honestly. Just like "Are you glad you joined the Scions?" It's not like you can say no.

I wish Ishikawa would've brought more of the DRK themes into the MSQ with the WoL questioning if they're doing the right thing, feeling overwhelmed with everyone relying on them all the time, etc. Endwalker in particular would've been an apt time for it.

we could have said no though, we could of been like this has been hell i just wanted to explore and adventure i mean honestly im not glad we joined the scions personally

[Rulakir]

Eh, we wouldn't have been able to answer it honestly. Just like "Are you glad you joined the Scions?" It's not like you can say no.

I wish Ishikawa would've brought more of the DRK themes into the MSQ with the WoL questioning if they're doing the right thing, feeling overwhelmed with everyone relying on them all the time, etc. Endwalker in particular would've been an apt time for it.

[Theodric]

I've always felt that a good compromise for any given dialogue option would be to split things into at least three choices. One would be positive, one negative and the third indifferent. If need be we could have a fourth for a joke option, though the lack of dirty jokes similar to those present in the ARR era have caused me to roll my eyes when the game's newer 'humour' comes into play. It's very safe and inoffensive.

[PawPaw]

I've always felt that a good compromise for any given dialogue option would be to split things into at least three choices. One would be positive, one negative and the third indifferent. If need be we could have a fourth for a joke option, though the lack of dirty jokes similar to those present in the ARR era have caused me to roll my eyes when the game's newer 'humour' comes into play. It's very safe and inoffensive.

Yep, it really annoys me whenever someone the game has deemed a "villain" turns up and I am only given two or three negative options to respond to them with. Same with my only being able to respond with three different versions of the positive to those deemed to be "heroes". When Zenos showed up at the end I was laughing so hard at the absurdity of the moment and was, frankly, happy to see him. At least this was someone I knew wouldn't be a handicap in a fight like the Scions are. Yet all I can say is "I don't want your help!" and "If it comes to it, I won't save you" Nyaaaaahhh. Where's my option to say "Hey, thanks, we can settle our differences later"? Or when I was forced to kill Emet-Selch where was my option to say "I understand why you are doing this and I wish it didn't have to end this way". Always forced to be combative and never empathetic when it actually matters.

Beginning to think that maybe it's time I focused on single-player games where I can at least imagine that my character has a bit more agency when it comes to development.