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

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

It helps to add stakes to the story. For example, it’s one of the few problems i had with ShB. We face our toughest foes yet, and somehow come out unscathed, mainly because they had to resort to major plot armor to assist the scions in not dying. Then this expansion where it’s the most dire situation yet, we’re facing a cataclysm/apocalypse that once decimated the entire planet and somehow the main cast ends up yet again, completely unscathed. It’s makes the story feel completely one sided when everything on the protag side goes well. Especially when the theme of said expansion is coping with loss, and suffering, but then they’re literally resurrected 5 mins after sacrificing themselves. Things like this and refusing to kill off some characters end up resulting in contradicting your own themes. You brought up the haurchefant thing and it’s true.They milk it because it’s one of the few major character deaths. We haven’t had a major character death for 3 expansions now so they have to resort to milking the same 2-3 characters lmao. It gets old and stale real quick when they try to talk about all we have lost and it’s about 3-4 people and then you look at say the garleans of the ancients and the difference is night and day. It seems only the antagonists or minor characters ever have to actually suffer while the protagonists get off scot free.

[Garnix]

It helps to add stakes to the story.

I don't think I need my teammates to die to have any stakes in the story.
As I said, I just think that if they kill one of them, we would have an emotional cutscene, and then forget about it an hour later when the next NPC comes to replace the one who died.

[Lauront]

Because you have to show that death is an actual potential outcome. Once that's taken off the table there are no real stakes to anything. Seriously, the second you realize the teary death conga line is going to end with them all coming back...the whole last part of the game falls flat "full of sound and fury...signifying nothing". It has nothing to do with stupid and condescending remarks about "Hollywood movies" and "western culture" or whatever nonsense.

It tends to be fanboys and weird shippers who never want characters to die.

EDIT: The endless fake deaths, and the complete lack of guts to kill any characters is making me care less and less about the story. I feel like everyone is walking around wearing god level plot armor. Squenix has completely lost their nerve in story telling. Introducing a character (like oh say a happy young couple and their baby) just so you can kill them off 5 minutes later is crap writing. I don't care about those characters. It's just a failed attempt at manipulation to avoid hurting a main characters.

Yup, this is what it is, IMO. Fear of offending fanboys/shippers. On some level I understand it, because some of them in Japan can be quite mental in how they react when something happens to a character they've become overly attached to, all the way up to violent acts (e.g. arson), but part of it is also for financial reasons, i.e. they don't want to risk losing some customers. This "western culture" nonsense is just that - it's more of a choice in FF14 than it is anything to do with Japanese culture, because we can point to several animes and JRPGs where there is a lot more death, some of which are extremely popular.

[Rulakir]

It's a good thing FFXIV seems to be moving away from stories of war and world ending threats because my opinion is neither work for writers who only want to kill the 'bad guys' and never the 'good guys'. Maybe this is a factor into having sympathetic villains as well, otherwise the player would never have a reason to feel sad for anyone.

I'm not a fan of excessive deaths like GoT has, but the fact that EW had to focus so heavily on deaths of ARR characters shows how little loss the Scions have had along the way. The same with suffering. It's only been the newest recruits, Estinien and G'raha, who are intimately familiar with it. It's difficult to not look at them as privileged when they endure little to no hardships through multiple wars and assorted other catastrophes. They're certainly not who I'd consider the poster children on how much more adapted the sundered are to despair. It often seems like the average citizens of Eorzea have gone through more than the saviors of the world.

[Lauront]

And even then, they're mostly content to offload all the hard work onto the WoL, to the point of another timeline working to change the past to bring them back to do just that. It's a point very poorly made and ends up just seeming unfair to the ancients, IMO. Something of a joke.

I agree anyway; if they're just going to confine the losses to one side, perhaps it's good that they're moving to another type of story.

I like happy endings, but I'm an Ancient fan and they most certainly did not end happily. They could have, which is the frustrating part. Time travel that results in saving the WoL's life? Fine. Time travel that results in saving the unsundered world? Not possible.

The writing needed to be tighter given the controversial elements of it. You have the two individuals responsible for all the genocides (and not just on Etheirys) being treated as good people in bad situations, ironic given the villainous treatment of the Ascians who only existed as a result of both Hermes and Venat. I don't see how anyone can claim the story has been "grey" given the stark contrast in how characters and their motivations have been addressed. Did it result in the sundering? = Good. Did it try to prevent or reverse the sundering? = Bad. The amount of carnage involved in either doesn't matter as everything is reduced to that.

Maybe the problem is that none of the Scions were sacrificed for ridiculous reasons, otherwise we might have some debates on why X had to die when the situation had alternatives. It's not nitpicking to point out that all of Venat's reasons for remaining silent don't hold up to surface level scrutiny since everything she says is contrary to information from quests we did just 1-2 hours prior. It reminded me of someone who'd already decided what they were going to do and was making excuses for it.

Indeed.

[Raigoth]

What is the point of having main character dying?
Look at Papalymo. The man died, then what? You just don't hear about him until you "see him" in a dungeon at level 89. It's like none of the characters evolve through his death, there is pretty much no grieving, and it didn't impact the plot at all. It served pretty much nothing from a story telling perspective, aside from it being the trigger for Lyse revealing her true identity.
Moenbryda's death became "meaningful" 4 expansions later...
Haurchefant's death is wwaaaaaayyy overused in the story, as the devs seem to think that it is the event that impacted the WoL (and us) the most. (I didn't really care about Haurchefant personally)
Cool emotional death scene though. Same for Ysayle. Same for Emet. Or even Tsuyu.
etc.

Honestly, the only deaths that actually brought something meaningful to the story were Minfilia's (because of the impact it had on Thancred specifically) and Louisoix's (for the impact it had on the whole game).
Having minor characters die and impact the main characters moving forward is much better at this point from my perspective. (for example, kill Runar or Matoya to have some Shtola character development, because she really needs it at this point.)
I mean, I would be fine if any of the scions die at some point, I just don't think it would add much to the story. The only thing I could eventually see impacting the storytelling is if only one of the twins die. If any other character die, it would just be 5 minutes of mourning and then moving on.

Not gonna lie, if one of the twins die I might end up leaving the game entirely. I know its an extreme stance, and maybe im one of the only people that feels that way, but still. Any of the other scions? They can go if SE deem it necessary.

I will say that if they do kill off one of the scions, I really hope its in an epic fashion. Off screen or through some random happenstance would be a let down.

[ErryK]

i'm truly op dropping a post and leaving the club.

This thread makes me happy that at least some of us aren't gushing about how this is the bestest story ever because they cried during the cheap emotional manipulation scenes.

getting a slight hint of condescension from this post. must be the emotional manipulation. *shrugs*

This is the part actually bugs me. Unless Azem shows up in the Pandemonium raid series what other reason should we meet him/her? With this arc ended, should we have any reason to deal with the unsundered?

i dont think the zodiark/hydaelyn arc is important in relation to the unsundered. seeing as we pretty much have a permanent portal to the past, we can freely explore the unsundered world. it's pretty much just another option to worldbuild.

[BaconBits]

I feel like at least some of the backlash towards Venat and Hydaelyn could of been avoided if they at least showed her trying to inform Hades and some others of the Meteia's existence and the threat she poses to not only their star but the entire universe without alerting Hermes. Perhaps even have a scene where Venat and Hades along with a few other members of the Convocation are arguing about a plan of action on how to deal with the Meteia only for her wave of negative Dynamis to finally pierce through the dense aether of Etheirys and cause the start of the Final Days.

She might not have been able to convince the other members of the Convocation to take action but Hades, who took our story with the utmost seriousness despite deriding it as a load of bull, would have seen it as his duty to at least investigate her claims. It would take traveling to Elpis and using their echo to review what happened during those few days before getting "accidentally" memory wiped, along with questioning a few of the researchers there to confirm that there was a fourth person assumed to be a familiar traveling alongside them and Hythlodaeus. The real problem would be getting any of that done without arousing the suspicion of Hermes, their only actual expert on Dynamis. Even though he wouldn't be the Chief of Elpis upon being uplifted to the seat of Fandaniel, it stands to reason that he would still be keeping an eye on it. If he received word that not only are his precious Meteia still alive, but the others are planning something involving her (whether that be retrieving her from the edge of the universe or destroying her) then there's no telling what he would do.

Instead what we got was Venat saying she should be careful about who she brings into her fold before seemingly telling no one save for the Watcher who probably wasn't even aware of her plan to sunder Eitherys, and the current Azem who opposes both her and the Convocation's plans in favor of protecting as many people as possible.

[Thaciscokidd]

i dont think the zodiark/hydaelyn arc is important in relation to the unsundered. seeing as we pretty much have a permanent portal to the past, we can freely explore the unsundered world. it's pretty much just another option to worldbuild.

The only problem with that is that the Elpis portal is part of a closed time loop. Who knows what could happen if we went back and interacted with something outside of that area.




Side note: Whatever happens in the Pandemonium raid series might make it not closed thus adding weird time travel stuff and raising a ton of more questions.

[Garnix]

The only problem with that is that the Elpis portal is part of a closed time loop. Who knows what could happen if we went back and interacted with something outside of that area.




Side note: Whatever happens in the Pandemonium raid series might make it not closed thus adding a weird time travel stuff and raising a ton of more questions.

During MSQ, before sending us to the past, Elidibus said that he saw us there, in Elpis. Implying that the events of Pandaemonium are canon to the events of the MSQ.