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

[Theodric]

Wait, the blue despair bird and sad man are literally based of the blue bird app. Matsuno's work in XIV died for that. Disgusting.

Right?

Honestly, it was the 'Ivalice' vibes that made me check out ARR in the first place. I was always draw to the JRPG's that didn't just lean on silly tropes like the 'pOwEr Of FrIeNdShIp' and which instead leaned into the much more satisfying approach of grey morality. I was delighted when Matsuno was invited to work on FFXIV and it's a damn shame that whatever he had planned was thrown off course by the scrapping of a Garlemald focused expansion.

Now I'm just wondering what, exactly, I should bother being enthusiastic about seeing more of. I'm interested in all things Voidsent related, sicne there's a lot of potential for the sort of aesthetics that I enjoy...but given the trend so far, it might very well just be suddenly wrapped up in the course of a single patch or scrapped entirely.

why is this thread still alive?

The premise of the thread is still relevant and some of us wish to see the game avoid going down the same path as a certain other MMO that decided to sacrifice consistent storytelling in favour of misguided attempts at mass appeal/recreating a past spark.

[Lauront]

Does Arenvald have the BoL? I don't recall that being addressed and given that Hydaelyn's 'call' goes out to everyone with the Echo, why wouldn't he have it? Even still, neither Zenos or Fordola* have it and they're both immune to tempering.

* I haven't done the role quests, but unless they've retconned it so that she obtained the BoL at the same time she acquired Krile's version of the Echo it should still be the case that she doesn't have it.

Frankly, this just feeds my theory that Venat/Hydaelyn was rewritten at the last minute to be 'good'. I can't shake this feeling that either 1) they went with sUbVeRtInG ePeCtAtIoNs, 2) it's a case of someone at corporate getting their knickers in a twist at Hydaelyn being anything but good, or 3) some combination of the two. Not to mention it's curious that Ishikawa would write Venat to be permanently gone when she doesn't like killing off her characters and uses any opportunity to bring them back. Maybe I'm just off in conspiracy territory, but it's like a "blink twice if this isn't the character you wanted to write" kind of thing. :P I've said it before, but if I didn't know better I wouldn't have guessed Ishikawa wrote EW, it doesn't feel like the spiritual successor of ShB. Given it's the same writer and back-to-back expansions there shouldn't be as many inconsistencies as there are.



Given that so much in FFXIV makes more sense if Hydaelyn tempers it makes me wonder if that was their original intention. I figured it wouldn't be the case because it would deprive the player character of free will, but they ended up doing that anyway so it seems like a technicality.

And there's ways after SHB they could write tempering such that it wouldn't necessarily compromise free will (i.e. Emet-Selch and Tiamat are still able to make their own decisions because of the nature of their tempering.) The reason I think you're right is because the flood of Light on the First is explicitly caused by a plan to have many champions gain the Blessing, which would help tip the world's aetheric balance to light (which makes sense given the type of primal Hydaelyn is) - that went overboard because of what Ardbert did, but the idea here is that tempering is confirmed by Emet-Selch to be a phenomenon that aligns the summoner's/tempered's aether to the primal, and the Blessing is itself acting as a conduit of the primal's aether based on this observation. Ardbert even had throwaway musings about being tempered, and Garuda explicitly calls the WoL for reeking of Hydaelyn's "stench". Not saying all this definitively proves they were going with them being tempered, but it does suggest there was more than enough room and groundwork laid for it, in the sense that the blessing was a "conveyor" belt of the primal's energy... not unlike tempering is described, and so it'd have been reasonable to surmise the two things might be linked.

[MicahZerrshia]

why is this thread still alive?

Why are ppl still talking about a 4 month old story? Idk why are those of us who are literary scholars, still talking about stories written by Chaucer, Hemingway or Woolf? Don't get me wrong those are great authors and EW is more akin to something written by Stephanie Meyer or EL James, but that doesn't mean they are beyond analysis.

[Theodric]

that's what i was saying. i just uninstalled. thought maybe we'd get a new cast for 6.1. how do people have the energy to keep posting and being mad for 4 months yet they never quit? the newest 6.1 story didn't look any better. 5minutes of yshtola sleeping cutscenes, nah im out

There's other elements to the game beyond the story and the MMO market is pretty dry right now so alternative options are few and far between.

[Cach]

why is this thread still alive?

Because the story is still bad and worth discussing, lol. Annoying fanboys is just a bonus.

that's what i was saying. i just uninstalled. thought maybe we'd get a new cast for 6.1. how do people have the energy to keep posting and being mad for 4 months yet they never quit? the newest 6.1 story didn't look any better. 5minutes of yshtola sleeping cutscenes, nah im out

I still enjoy the "number go up - dopamine hit" treadmill. Thankfully, and against popular belief, there's more than just cinematics to the game.
I also took a month and half off the game to play Elden Ring. And Lost Ark before that. And New World before that... who knows what going to happen in the future?

[Rulakir]

Why are ppl still talking about a 4 month old story? Idk why are those of us who are literary scholars, still talking about stories written by Chaucer, Hemingway or Woolf? Don't get me wrong those are great authors and EW is more akin to something written by Stephanie Meyer or EL James, but that doesn't mean they are beyond analysis.

Well, that explains it. Hydaelyn was pretty and powerful, so people don't see it as abuse. :P I should pull the Vauthry card people like to play with the Ascians. If she looked and acted like him would she still be "crystal mommy"? Now that I think about it, the two do share some striking similarities.

[Nilroreo]

that's what i was saying. i just uninstalled. thought maybe we'd get a new cast for 6.1. how do people have the energy to keep posting and being mad for 4 months yet they never quit? the newest 6.1 story didn't look any better. 5minutes of yshtola sleeping cutscenes, nah im out

Why would I bother bitching about a game for this long if I hated everything about it? If it truly didn't interest me, I assure you I never would've bothered coming on here lol. I personally believe people shouldn't be afraid to criticize products they love, as the developers shouldn't need anyone to defend their honor. One of my personal favorite RPG's of all time is Xenoblade Chronicles, but you'd never catch me defending the baffling system put in place to prevent you from fighting enemies 6 lvl's higher than you, or the endless deluge of boring ass fetch quests. I acknowledge them as issues and hope for the best next time, which in the case of FFXIV is roughly every 4 ish months.

[Nilroreo]

Given that so much in FFXIV makes more sense if Hydaelyn tempers it makes me wonder if that was their original intention. I figured it wouldn't be the case because it would deprive the player character of free will, but they ended up doing that anyway so it seems like a technicality.

Ifrit's dialogue pre boss fight suggests it might not have been the case, but I completely missed it my first time through and genuinely believed this was the direction they were heading. Thancred's girlfriend suddenly being coerced into killing herself was already a red flag, but seeing her corpse strung around by that thing as she spoke broken English hit me far harder than any of Meteion's creepypasta edgelord moments. I had expected Thancred to begin harboring feelings of resentment and mistrust towards Hydaelyn following this, especially since it somehow never once crossed their minds that she might've been a primal until much later. So it came as a surprise that he took the news fairly well... until he meets Ryne who bears the brunt of his pent up frustrations and is used as his emotional punching bag when she did nothing wrong.

[Cach]

Well, that explains it. Hydaelyn was pretty and powerful, so people don't see it as abuse. :P I should pull the Vauthry card people like to play with the Ascians. If she looked and acted like him would she still be "crystal mommy"? Now that I think about it, the two do share some striking similarities.

You just unlocked all my memories of Yotsuyu that I had repressed. I wonder what the opinions on her are nowadays.

[aveyond-dreams]

You just unlocked all my memories of Yotsuyu that I had repressed. I wonder what the opinions on her are nowadays.

Hydaelyn was worse. Venat had no tragic backstory, she was likeable until she decided go the arrogant proud angel route.