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

[Adamantini]

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maybe you're right, but Yoshi P saying things like "we didn't expect the public reaction" regarding the poor hair quality of hrothgars in 6.1 (the ones without ears), makes me believe that they really have no idea of their players. Just ask anyone what the endgame of the FFXIV is, and most will answer "glammour", whether it's a joke or serious, after all, most players take appearance seriously. They got the SHB right, but in my head, they don't understand why.

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I believe the idea was to make praetorium more fluid, but right after that they add a longer cutscene just to show our character making drama because the armor stopped working.
But you're right. The original cutscene generated more emotion without touching my character, so I would imagine what he was feeling the moment magitek recognized us. Today I have to accept that he has feelings for a lot of iron.

[Ameela]

Now, even in praetorium our character does a scene worthy of a Mexican soap opera, because a robot stopped working.

Lol wow you weren't kidding, what's even the point of that? Surely the last thing you'd want to add to the Praetorium is MORE cutscenes.
The ironic thing is that the cutscene of the armor recognizing you from the old version felt like a much more natural and unique way of establishing an emotional connection to it, no idea why they'd cut that since it was like 15 seconds long.

[ReynTime]

I didn't think any story was going to be more uninteresting to me than SB, but EW did it. Whoever wrote it is to be congratulated.

If there are three things I can't stand this game anymore, it's:

fake deaths
flashback scenes to explain to me what was just said (I'm not stupid, I get it)
scenes clearly done in an attempt to make me cry (seriously, they ruined the Haurchefant scene with so much flashback. I roll my eyes every time it happens)

I liked Stormblood. The Ala Mhigan side was a bit dull, but they coupled a war-centric storyline with a more traditional long journey to a set destination like Heavensward's first half, which is something I have always enjoyed in the classic Final Fantaies as opposed to the "mission" based structure of ARR and Endwalker.

I don't understand how DRK questline can be so good but the story be so bad. And I think Ishikawa wrote both?

I mean personally even ShB story I felt was good but the pacing overall in Endwalker is so rushed and all over the place that it comes off as cheap anime garbage.

And I'm seeing more of the same overall with Buried Memory.

The fights are amazing. The story not so much.

Ishikawa's DRK questline is another example of her annoying tendency of taking the player avatar out of the WoL by forcing specific thought process or feelings towards another character. Can SE please just stop dancing around the issue and give the trailer midlander the name John Finalfantasy and admit he's a default main character with his own personality please.

[Ishe-P]

Can SE please just stop dancing around the issue and give the trailer midlander the name John Finalfantasy and admit he's a default main character with his own personality please.

Hard agree! I did some ARR questing on an alt and you are treated like some random guy, like a player avatar. More of that! (It's too late now, we can't go back, but could dampen the effects of being the Hero of the Galaxy/Universe). Can someone explain to me if it's a gamer thing that saving the world is the only thing worth while in modern role playing games? What about foiling Lex Luthor's plot to steal the diamond? (I've definitely expressed this opinion before, possibly even in this thread)

[Adamantini]

I liked Stormblood. The Ala Mhigan side was a bit dull, but they coupled a war-centric storyline with a more traditional long journey to a set destination like Heavensward's first half, which is something I have always enjoyed in the classic Final Fantaies as opposed to the "mission" based structure of ARR and Endwalker.

my eternal tantrum with SB is the fact that you have the anime villain that never dies, or that everything you do is part of his plan.
Tsukuyomi, for example, we get into combat with her, then she is cut by the Hien, and a roof falls on her, and she doesn't die.
I don't like the way they told the story too. Several times I thought about giving up reading, it was so boring. But that's my opinion and personal taste.

Ishikawa's DRK questline is another example of her annoying tendency of taking the player avatar out of the WoL by forcing specific thought process or feelings towards another character. Can SE please just stop dancing around the issue and give the trailer midlander the name John Finalfantasy and admit he's a default main character with his own personality please.

Yes! I don't see myself as my character has been for a while anymore. In this expansion, I really wanted to delete him when we got to Elpis and he got the role of the stray dog, all the time making a sad face. When I think of my character, I think of a vindictive/mocking guy, not a sad guy who would put up with Emet-Selch talking shit all the time while making a pity face. My character just doesn't represent me anymore, I don't even know who he is.

[RukoBoshi]

Hard agree! I did some ARR questing on an alt and you are treated like some random guy, like a player avatar. More of that! (It's too late now, we can't go back, but could dampen the effects of being the Hero of the Galaxy/Universe). Can someone explain to me if it's a gamer thing that saving the world is the only thing worth while in modern role playing games? What about foiling Lex Luthor's plot to steal the diamond? (I've definitely expressed this opinion before, possibly even in this thread)

It's a japanese RPG thing, and most especially a Final Fantasy thing.
We will always be saving the world at the end (or trying to).
In that regard, the devs are just following the usual Final Fantasy script.

What bothers me is that in a MMO, this create a power creep that makes us so strong that most enemies should be trivial to us.
We are probably the strongest human being alive right now, i can't see us having problems fighting anything right now.

I hope the WoL will get a huge nerf soon. I want to fight in smaller scale conflicted without either looking like i'm holding back, or wondering how our enemies could be so strong.

As for being treated like an avatar, i disagree, i hated that in ARR and other MMO in general. I'm fine with the WoL being a character that sometimes have his own reaction and personality, even if it goes against what i really think.
He would be more boring if he was a WoW kind of player character that are just a tag along. I like how expressive the character is compared to ARR.

[MagiusNecros]

They are trying to go in hard with Azem being the WoL as the player slowly but surely loses all free choice and becomes the next Elden Lord.

[SentioftheHoukai]

They are trying to go in hard with Azem being the WoL as the player slowly but surely loses all free choice and becomes the next Elden Lord.

Technically that would make one the Empyrean of the duo, not the Elden Lord. It's the God-Host that get's possessed by the Attack on Titan parasite and loses all agency. ;3

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

Yeah, I honestly can't stand how annoying my own character has become in the main story and sometimes the side-stories. I shall forever be an eternal cutscene skipper.

[Xeronia]

Well during my FC game night I did have friends who haven't returned to the game since 6.0 asking if they should come back, I gave them an honest opinion of no as the story hasn't move much since 6.0 and the usual content they enjoy of the relic is not in the game. I can no longer seriously recommend the game for purely it's story and when that leaves the rest of the game to sell itself well that is a hard sell at the moment with balancing issue galore and a lack of usually grind-able for casuals content like the relic/PoTD. I also heard the reaction of said friends as I explained my case in not recommending a return to EW and them starting to see 6.0 was not as meticulous as they had thought once plot holes are noted. I do hope the slowness of the patch content starts to get moving a little in 6.3 and the plot start to have any sense of urgency.