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

[Syln]

This thread is the actual content of Endwalker, been here for more than 2 years and regularly updated unlike some game i know ...:3

[PercibelTheren]

Genuine question, as am curious - what was it about Eulogia that ruined it all for you?

I was really excited to finally meet them and learn about them. And then the game goes "well, we don't know what to do with these anymore, time for them to die". Basically, same thing as the incredibly stupid death of Iceheart.

[posona]

I was really excited to finally meet them and learn about them. And then the game goes "well, we don't know what to do with these anymore, time for them to die". Basically, same thing as the incredibly stupid death of Iceheart.

I mean we do learn more about them from Deryk after they’re gone. That was actually all I expected to learn about them from the beginning because alliance raids are always pretty thin on story.

[posona]

i think this is a bit too much of a pass considering the gods are like a realm reborn lore. the guardians you choose when you make your character. they hadn't been explored in a decade and it's a bit lame how they were reduced to super smash bro's characters. i guess the dev team was stretched too thin with endwalker being the QoL expansion, but i would have rather them done the gods of the realm when they had a lot more time.

but also the concept of primals started to get really boring for me. like they're not real beings, they're just manifestations of people who pray to them

Primals are extremely boring and overdone at this point, for sure. And I would agree with you about the Twelve except that they were never that important to us as characters. Choosing a patron deity never mattered, so I never cared. They never intervened in anything or played a real part in anything throughout the game (starting from ARR) and I feel their use to fill out the lore wasn’t very meaningful overall. If they were meant to be meaningful, I think it would’ve been better to have MotR play a part in the MSQ somehow.

Now one could argue Halone was meaningful in Heavensward, but her worship was turned into zealotry that ultimately didn’t have anything to do with the actual Halone. I was disappointed she didn’t seem to have an opinion one way or the other about how that was handled.

[PercibelTheren]

Primals are extremely boring and overdone at this point, for sure. And I would agree with you about the Twelve except that they were never that important to us as characters. Choosing a patron deity never mattered, so I never cared. They never intervened in anything or played a real part in anything throughout the game (starting from ARR) and I feel their use to fill out the lore wasn’t very meaningful overall. If they were meant to be meaningful, I think it would’ve been better to have MotR play a part in the MSQ somehow.

Now one could argue Halone was meaningful in Heavensward, but her worship was turned into zealotry that ultimately didn’t have anything to do with the actual Halone. I was disappointed she didn’t seem to have an opinion one way or the other about how that was handled.

You have just perfectly described the problem. The Twelve are something that is with your character all the way from character creation. Crafting and gathering abilities reference them, so do multiple locations in-game. The fact that they had next to nothing to do with the main story is exactly my issue. They should have been there, but they weren't. Instead, it felt like the writing team went "oh yeah and these gods are a loose end, we need to tie that up", stuck them into an alliance raid series (aka side content) and then killed them off before we properly got to know them because it's lore they no longer want to deal with.

Personally, I was interested in the guardians from character creation. I remember picking one that sounded kinda good because I knew nothing about them back then. I would have picked a different one now, except I guess it no longer matters because they are gone. My character coming to Ishgard and switching to worshipping Halone is a part of his story, except it feels like it has now been taken away. I don't think he would continue to pray when he knows his deity is dead.

[TheMightyMollusk]

As much as punching gods is a proud JRPG tradition, I would've preferred the Twelve remain completely unexplored and unexplained. They felt more like an obligation than anything. There had to be an alliance raid series, just throw something at it. Doesn't help that the raids themselves weren't all that inspired (even if there are a couple of nice touches; try to /hug Llymlaen, I dare ya). And the glams aren't my style. I haven't even bothered to unlock it on any of my alts because it just doesn't do anything for me.

[CuteBucket]

Just saw this thread. I'm not reading 900+ pages of backlog, but I'm glad to see I'm not alone in finding Endwalker's story a huge disappointment and missed opportunity. It should have been two expansions and it really, really shows. Ilsabard is still covered in clouds when we could have had a full expansion finishing what we started all the way back in ARR and ending the Garlean Empire once and for all, getting to see those lands and the people there and exploring what they have to gain and lose after being part of the Empire for 50+ years. One of my favorite things about Stormblood was how they handled showing the sad reality of living under imperial rule and the schism between those who knew a time before and those who were born into it. I wanted to explore the fallout of the collapse of a massive empire and what that would mean for the people that lived under it and relied on Garlemald, willingly or no, and what would happen in that power vacuum. But no, we got FFIV copy pasted into the game instead. :/

There are some really good, strong parts about Endwalker (I enjoyed Garlemald and Elpis and some of the quieter character moments) but there are also some really weak parts (putzing around on the moon with the lopporits for way too long, dilly-dally chores in Labrynthos that kill all the narrative tension, whatever the fuck that ending to the Elpis ark and that bizarre time compression cinematic about the Final Days was all about). I will fully admit, I'm a huge Emet simp (hence I loved the Elpis section), but I still really didn't like how they handled him at the end in Ultima Thule. It left such a sour taste in my mouth and felt like they reanimated the corpse of my favorite character to be an advertisement to keep playing the game before shooting him and Hythlodaeus dead again so they didn't have to deal with them anymore. When they revealed that they were re-writing and re-recording that scene up to the wire in the last two weeks before the expansion released, I wasn't surprised at all. It felt rushed, not in line thematically with the rest of the expansion, and imo pointless and unnecessary. In a game all about finding hope in despair and a reason to live and keep going, they killed off (or re-killed off? double killed off?? reanimated to kill off???) the four characters I found most compelling and interesting in the game (Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, Zenos, and Venat/Hydaelyn), and did so in a way that said they *wanted* to die. That...really sucks? I know two of them are antagonists, but still. All of my friends were talking about how much they loved Endwalker in the months after release and how it was so inspiring and was such a great uplifting message, and meanwhile I just felt...empty. I think I went into a depressive state for a couple weeks just trying to process it and wondering what was wrong with me, why didn't I like this thing that everyone else around me seemed to adore?

[Rosenstrauch]

I'd say the Twelve are victims of Endwalker's slash and burn approach to tying up loose ends. Done and dusted for content so the developers could move on from them.

Still kind of annoyed with the whole "They're REAL GODS, not Primals or Familiars or Creations or like anything you've ever seen before!" shtick when we all knew that wasn't going to be the case. Also annoyed that they explicitly made them deified copies of Venat's followers, and that after enduring over twelve years of "Magic Fantasy Gods are bad, they ruin the environment and cause chaos!", suddenly praying to specifically the Eorzeans' Magic Fantasy Gods (and later the Prayer-o-tron XIV) is the only thing sustaining the world's existence or some shit.

Honestly, as long as they never come up again, I'm happy to just ignore them and their raids almost entirely.

[CuteBucket]

They did that annoying thing with the raids where they bring up some interesting ideas and then fail to actually do anything interesting with them. To me, the idea of the Twelve being the animated memories of Venat's old friends and followers from the Ancient world is an interesting idea but in the end, just like Venat as a character, they weren't give the time or space to do much of anything as characters. You could go somewhere interesting with this! What if Venat, feeling sorrow and loneliness after the world is sundered and all of her closest friends sacrificed themselves to give her the power to become Hydaelyn, takes her memories of them and forms them into the Twelve Gods of Eorzea, so that in some manner they can live on and be remembered and loved the way she remembers and loves them? But at the end of the day, they're still only magical constructs, not the real people who died, and thus are shaped by the will of the people that believe in them and pray for them? That's the implication I got from the lore around them, but it's never talked about or even reflected on for a single moment. Imagine how sad and lonely Hydaelyn may have been to do something like that. It would have further highlighted how she and Emet-Selch were reflections of one another, these ancient lonely souls trying to do what they believe must be done, and even showing a rather sad and almost pathetic side of themselves in a way that's also kind of endearing.

But no, Hydaelyn/Venat must be shown as Strong and Powerful and Girl Boss at all times, not have any realistic emotions or flaws or regrets, because this game has a problem with making the male characters really interesting and multidimensional and flawed but lovable while many of the female characters (not all, but A Lot) tend to be rather flat and one note (and the ones who aren't or had some potential get killed). I feel like the story wanted us to see Venat as "just another flawed ancient" but it didn't do a very good job at actually showing us that. I was so excited to meet her and get to know her character and then they just made her so...blah. And then they kill her off because her story is done now, goodbye, get out, move along. No time to deal with the fallout and loose ends of the expansion MSQ and start a slow buildup for the next plot arc in the patches like we have for every other expansion up until Endwalker. We have a really boring FFIV crossover to play for the next two years instead!

[Striker44]

Just saw this thread. I'm not reading 900+ pages of backlog, but I'm glad to see I'm not alone in finding Endwalker's story a huge disappointment and missed opportunity.

You might want to actually read the thread. A considerable amount of the "backlog" is due to other people finding Endwalker's story fantastic and very satisfying. Usually this thread each xpac just disappears because people can only complain in an echo chamber for so long before it gets stale, but enough people thoroughly enjoyed this expansion that resulted in constant "debates" and pushback against the negativity which doesn't typically happen.