Did the devs ever say what the original plan was for ARR's ending?

[Necrotica]

And what I mean by this, the events of the Bloody Banquet make ZERO sense with how they are resolved in Heavensward.

Sultana goes to sleep by grasping her throat, tearing up, and gasping.

Ilberd says he killed her. But he didn't.

Lolorito tries to continue to frame the Scions for the murder after Teledgi's death. But then later turns out he actually stopped her from dying and intended to wake her up.

Alliance leaders abandon the scions to be arrested and executed but then the scions never confront them about that betrayal.

The whole thing was a madhouse and then Heavensward just makes up random excuses to bury the whole incident as not being plot important ever again.

That all said. There is no way that is how they planned to resolve it when they were writing it. Maybe too many fans mad about the Sultana being killed?

[Cilia]

I don't have an exact source but I heard the "Ul'dahn Revolution" arc was just forgotten about because it was filler to get Heavensward written; once that hit it was just kind of given patchwork denouement throughout the same. 2.0 was a big gamble on the suits' part, so they probably didn't want to commit too many resources without it being proven successful.

Nanamo acting as if she's choking while actually taking a sleeping potion is one of the big goofs that still rankles me and can't really be retconned.

Ilberd is just goading Raubahn into a fight for the sake of his personal grudge.

Why Lolorito continues to hold the reins of power even a day after the banquet is a mystery. Considering he informs you he's dropped Ilberd at the same time he gives you the potion to resuscitate Nanamo, he might have been doing so to try and keep him under control. Also it's Lolorito; you can trust him to act in his own interests, and fortunately he's decided his interests lie in maintaining Ul'dah's status quo, but he's still a little scummy and the incident has forever tarnished his reputation to a lot of players. Other than that, I got nothing.

The Alliance leaders leave you to your fate because to intervene would have turned it into an international incident, potentially sparking a war. As hard as it was to do (Merlwyb is visibly frustrated), it was the right call.

It was just filler to keep people occupied until Heavensward was ready to go.

[KageTokage]

I appreciate that they at least made all of the job NPCs you've finished the ARR job quests for lament that the situation sucks and that they wish they could be more open about aiding you and friends, but it's too politically sensitive to risk breeding bad blood with the Syndicate.

[AnimaAnimus]

And what I mean by this, the events of the Bloody Banquet make ZERO sense with how they are resolved in Heavensward.

Sultana goes to sleep by grasping her throat, tearing up, and gasping.

Ilberd says he killed her. But he didn't.

Lolorito tries to continue to frame the Scions for the murder after Teledgi's death. But then later turns out he actually stopped her from dying and intended to wake her up.

Alliance leaders abandon the scions to be arrested and executed but then the scions never confront them about that betrayal.

The whole thing was a madhouse and then Heavensward just makes up random excuses to bury the whole incident as not being plot important ever again.

That all said. There is no way that is how they planned to resolve it when they were writing it. Maybe too many fans mad about the Sultana being killed?

From what I remember way back in the days just after HW when things like regicide being quickly forgotten was called into question, Yoshida said they had written the story out in advance and had planned to give the game a much darker tone, which is why there is a lot of dark grit in the HW trailer, like Raubahn sitting in a cell dirty and disheveled. But the ppl that were then above him made a judgement call and said the game could not be dark, esp not as dark as they had planned, so they had to scrap and rewrite a lot of what they wanted to do in HW, but the trailer was already completed, which is why there are a lot of parts of it that just don't make sense.