I did not enjoy Shadowbringer (SPOILERS)

[Cleretic]

Uhm... nnnnno, I actually feel like Endwalker was pretty well explained and paced. Could it be better, sure, and there were places I personally wish they'd have focused more (I literally just wanted a full-on Thavnair expansion), but I never felt like it was spending too much or too little time in an area that it ultimately needed. Again, I don't have enough of a feel for the OP's tastes to say they won't like Endwalker, because Endwalker does so much that it's hard to not like some of it.

Also, I am going to defend Necron, because while a fairly abrupt presence in the pure event-by-event story, he's a completely reasonable end state in terms of the themes and conceptual throughline of the game. FFIX is ultimately a game about how people deal with death; what better final boss than the embodiment of death itself? Admittedly, Necron was squaring a difficult circle in terms of embodying death itself without also embodying some other part of death; it makes a lot of sense to learn that the originally planned final boss was Hades, who would've very clearly represented death to everyone... but also would've given the wrong tonal implications, basically declaring the thematic enemy to be 'someday you will die and go to hell' rather than the more general 'someday you will die'.

Similar thing going with Endwalker's main enemy, actually. Speaking in terms of pure plot, sure, they're a relatively late arrival (although nowhere near as late as Necron was). But they're speaking to the closest thing FFXIV's got to an emotional throughline, so when you're thinking about it less as a pure 'events happen' story and more as a story that expresses emotions, ideals and concepts as well as events then they feel right at home, even if they turn up later.

...granted, I suppose from their largely detail-focused complaints I don't expect the OP to be someone with feelings that deep on Necron, so that character might be a miss for them, too. But again, a lot of stuff to like in Endwalker, I can't say they won't find something they'll enjoy. Maybe they were a big fan of the sort of stories that the Garlean Empire brought, which would naturally put them a bit off in Shadowbringers where they're practically the D-plot, but those guys come back in an interesting way in Endwalker.

[SannaR]

Snips

I wasn't saying that you didn't think that it wasn't well paced, but that if the OP felt that way about ShB that had imo better pacing that they then would think the same of Endwalker's story. Heck if we want to sort of over generalize EW with just the "busy work/chore" it has a lot of places and maybe more than Shadowbringers did. The pathway split at the start can feel like a huge chore if you choose a certain path instead of the other. So much so that it can make most of said path and the other one as a drag on point since we get the 1st dungeon carrot dangled in-front of us so early. You could see the whole lv33/34 as busy work excluding the dungeon and trial. Yes even a certain quest that either you hated the game play of it due to disliking that style or hating that there didn't feel as though there was any pay off. Or you could just hate the game play and what happens afterwards. Also yes I just called two whole zones busy work/a chore. I didn't see them as such, but I do know of people who saw one or the other as such. Lv 85 post dungeon could be seen as a drag as at one point even though I was enjoying it I just wanted them to twist the knife in my heart again already and get us to the npcs we were trying to get to. Then there's the lv 88 story bits where it really is just busy work.

The thing with Necron though is I don't think many people noticed the themes of the game or at least maybe not during their first play through. I was fine with who Endwalker's end boss was as I went wait is that why Omega and a few others have expressed confusion on as to why we were able to out perform what they thought was possible of us.